I didnt get why people shake when scared but today i had an afterschool tournament and i was shaking so much i couldn't sit still without my body twitching intensley. how do people get used to this? lol
@@wutwut3200 You just play a lot! Just join more tournaments and you'll get used to the feeling. Some people just never stop shaking (as you can see from the pro players) so don't worry about it if that happens. In my own experience it just never goes away for me, even though I only play online tournaments since March last year.
@@wutwut3200 That's a uncontrollable response you have that stems from year of evolution and all that scientific shenanigans we all know. This shaking can be "overcome" by putting yourself in that situation more times and slowly letting yourself adapt to this environment.
That’s me in tekken when my opponent does a move that forces crouch and i try to side step (you can’t side step in crouch so you will stand then crouch again which will make people think your teabaging)
My first week of Runeterra, I got matched against Hafu in ranked. Turns out she was streaming in front of like 20,000 people. Some days you're the hammer, some days you're the nail.
Back in the Smash 4 days, I was playing online with a character I basically never played, and got matched against Nairo. (You know, before he got kicked out of the community.) And he made fun of my gameplay on stream. I saved the clip afterwards because I thought it was hilarious.
ok but what if im not improving and ive hit a plateau, and i want to improve? how do you keep the pleasure of the game greater than the pressure if im trying to get better? cus getting better isnt fun at all, its grueling
The glorious paradox of the FGC is that it's the most directly-competitive, cutthroat genre of multiplayer game.... that lives and dies based on its members being friendly, generous, and kind to each other.
Kind of like competitive boxing/mma IRL! No matter how hard people go in the ring, good sportsmanship is always a beautiful thing to see. I love mutual respect for the game.
@@Exoskel2 Well thing is, everyone kinda dunks on each other from time to time in any competitive scene. The important thing is that nobody takes it too far and starts giving people shit outside of the context of the game. And yeah, there's obviously gonna be the occasional asshole who just acts like a dick with no intention of actually giving constructive advice, but for every one of those guys there's like a dozen genuinely cool people.
@@CartonKitty Some of my favorite UFC fights end with the winner saying stuff like "I couldn't have played to this level of proficiency if my opponent was anyone else, they pushed me to my limit and they are a real fighter" type stuff. Look up "respectful UFC champion speeches" there are soooo many of them lol
I am not a fighting game player, I've always watched FGC content, but this is the primary reason why I have not played yet. This video really helped me out.
PPMD: "Ideally, you want to play anyone in Melee. From less skilled players you can practice consistency in your execution From higher skilled players you can recognize exploitable habits in your defensive play From those the same skill as you you can put everything together"
The "Get good despite your practice partners being much weaker" GOAT I forget which, but I'm pretty sure it was one EVO before PPMD went inactive: Me and some friends were watching the tournament and talking about how PPMD hasn't competed at anything in a whole year, there's no way he's gonna perform. Then he got 3rd IIRC. That day he earned the nickname "the Bushman" in our group because he's out there in the bush, watching, thinking, planning, then one day he just drops out of a tree and assassinates you before you knew he was a threat.
I think there's a limit. If I'm orange / pink in Xrd, I don't enjoy playing blues. If I'm super diamond in SFV, I don't enjoy playing anyone under plat. If I'm playing someone in 2002UM and they're clearly struggling with just the inputs, I don't enjoy OCV'ing them. On the other shoe, I've been playing Quake Champions and I had to sit through a fair few 20-0's and similar in Duels, while the system placed me in an appropriate rank. I felt bad just having to play them, like I was just wasting their time and I don't really feel like I was improving. The skill gap was just too large. Even if you're the sort of person who enjoys getting double-perfected 20 times in a row, I don't think that's the norm. I definitely don't enjoy having to play one-sided games, no matter what end I'm on.
@@redneckedcrake7059 I think it depends on how you look at it, you could be the kind of player who likes to find enjoyment in everything. Taking your quake example you could practice how to dominate a map and keeping your timers in check in a harder way if your opponent is not up to your level. But it does depend on the player and to a certain extent your oponent. If i keep doing the same low 40 times and i see my opponent never improving or learning, im not gonna have very much fun.
