I don’t have a motivation to be the best as much as I have motivation to be good enough to draw out the best in my area. Despite fighters being a 1 on 1 game, if you have a good team of people, you can do nothing but get better and help others get better. That’s my motivation: Get good enough to find the best, and help those people get better while making more people better. Or creating an environment where the best can truly be the best. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t have time or money to compete and practice all the time so I’ll do what I can for the best to be that.
Its a fun, great hobby, and I’m naturally competitive. Losing sucks and winning is fun. For me, there’s an extra edge - I’m in Japan, and while Japanese players respect top level EVO players and what not, the general consensus is that the West isn’t nearly as good as they are. Most of the time, they get proven right, when some random tourist pops into an arcade and tries to mash a few buttons. So I like being able to show them that American gamers can put up a fight too. I’ve had people come across the cabinet and tell me I’m good, I’ve overhead people behind me saying that I was a solid player, I even had a room full of people rooting for me once in a tournament. For me, these moments are awesome. Even if only just a little bit, maybe I can show the East that America has strong players who aren’t just EVO finalists.
I feel like if I pushed a little harder, maybe I could become a top player and be more competitive with the best of the best. And the desire is there. But at the same time, I have very real limitations. Full time job, family, other commitments, I’m already over my practical limit for playing games. A lot of people seem to think that you can be a top player if you just study match videos or frame data, spend that extra time in the training room. No. Top players put in a lot of work to get and stay there, and I wouldn’t expect to reach that level unless I commit to the same level of dedication. Daigo has played in over 14,000 arcade SFIV matches, and there is no way I can even think about approaching his level by just watching his vids and studying frame data.
So this is something I’ve been struggling with for the past year or so. I have the drive to be really good, and I feel like I could if I pushed harder, but I just can’t.
There is no sense in half-assing anything, so if I’m going to play a competitive video game I’m going all out
In all honesty, the only thing that doesn’t motivate me is money. I couldn’t care less about turning a profit from something I do for enjoyment.
Improving myself as a player, connecting with the community and making new friends, and the desire to be recognized for my achievements all motivate me to practice hard. I don’t care if I win or lose, just as long as I feel like I put my absolute all into the match. It’s a very rewarding feeling.
Just playing with someone else who is competitive. Before I play to win I play for the art of a good fight. As long as I see the art and ingenuity in the fight that’s what forces me to make my game that much stronger.
I am motivated by the desire to improve. I want to be the best that I can be. I want to keep playing, and improving, and becoming more proficient. I attend local tourneys in the city, and the community is wonderful. I want to be a driving force behind it. Money is certainly useful, but I am motivated to reach a level of play within myself where people say that I’m a player to watch out for.
I love the competition and I love pushing myself to new limits. Seeing myself grow and get better and how it evolves my thinking and pushes me to be better, makes me a better thinker in general, I think that’s been a truly great benefit for me. I love the scene, getting to hang out with like minded people who’ve also shared the life long passion and I hate hate hate losing to someone consistently. Nothing motivates me to get better like getting my ass beat. I never want to admit someone is better than me. I will admit they beat me temporarily but I’m NEVER down and out of the fight. Even when I first started playing games and sucked, someone commented on me and said “Jon might lose at first but he’ll just keep coming back and coming back until eventually, you can’t beat him anymore”.
I just love the environment and how exciting it all is. I love the thrill of winning, that knowledge that you out thought another person and that your strategy proved to be more effective than theirs. To some it’s a silly hobby but to those that are really involved in it, we know it’s a lot more than that.
I mean I love fighting games so much I even recently decided to devote even more effort into it. I want to be the best… and I’ve never really given it a HUGE effort… never traveled seriously or trained as hard as those in my state and yet I still hang with them and even reach the top in many games. I’ve never really liked the idea of being a career slave and I see so many of my friends getting done with college and diving into careers that eat their lives and sap the enjoyment out of anything and I don’t want that. My plan, I’m gonna just work the job I got if it gets me by and allows me the freedom to play games like I want, I’m happy with that. There’s not really much else I could want in life… I’ve got a supportive girlfriend, I can play games as much as I want, do the things I want, and just enjoy life. I see no point in chasing someone elses dream.
