I’ve known this guy, let’s just call him Blanka for the sake of this story because that’s who his main is in Street Fighter IV, for about oh, five or six years. And we’ve been into fighting games for about a year and a half. We started off “training” with this other guy - I’m gonna call him Ryu for now - who had been playing fighting games since SF2 came out, and we both sucked for a while at Third Strike and such until the big wave of new fighting games hit last year with Street Fighter IV, BlazBlue, etc. and we both got better.
Ever since then it’s been fun coming over to Ryu’s house to play fighting games with Blanka and Ryu (and whoever else). For the most part. But Blanka is possibly the saltiest player I know, and is unfortunately one of the most easily upset when shit doesn’t go his way.
I’ll give you a few examples of why he’s kind of a crappy person to play with.
Most of Blanka’s opinions on fighting games comes from Ryu’s opinions. Not a big deal until we get to…
Tekken. Ryu hates Tekken, so does Blanka. But whenever Tekken comes up Blanka has to rip the game to shreds, despite his only experience being one game of TTT and a few games of T2. I have no problems with other people having a different opinion but I had to watch him be a total dick to this other guy, I’ll call him Hakumen, just because he mentioned being excited for Tekken 6, saying shit like “I can’t wait until they release a special Tekken arcade stick with just one button you can mash repeatedly because that’s all you need to win at Tekken” and in response to the series’ critical acclaim “Well mainstream game reviewers are mostly retards, that’s why they’d give shit fighting games like Tekken a high score.” By the way, based on my conversations with Hakumen, he likes pretty much every “mainstream” fighting game ever made, not just Tekken. He also tried to explain why Tekken sucks with the following: “In Soul Calibur IV, the only really broken, masher-friendly character is Kilik, but that’s just one guy. In Tekken, everyone feels broken because no matter who you pick or how good you get at it, someone can just mash one button and beat you.” Again, this is from someone who has little experience with the game mechanics.
He hates one-button throwing to a point that any time he loses, it’s never his fault, it’s the throw system’s fault every time. Doesn’t matter if it’s SF2HDR, TvC, X-Men vs Street Fighter, KOF - if it has one-button throwing (or “over-heavy throwing” as he calls it), it’s garbage and that’s why he loses. I’ve seen him try and throw Ryu in a few matches where he’s been pressured and backed into a corner, he won’t throw and then throws a fit over it. “OH MY GOD FUCKING OVER-HEAVY THROWING IN THIS GAME IS SO RETARDED FUCK”. Sometimes it’s funny to see him get pissed about this, most of the time, it’s just pathetic.
On a related note, watching and listening to him get upset about fighting games is just awful. He gets angry over the most insignificant shit. Like I said, it’s funny sometimes, then it quickly gets annoying.
Tried to convince me and other people that the PS3 FightPad is worse than the Xbox 360 pad because “the D-pad is stiffer” despite the two models being built with the same parts. His only experience with the PS3 pad was an SFIV tournament at the nearby Game Crazy. (I will say Blanka has a very noticeable anti-PS3 bias…mostly because Ryu has one too.)
Never watches match videos on his own, and never consults the internet about much of anything. Because he hangs out with Ryu, who’s been playing fighting games since 1991 and thus can’t be wrong about anything fighting-game related. Usually quicker to believe anything from Ryu than anything I found out on SRK or elsewhere regardless of how bogus it is (i.e. Tager being god tier in BBCT).
Now I’ve been friends with Blanka forever, so I don’t want to just be a dick and end our friendship over his douchebaggy behavior when it comes to fighting games. But, what should I do about him or any other douchebag when it comes to fighting games?
Also, feel free to share stories of jerks you know personally that used to or currently play fighting games with you.
Well… You can lead a Blanka to water, but you can’t make him drink.
If he considers this Ryu as his idol \ encyclopedia in fighting games, there’s littel chance he’ll start listening to you overnight. Focus on your game, and use the resources they aren’t tapping. You’ll improve, Blanka won’t, then maybe he’ll hear you out.
And as I was reading this… I actually pictured Blanka and Ryu in these situations, and it was funny.
Blanka sounds an awful lot like my uncle who has a big mouth to say the most outrageously rude and impolite things to people as a joke and swear and get all mad when gambling. I’ll tell you this much that that is how he gets his attention and how ignorant he is.
Blanka doesn’t admit these issues are his own fault, but blames it on the game itself?
I’d cuss back at him the next time he starts going off about the littliest thing saying that it’s just blanka who doesn’t like this or that , and it’s not the game’s fault that it is his. if he starts hatin’ on you that’s his problem for not admitting he’s ever wrong about something.
I used to be that way but I see every mistake as an opportunity to improve. I’d suggest trying to talk to him to look on the bright side of things. If he starts again with snappy rhetoric, slap him in the face and tell him no.
just like how english muffins to the english are just muffines, the negative edge to a negative player is just the edge…if you like winning against him, in the name of all that is holy, don’t give him the edge, otherwise you’ll never beat him.
seriously though, like someone said, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. maybe direct them to some of the posts that are in the dojo, like domination 101 and other articles. maybe if they realize they have scrub mentalities, it can save them the embarrassment of someone calling them out on it, thus making them more prone to alternate ways of thinking.
I know it’s easier said than done, but I’m sure the only way to beat Blanka’s problem is to beat Ryu.
I mean, Blanka likes Ryu for a reason right? He probably looks up to him because of his experience.
Well, make Blanka look up to YOU because of your skill and knowledge. If you can beat Ryu 9 out of 10 times, how could Blanka NOT look up to you more than him?
You could even just look up a lot of info on games, spout knowledge about matchups and tournaments and frame data and shit, even if it doesn’t REALLY mean anything. Doesn’t really matter what it is, just make yourself sound knowledgeable :bluu:. I mean, if you can prove that you know more than the guy who’s been playing for 19 years, Blanka has to look up to you for that too.
Sure he has played SF for years, but he sounds and acts like a scrub. How do I know this? Because I have been playing SF since the original SF, and it wasnt until a couple of months ago I was a scrub too.
I have a friend like this, except he gets pissed over shooters not fighting games (I cant convince him at all to even try them). He gets upset very easily when things arent going his way and he’ll often sound incredibly ignorant while doing it. He’ll complain “that guy is definatly using turtle beaches!!!” Which are a type of headset. I’ve used them and he hasn’t, but he believes they give the user almost magic hearing so you can hear people walking through walls and stuff. They are nowhere near that good and mostly just improve sound quality, but he thinks it gives opponents an extremely unfair advantage. But in reality maybe 1/100 people he accuses of using them probably actually are.
I always just tell him to calm down and actually think about what he is saying.
If hes like that over something that insignificant(video game), then I cant imagine how much of dickhead(noticed he’s a bit of a dick rider too) he is about shit that means something.Dont try to be Captain Save A Nigga you just cant change people they would have to want to change themselves.