Just imagine you're Perfect Legend, who has the whole community constantly reminding him that he lost 13-0 in a FT10. He still plays, he still competes. Few people give him credit for that level of resilience, tho.
95% of the people mocking him he woukd wash and beat them to a pulp in any fighting game. I have never seen anyone of them step up to challenge him. They hide behind thier keyboards and talk nonsense. He is a great fighter one loss will never define him.
I used to be like this until my friend who kept bodying me a while back when I was new to melty said a phrase that stuck with me. "Different shades of grey. We're all bad, even I'm bad. Some are more talented than others and that's ok. Strive to be better, not to be the best." Now I'm really good at many fighting games SOLELY because of that phrase.
I was in Band all throughout middle school and high school and before one of my first performances, I told my band director i was really nervous and he told me something that as always stuck with me and I taken with me in my FG career. “You never get comfortable with performing, you just become comfortable with being terrified.”
If there's one thing dudes need to start understanding, in life in general, it's how absolutely ELATED a lot of other guys get to teach you something you actually want to learn. Fr it's like being a dad but only the fun parts. Imagine literally anything you're good at, and then meeting someone like 2 years younger than you that asks you about that thing out of genuine curiosity. Your soul lights up, I promise. Don't be afraid to be the one asking for help learning
I cant help but think as of recently in opposition to this ... if I am losing consistently even though I have won a in the past before, doesn't that mean I got worse and am indeed stagnating? From that it is easy to get frustrated and revert back from a "I suppose lower intermediate" to a mindset that is kinda like the title of this video.
Exactly. Ive competed in locals where I knew I was gonna go 0-2 and I wasn't even nervous for a second. But playing online its easy to assume the worst in people, and its nit unreasonable to either given the nature of anonymous interaction. I don't have advice myself on the topic, only camaraderie.
I've largely gotten over my anxiety when it comes to matchmaking systems, but I tend to get nervous actually reaching out to people to play matches. This is especially a problem in older games where the general advice for finding matches is "join X discord server" and I'm just over here like damn I don't want social interaction to be a prerequisite every time I play the game lmao
Just started playing Guilty Gear for the first time like 2 days ago and have just been in training mode the whole time so I think I'm absolutely relating to this. Always good to be reminded I'm not alone in trying something new.
@@kirazira7468 hell yeah man, haven't played it myself but wish you luck and hope these games we're learning give us another thing to enjoy in our lives.
As a sweatlord who is the one beating up you new people TBH I don't really care. Obviously I don't stay for an extended set but I'll always play 3-5 games to give you an opportunity to try and think and adapt. Just don't worry about it and play the game.
I just started playing guilty gear a few days ago and i was very confused on how to play but still I don't need to stress on things like this I just need keep playing
There was a session of TFH that made me swear off the competitive scene, at least temporarily. When the game was in its earlier stages, I played a lot and was decently skilled. I could stand my ground with a lot of the grind heavy players when I started to play. After a couple of months, I was up there with some of the more skilled players. I took a huge hiatus because I had to move and figure out life. I came back to the back to the game and saw one of the regular players again. I set up to play him, knowing that I would get smashed. He played a best of 3 with me, took his W, and then hard left the game. TFH has voice chat, and after the match, this happened: “GG, dude.” I said, taking my L with grace. “Yeah, you’re just not good at all.” he replied “Yeah I’m aware, I’m rusty and you’re better than me,” “Yeah, uh-huh, phew you’re just, uhh...” “I mean, I didn’t expect to win, I just wanted to play to fight a higher level player.” “Yeah... uh huh ggs I guess.” He then walked his online avatar off of the screen, so far off the of the screen that I was no longer in his view- despite the majority of the other players being in our original vicinity. This is the sort of attitude that discourages people from getting into fighting games/fighting better players. PPMD of the Melee community even said that fighting people of higher skill is great for building defense/counterplay options. Unfortunately, you got people who feel like you are a waste of time. Better players, offer words of advice and encouragement to those who aren’t that good. Tell them what they are doing right. Give them tools and help reinforce their love for the game- it’s the only way the community gets better.