As bruce lee said “I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in it to live up to mine”.
I guess I’ve got a little of that going on too. I’m white, so living in China I stick out like a sore thumb. This is especially true in arcades. Usually if there are other foreigners there, we came together.
Interestingly, many Chinese players know some of the best American players. The thread starter might be interested to know his name has popped up before.
What motivates me is proving to myself that I can become really good at a certain game if I put dedication on it and train hard. I am insecure, but I also have a lot of willpower. So, it’s a self-improvement journey, like for many people here. Real answer, although it may sound cheesy.
haha just realized this part, I said 4 different things by mistake. changed now
5 different things motivated me. 1, I love seeing the styles of playing GOOD people came up with. not just how they play the character, but how they play period. each person, if they’re a good player, is like their own special blend of kickass. i especially like seeing what skills they have. 2, I dunno how to describe it any better than this… I like the feeling you get when you’re playin someone, and you get those moments that make you wanna go “YEAH! What now, nigga?? What NOW?!”. 3, I liked reaching higher and higher levels of skill and just taking over shit. the shit you thought was good yesterday goes out of the window by tomorrow, and by the day after tomorrow you don’t even wanna mention that scrub shit. interesting thing I ran across, back when I played some random SNES game called Metal Warriors there was this one guy who was far above any competition on zbattle period… thought me and my friends were the best at that game and that dude ended up raping us silly. I wanted to be able to do something similar to that. He built up his skill to such a high level WITHOUT a good playing pool. 4, as I said below, I wanted to absolutely destroy any competition and claim #1. I wanted to be someone people would knock the shit outta Tomo to reach. 5, I thought I might be inadequate as a tourney player, so I studied hard as fuck. For a guy who’s never participated in any tournaments, I’m seriously studious and experimental. To give examples of what I mean:
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I studied the strengths and weaknesses of Daigo’s psychic DP. upon figuring out exactly what it was, I realized I already knew one of the methods for it years ago and learned how to do it myself. it’s one method you can use to read people really well (I can’t remember what they are now, but I suspected that there were at least 3 different ways you could do it… if anyone’s interested I could probably try to remember if you want)
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Fearful of Daigo using it on me, I made a counter to psychic DP. indirectly made another (#11)
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Studying the way Daigo plays and coming up with a certain philosophy, I’ve learned how to nullify a good number of attack attempts (I believe Sirlin said something similar to this? except… he expressed taking advantage of critical points, I try to take advantage of every single point in the game, period).
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created about 3 different adaptation methods, haven’t perfected any of them though.
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purposefully played shitty characters as an experiment to see if their shittiness mattered or if it was all player’s perception (the answer: it depends).
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learned how to learn other people’s characters while they’re playing them (I believe someone here referred to Kuroda as amazing because he was able to teach people how to play chars they don’t even know how to use? it worked something like that).
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strengthened my ability to make solid strategies
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had an objective way to gauge people to tell if they were a threat or if they were harmless.
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had a standard, effective way of playing that I could transfer from game to game soon as I learned how the engine worked and about the different options in the game
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played a bunch of different unfamiliar games. 1, to see how quickly I can adapt and beat experienced players (that’s how I came up with idea 8); 2, so that I could maintain a high level of ability in completely different games and switch back and forth between them with no mental fuckups
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hated playing people who would only read and react to what you do. so I made a way to become unreadable.
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was experimenting with psychological warfare at one point, but I’m not that great at it. then again, casual settings are different from tournament… but in casual, I can’t make a non-scrub crumble. at best, I can severely annoy a good player or gain praise. on the plus side of this though, I can utterly dominate players as much as I need to and not get bored by it.
