I’m a long time fan, and I am not an idiot with footsies but outside of one game, I felt lethargic and apathetic of most games I play, even the competitive ones.
Halo, street fighter, tekken, gears, they were fun and I got decent at them but I never wanted to play at my very best unless for some certain circumstances made me so.
Something about it brings a bad emotion to me, especially when I play with friends, I rather see them win than myself and I dial a lot of things back.
But when there is a goal or a chance of disappointment with my friends or team, I play my heart out.
I wonder if there’s any body with the same problem or once went through this cause Isai from the smash community is what I’m connecting to right now.
Sounds to me you care more about what other people think of you than actually winning.
There is no hidden trick here. If you want to win, you play to win. If you want people to like you, you do whatever it is you’re doing now. It’s clear that winning is not a priority for you at the moment.
So ask yourself – do you feel like winning? If so, do what is necessary to do it.
I think that’s a weird psychological thing. Part of me wants to say, a person does this and acts like they don’t care about winning, because they are scared if they try really hard and get defeated. That feeling. They don’t want to feel that feeling of being defeated when they were trying their best so instead they act like they don’t care at all so losing isn’t all that bad. They have more control over the loss that way. Does that make sense? If you take a deep look at yourself and think that may be what’s going on here, you have to learn to be humble in your losses. Give it your all, but if you lose, learn from it and move on. Stay humble.
I know what you mean.
It’s good to hold back a bit so your friends can get the feeling they’re learning sometimes. When they just picked up a game, that is.
Once they already know how to play, you’ll do a favor to them if you don’t hold back.
They’ll have to improve to beat you, and understand what they’re doing wrong. You should help them with that and hopefully they’ll help you as well.
Not holding back will make both players’ realize their limits, and how to break through them. That’s how you get the best training partners.
Isai has an emotional handicap. He is shy to the point that it hinders him in everything he does not just gaming. If you can go hang out with a group of friends and have a good time, then Isai you are definitely not. There is a lot more to him and his problems than that, but there is no need to really talk about it.
For you though, it could be many things. I often don’t play my best when I play friends or players I don’t know online. And that is because I know how hard it is to push to be competitive in fighting games. And I am lucky enough that I find joy in that. I constantly worry that If I steam roll somebody they wont want to play anymore, and that isn’t good for the community. I will slowly start upping my game as they keep rematching me to push them a little. And I hope at some point they will realize how much fun it actually is to try and be better than the next guy. And I absolutely hate that. Because I am so competitive that I feel it was an absolute waste of my time. But the flip side is that new players sometimes need to be babied a bit. They wont be shit, but at least they will be there when others who do want to be pro come along and need to start somewhere and they don’t get bodied to much by the better players. For the community. But when I play team mates or anybody who says they play or want to be competitive, then I always try win. I never want to lose to somebody who thinks they are on my level. And I never want to stop rematching somebody who is on a higher level.
Maybe that’s how you secretly feel. If not just say it is, because the alternatives are bad.
You could just be bad at games and don’t accept your losses. You could be bad at the game, accept your losses, but are to embarrassed about them so you hold back because then you have a reason why you lost. No Johns. Or the absolute worst. You don’t want to be competitive.
If you want to take it serious you will need training partners who take it serious. Try get in with your local FGC and go to the meet ups. If you aren’t frequently losing to better people then you are playing against the wrong people. Find out when the next closest tournament is going to be and enter. After that you will know if you want to work harder to be better or not. And if you want to be better, you wont want to lose.