You say this was in TFH? It's weird, as someone who has been in the scene for this game since EA release, I have yet to come across any players like this. I almost want to know who it is you played so that I can make sure that I never take matches against them.
@@derpedarp9041 TFH doesn't have some shining beacon of a community. I quit the game recently because its community is toxic af and close-minded (try to criticize anything about the game or character balance and you'll get rabid DMs pinging your Discord) and the devs are often quite rude to people in the official Discord server. I've got ~600 hours in the game and I'm just done believing things will get better. Thankfully Strive exists.
"If someone is hitting rematch against you again and again, you're not wasting their time" This made me remember something. In the last beta of gg strive, i busted my ass to get my potemkin to level 70 and hit 10th floor, and on the last day of beta just chilled out at a park. A nago player came up to me and i could tell he didn't have a lot of experience with the game. Didn't punish a lotta stuff, kept getting punished by pot buster, etc. However, every single time he lost, he hit rematch instantly. He kept doing it every time. And the boy was fucking learning. Backdashing my pot busters, anti-airing megafist, grabbing hammer fall, it was a joy to watch. And, even after dozens of losses, he kept rematching. We ended up with a 53-10 score in my favor. Yes, this boy rematched me 63 whole ass times. And after those matches, i got out of the battle station, bowed to him, thanked him for the matches and was ready to go to sleep. And then, can you guess what happened? I got a fucking ps4 message from him THANKING ME for rematching him so many times. He said it was a great learning experience, and that every time he learned how to deal with something, i'd always pull out a new gimmick for him to counter. Told me he one day wanted to play pot like i do. I'm only 18 years old but god DAMN did i feel like such a proud father to that boy :')
This what some people mean when they say, "I can't play FG because am not good at them" this mentality (for me at least) was cultivated in sports and team activities and hobbies, everyone was feeding into this mentality, including teachers and relatives in my life. "If you can't keep up or be good at it first day, don't bother trying , you're ruining the time of everyone who is good at this thing and hold them back". I've noticed that FG forced me confront this feeling, and made me feel like a piece of sh!t who shows up at other parties uninvited or ask simple math questions in a class that is studying advanced physics. It doesn't help that the peak of my online interaction is starts with "ft5" and end in "ggs".
I remember my late mentor in the atelier used to say "you're not creating a masterpiece, let it go" whenever someone was too timid with their studies or indecisive when they need to fix a mistake they realized they've made etc. And, that's a good reminder, even if it's from a different field. When you're a beginner, the anxiety is surely there, but you should remind yourself that your goals at that particular moments aren't exactly to be tight and highly competitive as if you were at a tournament. Then you'll start to relax and actually work on things that are important to you as a player at that given moment. Though, today, another notion is also possible: the prevalence of social media and interconnectedness. I think someone's anxiety might be exacerbated by that. As you said, you can run into a streamer or someone eager to put you on their twitter highlight or whatever. So, that might play a part in the whole thing.
I can totally relate to the "feel like I'm wasting everyone else's time," especially when playing smaller poverty games with mostly dedicated players. It's like, "fuck, you could be using this time to learn or practice some new tech with someone your level, but I'm sitting here turning this match into training mode." Or worst, "I'm a wasted seat in this limited lobby." I don't even care about losing cause it's already fun enough learning new things each round and improving my combo awareness, but it's that anxiety instead of salt that starts eating at me over time.
It's important to focus on the "I don't want to waste your time" part. I have this exact feeling and it's not a fear of someone being rude because of my skill level. Jerks exist and that doesn't bother me one bit. It is a fear of performing so bad that there is no value in it for my partner. The nicer and more genuine my opponent is the more it hurts.
0:56 this exactly. when i play bad it's in my mind "what does he think of me, now" "who would want to play with me" etc etc. that people would say to each other "oh he's bad" is the thing i'm afraid of the most.
I have this with not only fighting games, but all multi-player games. In fact, it's way worse with team games, where I'm constantly anxious about not contributing enough, or not being good enough to play the character or class that I actually want to. It's the main reason I stopped playing Overwatch, and it's the main reason I haven't played Battlefront 2 online yet, only the campaign. I'm so glad I'm not alone in this.