someone’s probably gonna read this post and go “Man this guy’s SO full of shit” but I’m dead ass serious. I did all of this and more. I’ve studied so much shit that if I typed it all out it would be its own forum. and I did it all because I thought I’d need it someday. I wanted to be able to perfectly and absolutely destroy anyone. but there’ve been a good number of deterrents. for one, I’ve always been broke as hell so no traveling for me. at the unprofessional online tournaments, lag and whiners await. and then even if I reach the point where I’m able to travel and participate in lots of different tournaments… I just don’t feel that gaming has evolved to a level where there’s someone out there who would push me to my absolute limits. I just think “eh… I’d beat them eventually”. I’ll get around to the scene someday
not to compare Sirlin’s articles to shit especially isnce he does write some good stuff, but… if a pro takes a shit, it’s still a pile of shit. whether or not that shit was taken with a high level of experience and skill is irrelevant
edit: to not leave you hanging though, some of the articles just aren’t that special. others are like durrr you’re trying to glorify something that isn’t glorious. some are informational. then some are like okay, even YOU don’t know what you’re talking about. to pinpoint articles that fit those definitions? don’t know, been almost a year since I went there
Improving, moving up the ladder and fighting stronger opponents. I’ve been enjoying the team format more lately. Knowing that you can be the one to move your team to the next round or possibly ocv another team is rewarding. Getting myself and others better is what motivates me. It’s not about just beating someone else but winning a good match that is created by 2 willing participants. It’s unsatisfying to win if there is nothing learned or it’s not challenging.
All it sounds like is your making excuses. No one can “push you to your absolute limits” huh? I think that the OP would beg to differ. Not to mention JWong, Combofiend, Marn, Rashaan, Sanford, EdMa, and probably anyone who has placed top 64 in a 256 man tournament would argue with that statement. Read Valle’s post up near the top of the page. You’re the kid that plays HORSE all day, and never tries out for the basketball team. Matter of fact, you’re even worse, because according to you, you have fighting games down to a science, and you’re not even willing to apply that science to a real match.
No one can “push you to your limits?” I call bullshit. Matter of fact, please tell me you don’t live in the midwest, because I’d be willing to bet I’d do much more than push your limits, and I’m no where near the best of the best.
So when you decide you want to attempt to apply your rules to a real match, let me know. Everyone needs a reality check every once in a while.
Can you be more specific, what exactly has he said that is shit?
Comparing Dawid Janowski’s mastery of Bishop tactics in chess to spamming low strong with Rose is pretty high up there for me.
He always makes chess analogy when it comes too SFII, but that still doesn’t tell me how his argument is wrong.
I’m not the kid who plays HORSE and refuses to join basketball team, I’m more like the kid who doesn’t have his parent’s permission to join the team this year. I wanted to attend evo THIS year, but those odds aren’t looking too great. if I had the chance to reach evo this year I wouldn’t even have time to tell anyone anything. like I said before, I definitely intend to get in on the scene
I’m east coast btw. even if i was midwest and we played today I’d be shit cause I’ve lost months of practice from just sheer not giving a fuck. casual gamers can sneak wins off me at this point of atrophy. if I sucked at a particular game I could excuse that, but my best aspect is player vs player skill. if I’m lacking there, then I’m not even anyone special anymore
I don’t really remember. I went back to take a look now and I can’t really pinpoint perfect examples. but I can say that the best articles he wrote all led me to something that better defines the concept (ex. what’s referred to as “yomi” is rock paper scissors skill; article on critical points helped me define “points”). his worst articles leave you thinking that you might’ve learned something when you didn’t (ex. study details of the enemy). Sun Tzu was a brilliant strategist and basically defines the entire competitive scene, but… those are PHILOSOPHIES. it’s up to personal interpretation to determine whether or not they have significance. so I think it’s with the Sun Tzu related stuff that he might go pretty out there
chess sucks
Janowski focused on utilizing the bishops to the point that he wouldn’t care about winning or losing - apparently he was even notorious for making excuses about loses - whereas the goal of him spamming low strong was so he wouldn’t have to think to beat people, pretty much the exact opposite. The analogy is extremely forced so it could sound all deep and chessy and zomg play to win when it doesn’t make sense.
What exactly was the context that Sirlin was using this analogy, quote him please.
I am motivated by my deep-seated love for mentally kicking ass.
Also, because I’ve always wanted to be best in the world at something I love to do.