I've had this happen with LoL, Overwatch and fighting games... there was a time when I had to literally take a 5 minute breather before going into CS:GO Deathmatch (which is a free-for-all format). P.S. Hanako best girl
This is my favorite video on the channel right now. I really needed this. I just discovered Melty Blood a few days ago, love the music & moon styles depth, joined the discord and.... stayed lurking. Haven't even typed anything in there yet. My anxieties get the better of me despite loving the game so far but as someone who's played other fgs it's super true. No matter how good you get there's always a dropped combo or a bad read. All I can do is just get in there & shoot my shot. I'd rather do that then just sit here doing nothing. Gonna play some matches when I have the time. This was the push I needed and if I ever feel this way again I know what video to come back to. Thank you Sajam!
I know these feels, but sadly i get tilted more than anything else and that leads to more losses. Accepting your "newness" and setting the goal of learning from the experience has helped me alot.
I had a lot of experience with this kind of ranked anxiety. I can’t even explain it because I don’t think I cared about the points, but at the same time, I guess I did? I didn’t like being ranked down, maybe because it felt like I was regressing instead of progressing. So for DBFZ I got to SSJ3 and quit out for awhile. Eventually when I started playing again I played only casual matches, which as I learned was where the real killers were. And I was surprised because despite losing a majority of the games, these gods kept rematching me. And I would set these small goals like kill one character, bait a sparking, don’t get hit by this mixup. And I’d succeed in that way and get better WITHOUT even knowing it. Even though I was probably losing like 90% of my games. Finally one day I decided to go back into ranked and I was destroying people. Finally one of my opponents messaged me and accused me of sandbagging my rank so I could get Ws. That’s when I realized that I was better than I thought I was and that broke the whole points mentality I had. Idk if this makes sense at all but it was a surreal experience to have.
This is why I think it's really important to watch your own replays. People who think they suck (myself included) will be surprised at how good they actually are from a spectator's viewpoint.
I saw a quote that went something like, “it’s better to be a participant for ten minutes than a spectator for 10 years” and that’s kind of my approach to FG anxiety! I might get slapped, but that’s better than waiting around expecting the perfect time to roll around to start (which let’s be real, there’s no “perfect time” to start). You can’t get to the point you want to reach without STARTING FIRST 👍
“it’s better to be a participant for ten minutes than a spectator for 10 years” I get what you are saying and i agree, to some extent. In many things you'll get knowledge simply by being a spectator. Hands-on experience will of course be more valuable, but knowledge from being a spectator should not be neglected. Experience as a spectator should be combined with being a participant, or else you'll get a lot of useless knowledge as you are unable to execute your knowledge due to the lack of muscle memory. Which is essentially the message in your quote.
Ik im 3 years late, but the FGC, i think, is the only place i can see a huge ranked player, ask them for tips, and not only do they give me tips for their character, who im trying to learn, but when i offer to fight, they said "fuck yeah", kicked my ass, turned around (metaphorically) snd said the most genuenine ggs in the world
This is weird because I only experience this anxiety fighting games. Even when I was outmatched playing varsity tennis in high school and got absolutely rinsed in front of my friends, my coach, and my parents from time to time, getting destroyed online in fighting games still hurts more. I could lose a set 6-1 in tennis and still go “well ok at least I did something right”, but getting touched twice into a tod just absolutely shatters my mental.
I used to think that I would waste someone's time by playing with them. Now if a new player wants to play, I actually love that because it's another person who's gonna get into my game, and I get to watch them grow. I'm still new and bad, but more new and bad people showed me a different perspective.
"the bigger fear is {...} feeling that other people are going to see that you're bad" is an incredible way to put it. I feel exactly like all of this stuff all of the time, and I know it's insane, but it just feels so embarrassing to even go and expose myself in front of other players.
I appreciate videos like this. I stopped playing fighting games online a couple years ago because I have horrible atychiphobia and the constant losses were wearing me down, but it's nice to know that I'm not completely alone in that regard.
Everyone’s afraid of that, whether or not it’s to that level or not. Not trying to discount your experience but understand we’re all experiencing that fear. Even the HIGHEST level players-they have an insane amount of expectations on them to always play well and win. I’ve been playing in fighting game tournaments for at least 16 years. I’m never not scared of losing. I hate losing and I remind myself there’s more to learn from a loss. There’s always more to learn from a loss. Always. You’re rarely gonna run into a player who is actually thinking shitty things like “wow they’re bad wow they’re dropping blah blah blah” like the type of person who is like that (*cough low tier god cough*) is actually the only person who should be stressing because THEY are the only person wasting anyone’s time in fighting games. I still sweat playing online fighting games. Literally. Always. My hands get cold and yet I’m sweating and too hot everywhere else. I’ve played Justin Wong at evo on stream/big screen, in an awful matchup for my character. Year before that I played Daigo’s man training partner on stream too. I’m still nervous and insecure plenty of times in casual matches, online, you name it. That thrill is all part of it. Anyway sorry I’m rambling and it’s not necessarily all pointed at your comment. If the anxiety of it all is just bad, well, take a break. If the anxiety includes a thrill that’s enjoyable, well, keep it up. It’s worth it.
It depends on the mentality of people. Yours is primed for learning through experience and it's obvious you enjoy this so keep at it man, get your ass kicked so you can later on hand the ass kicking yourself.
I feel so bad after getting bodied. I didnt get to play and the other player just sees me as easy wins. I can never get over that one feelibg so i keep worrying about how stupid i am instead of getting better
@@wutwut3200 I felt this way for a long time. I think what helped me solve this issue was really reworking my mindset to get rid of any bit of ego in my own play (which is not to say that you have an ego, just try to separate yourself from any trace of pride in your skill). Once you really embrace being a work-in-progress learner of the game and that you don’t need to win, getting smoked in-game becomes a lot less stressful. Losing always stings a bit but once you don’t feel like you have to win your matches it becomes a lot easier to pick out what you can improve on. Good luck!
I've coped with this anxiety for a long time by just saying to myself, "I might be bad, but what does that say about you(my opponent) if I win?" Not exactly in a toxic way, moreso as self-deprecation. It's actually very difficult to express, because while I'm thinking that in the heat of the game, the instant the match is over, I'm thinking of the person I just fought with nothing but respect, "I might have won this set, but I hope we cross paths again and we're both better players when that happens."
i played 3s on fightcade last night and some people were super helpful. BUT one dude beat me 15 times in a row and was being a dick. i finally got a win. then i told him he sucks and dipped right away.
I am/was a region and state recognized singer. I still get major anxiety over singing with an audience, having solos, auditioning. I felt like this since I started singing at 7 years old. I feel that I stuck with singing because my love for it wasn't connected with being recognized or singing big extravagant pieces. I just like singing little tunes and funny songs, everything else (such as being good, traveling, scholarship) came with just time spent practicing. I picked up fighting games and im essentially pot fodder, but playing with my friends online is so much fun. FGC friends are a godsend for anxious players.
Honestly, when it comes down to it I was average, but as I started to do the things I like as a method to earn money i soon realized how little i knew, and how little I wanted to continue pursuing it. I just liked singing and music, past that I didnt really like the musician's program.
The reddit post actually hits really close lmao. I get so nervous when I start playing ranked. I'd say that I'm a little different in the fact that I know how I'm gonna play in ranked and I know that days session is going to be almost exactly the same as the day before, give or take a few wins or losses. My problem is that when I'm hovering over the ranked tab my heart will start beating very fast, my hands will start shaking and my knee will start bouncing almost uncontrollably. The weird thing is is that after 2 or 3 games I'm playing just fine, it's just the hopping into ranked that gives me this anxiety even though I feel like I'm improving most of the time in-between sessions. Just when my imaginary ranking is on the line I get super nervous in the first few matches.
Fear of wasting someone else's time is probably the biggest reason why I haven't even tried ranked or joined any FG discords (I have only started getting into FGs recently), the second one being afraid of my connection being too bad.
Honestly, just join and try your luck. Ive had mostly shit luck but i had some good luck in the UNIST/UNICLR discord, nowadays i dont get many games anymore but i think people are bored of playing me since im not improving after half a year because im ass. Im still like you, i feel like i waste someones time since im shit, but honestly you wont get to play that way. Just try and if they ridicule you (which they absolutely might, but fuck em if so) just leave, atleast you know that community isnt for you.
I have been fighting against this mindset really heavily for the past few weeks. The anxiety and self-depreciation even ended up with me leaving PhiDX's discord because of how awful I was feeling daily when going in and getting into the community lobbies. Something that bugs me is that this, alongside other videos that tackle this topic dont ever really give a solution on how to mitigate or manage these feelings. Saying to simply not care isnt an answer that works because I do care. I can't not care, Im not wired that way. It makes it even worse in that I know I have grown leaps and bounds by being in that discord and constantly playing people way more experienced with literal thousands of more hours than me at Tekken. The stress is too much though, and it really sucks to go to bed every night feeling lesser than. I don't know how to solve this than try and get better on my own, but even then I dont think it will matter. I will always have this toxic anxiety that will rear its head when I put myself around people who I view as so much more than me. I just wish I could play without feeling like im actively ruining everyone's day by my mere presence.
Why do you enjoy playing fighting games in the first place? Rather than focusing on other people's experience you should focus on chasing your own high in matches. For example, I started playing GGST because of watching Potemkin players, and I don't care if I lose matches or if it's obvious the opponent is better than me because my satisfaction comes from landing his goofy mixups and grabs.
@@christophermikiewicz7083 my enjoyment comes from feeling like I'm at the very least above average at the game. Feeling like I'm "good". Which means lots of practice and time, but those then lead to what I mentioned above and how that all makes me feel
I find good advice is do something else while playing matches. What I do is I put the game on only when I am doing exercises or stretches in the evening. That way between matches I will do a set or a stretch and every time I get destroyed, I just walk off to do something else. No need to dwell on the failure when there's instantly something else to concentrate on!
Hahaha I can relate to this, I used to do a couple of push ups and sit ups in the loading waiting for a rematch in Tekken. It works well considering you have to wait so long for the "Get Ready For the Next Battle Battle Battle!" loading screen.
I just look at the screen and think negativley about myself. It's so easy for me to be distracted but me getting washed at something I thought I was good at hurts a lot everytime.
If you're a mid level player, a low level player is going to do some crazy ass shenanigans that you haven't seen in a while. You'll get a refresher on that trash and remember to be ready for it. If you're a low level player fighting a beginner, you get to practice your anti-airs. If you're a master playing a solid player, you're practicing identifying a play-style and rapidly diagnosing a weakness, practicing opponent conditioning and reads, etc. Just about anyone can learn something from anyone else if they're willing to look.
This is definitely something I struggle with a lot. I want to play, but I am a very slow learner and always feel like I wouldn’t be worth playing against.
Try to disregard the thought that someone needs to be -worth- playing. Hard fought battles are just one type of them, not every battle needs to be close. Even if you're so new or bad that you can't seem to pose a threat, you're learning and practicing defense while he is learning and practicing combos, oki, etc.
personally the part of it that gets me the most is being forced to deal with how little I actually know about the game. I lose sets so fast that I don't have a chance to recognize my own habits and make adjustments. I love playing but I never get to play, and that's the issue for me.
I'm anxious over a lot of stuff, and even the act of hearing someone give advice can stress me out, so this is a great topic to cover. Thanks Jam. I feel that worrying about wasting time, not getting better fast enough, or being a worse player than people younger than you is where a LOT of scrubquotes start. Of course, being wack and malicious because you lost is wrong, but people getting frustrated most often comes from feelings of inadequacy, and losing just ain't adequate on a subconscious level.
When GG+R got rollback I eventually wore the "bad at the game" thing like a badge of honor. I'd taunt if I won a game after losing 20 something in a row (I'm calling you out chipp/zato player). It's way more fun to accept whatever skill level you have, because having fun means you'll play more, meaning you'll get better without realizing it.
I think a lot of this "defeatist" mindset comes also from the fear of being make fun of. I mean let's be honest the FGC community (like any community) can be EXTRA toxic when it wants, and that obviously gonna make some people not even want to try, I mean even if you're a person who doesn't care about others toxicity it's still someone NO ONE wants to hear.
If you can learn overcoming being bad at FGs, you can be prepared to learn basically any skill. I'm learning to draw now and one main thing people talk about for beginners is to try not to focus on getting good at everything at once. The fundamentals of art is similar to the fundamentals in FGs in that both are deep, abstract concepts that can be really hard to understand right away, so focusing on small aspects and having fun with what you're doing will get you farther than simply studying frames/anatomy straight away. Some people in both hobbies are really interested in the technical aspects or fundemental aspects of the topic, but a lot of people will grow bored quickly and will probably learn better from just playing taking small steps (Trying to poke or AA with a new char in a FG or getting a few perspectives or expressions down in figure drawing). Getting serious in anything requires a similar learning process to do, but finding the thing that makes you enjoy the hobby will help you learn and keep learning, you don't have to work at Disney or win EVO, if you're having fun, you'll find a way to get better in a way that feels satisfying to you.
My difficulty is that all the games I like are old or have dedicated communities. I'll learn some new combos and setups, feel really confident in my ability, and then I'll sit in a queue for an hour because nobody on the servers wants to play a match against me after seeing my ranked points. I'm so bad that nobody ever wants to play against me more than once so it feels impossible to get better.
I just recently shocked myself by finally getting "decent" (from my POV) at guilty gear. It's so fast I thought I could never do it, especially without help at locals. And it's the first "discord game" i ever played, which intimidated me as well. But sajam man you're 100% right. It's not a big deal. Ive got a .2 win loss ratio from all my ass beatings. If i played someone who made me feel like yamcha, I'd play 3 or so games and tap out to find someone closer in skill. And no one else cares at all, i friend tons of people i play with and most don't accept, they just want to play a few, and that's cool, there's no expectation. Find something you want to get good at, put in time and think critically about what you need to improve, and that's it. You're doing shit you never thought you'd be able to.
Watching this not too long after watching a vid where you talk about people who are against skill-based matchmaking. Based on that it seems like a lot of very good players really enjoy playing newbies :P
Man, I constantly feel like I'm wasting people's time. It's nice to know that's kind of common haha A whole community united on our love of these games! Fighting games is something so great (:
That's a common issue which goes beyond fighting games or competitive environments and it's just the mental weakness of thinking about your ego instead of being "in the moment" and keeping focus in the time where that's the only thing that matters. Reputation and prestige in ANY skill will come as a consequence of real and measurable performance and only that. If you put your ego in the way you will fail not only at fighting games, but at anything you try to do in life that you deem important. As FG's go, you should really forget you exist and just play. Let nature play out, see what output it gives to your efforts, and correct said efforts accordingly. No other way to get (really) good at anything.
the way I get over fighting game anxiety is I just treat the match like a ultra super hard CPU battle. of course I do keep in mind that the other person is a person so I can keep conditioning and mixups on my strategies but like idk
Glad you made this video tbh; this is absolutely me 100%. I'm always afraid that I'm not good enough to keep the fight fun for whoever I'm playing against.
I think that this is a very important topic to discuss. I do feel that a "performance anxiety" with fighting games, or any other type of game or competition, is very real. I have had my own bouts with it. I think the best advice that I can give is, as long as you are enjoying what you are doing, just try to do the best that you can, without too much worry, and see what happens. It might help to try to focus more on the "process", then on the "outcome". At the end of the day, fighting games are just games at the end. They're intended to be fun!
Holy shit I can’t believe I found this so late I have this feeling a lot cause I tend to be a little too self critical. I really like how you pointed this out and just to relax and understand that most players I go up against are still having fun not going why am I fighting this guy. A lot of people I’ve fought in street fighter 3 which is a newer one I got into have been really helpful and fun to fight even if I lose. I’m gonna save this video and play it again when I start to get too angry or upset at my playing. Thank you Sajam
I too had anxiety for years about playing higher skilled players, but I know I've gotten significantly better at fighters, so I can confidently take on anyone. That said, I literally am more nervous about ranked than even offline tournaments, but that's because I hate the ranked experience. At offline events, I know I'll have a good time; the atmosphere, the announcers, the thrill of victory, the tension of defeat, the casual matches. Online, it's just me in my room getting mad at some crazy netplayer, then having to wait more minutes cause they quit after one game. I'm anxious about online ranked cause I feel like I'm not going to have any fun, that's why. These days, I rarely play ranked, if ever.
I did at one point feel as though new players were wasting my time but you have to remember that everyone starts somewhere. Plus skill is relative. Even better players need to find their own beasts and, “Waste that player’s time too” until we move on to the bigger fish and reach the final pond.
Definitely a relatable issue. Started with T7, but after getting smacked by a Heihachi, I gave up because i felt like trash. Gave me a bad mentality for playing online. One day I decided to buy BBCT because it looked fun, but the only way I've ever played it was just to make combos, and never to actually play against people. However, I can play SC6 online because I disregarded the idea that I was garbage at it at first, and I just wanted to get better at it. It takes some effort, but you just have to push past your anxiety, and keep playing online until you're ok with it. Then eventually, your anxiety will be much less of an issue. Also, during the Strive beta, I spent all of my time in the lab, but when the game comes out, I'll take a shot at playing online. Wish me luck
I play trumpet and musicians talk about this same thing ALL THE TIME. Whether a concert or jam session we get performance anxiety and, like you said, those nerves never go away, you just get used to them.
This was definitely me starting out. One of my biggest problems was putting too much faith in training mode. Practicing that one specific combo or setup versus a motionless bot is worlds different from playing a human in a real match with varied spacing and unpredictable movements. Experience is the best teacher. Over time, your hands loosen up and you don’t sweat as much when you’re just having fun.
I love playing new players because I get to practice some harder execution stuff for my character, try a new character, or at the very least teach new players some new stuff. I want to help other players to have the same love of the game as me. When GG+R i went in and just played vs people in discord experienced and new and for the longest time i had a sub 15% wr now im approaching 50% and still learning but now I can teach new players. Btw max of 3 hrs of training mode over 94hrs of playtime
For the longest time, I could really only manage to play like one set of matches at a time, I would get way too nervous after just that to continue. It's genuinely bizarre how intensely fighting games can affect you. At this point I can at least stand embarassing myself for a bit longer before needing a breather, but yeah - I can relate to this.
Being a new player myself for games like tekken or so it really helps that you say this It just... Feels like its taking away my anxiety of thinking about locals or first online games that i want to do but im anxious to be too much of a push over who wastes everybodys time because im not good enough And it just... Helps with knowing that deep down... Basically everyone us worth everyones time no matter what
I've had this paralyzing anxiety for 2 years. I thought several times of leaving fighting games for good because it made me so depressed. I recently started playing Tekken 7 ranked and I honestly suck. But it is a lot of fun. I still feel anxious about playing other people but it'll get better eventually. 😊 Thank you Sajam for uploading this video. It reassured me that I should keep playing.
hey this video is me in a nutshell. i hate asking people for games because i always feel like i'm not worth the time of day to them and i'll most likely get frustrated with myself and give up mid game. which only makes me feel worse
I often find myself unwilling to fight other people because I feel like I'm not a good enough player to make a match enjoyable. I _am_ trying to get over it, but the feeling still lingers at the back of my head.
The greatest feeling is getting over those nerves and beating spammy teabagging scrubs into the dirt so hard they rage quit and saltmail. I can’t wait for Strive.
Thanks sajam. Yove taught me that when im trying to destroy my opponents hopes and dreams of being good at a game, i should message them "youre terrible at fighting games, everyone knows it, stop wasting peoples time" since they are common weakness's in players psyche. *The more you know*
You have just shown yourself as being absolutely trash in the bm game Any veteran knows the “leave the game” “altf-f4” “uninstall the game pls” “you are wasting my time” subset of trashtalk has been a staple for years
