Why i'm stressed when i play ranked?

I know it’s just a game but damn… It’s stronger than me. Any advice?

Because, even if it isn’t real money, you still play for SOMETHING, which are the points. It is also 1 match and often you don’t get a chance to play the opponent again so you feel the pressure. If you really can disconnect yourself of the truly useless value these digital points represent, you’ll start playing your own game much faster and you will enjoy the experience much more.

I suffer from the same thing. I know the points are meaningless, but in a way, they aren’t. It’s saved proof that you won or lost a match.

In Endless - I can hold my own against most 2,000-3,000 PP players and even occasionally win.
In Ranked - a 600 PP player is a serious threat to me.

I have 2 habits. In Ranked, I’m way more defensive and I’ll judge how good the player is based off his points and respect/disrespect them accordingly. That’s probably not a good idea. In Endless, I’m totally carefree and far more aggressive.

@LockM Is it a good idea to disconnect yourself from the points? I’d like to enter a local tournament one day. Isn’t it good to learn how to play with pressure and when things are on the line?

What i mean by disconnecting is to not think about anything else except to play to the best of your abilities, you don’t want that extra bagage clouding your judgement.
Pressure in a tournament is a whole different story, unfortunately can’t help you with that, just bite the bullet and see how you’ll do.

Yeah… Im more worried about 600pp guys than 3000 pp guys (in ranked). It wasnt so bad in 2012 because of safe jumps but now (ultra) the mashing is real. There are new ways to deal with it but safe jumps were a way easier way to deal with mashing (than say watching for DWU techs and OSing). Thats not to say 3000 pp guys may not mash… but they tend to do it less frequently. 600pp guys are just trying to get near you by any means and do ‘something’. I prefer to endless 1) I have time to adjust to the YOLO game plans and 2) nothing really at risk. Now I DO get stressed if its some 5000pp guy that you dont know that is probably going to bounce after 1 game if he feels your too free.

I noticed i play much better and quickly on endless. Not the same thing on ranked, i watched some replays and the hell… I do dumb stuff sometimes, i’m scary to eat a dp or an ultra, bad decisions and my footsies sucks because i’m stressed.

Like i said, i know it’s just a game and i should play relaxed but i don’t know… Maybe it’s a psychological issue and i don’t trust enough myself.

In ranked it’s arguable that you have ‘something to lose’ even though you’re not risking something physical, people (myself included) put a lot of time into building their rank. I prefer ranked to endless because I actually prefer playing under pressure. As you say, a lot of players do well when they’re relaxed, but this is all to do with personal preferences. In ranked I do quite well, but in endless I just make stupid mistakes, stumble with combos and just generally fuck up a bit. If you’re getting stressed playing ranked, then I just wouldn’t bother. As you say ‘it’s just a game’ and it’s there to be enjoyed. If ranked is important to you, then go for it, but if you think endless is more fun then just play that; there’s no shame in having a low rank, I’ve been demolished by players in arcades who are less than half my rank :slight_smile:

the realization that made me stop worrying about points, is…kinda…what are you playing for really? i play for fun and as an escape for a hour or so to play something i enjoy, I consider myself to be decent at SF, but nowhere near the best so my PP doesnt define me or my knowledge of the gm…and i mean, unless you dedicate all your freetime to SF, you arent going to be in the top 10 or so, unless you farm points or something stupid…theres way too many ppl online and most of the online players are just casuals at different skill levels. all the “pro level” gamers dont play much online anyway, they play offline so its not a true measure of whos good and whos not…so just play…who cares about the points?..you shouldnt really care, just play the game…it would only be stressful if you were striving for a high point total, but if you are learning the game at a beginner level, or just play for fun every now and again its not a realistic goal to set for yourself…eff the point system.

That’s not me though. I play to win. Losing isn’t fun. I CAN lose and have fun if I’m just messing around in Endless, but Ranked is completely different. It’s the best and most serious competition I can find.

I play to win too…chasing the competition is fun for me. If I run into a hi ranked player online im focused, but if i lose, i just say gg and move on…i still enjoyed the experience…the rush of testing my ability was fun in the moment. I get salty, and strive to improve just like the next guy, but my motivation is not some arbitrary point system…I’ve had access to offline play in a tournament setting in the past (which is the ideal if your taking your play “seriously” but i understand not everyone has access to a “scene”),but im not as into it anymore so its just a hobby, which i would believe it is for most of us…and a hobby, should never stress u out regardless on what your playing for…unless its your job to strive to be da bes, which for 99.9999% of us, its not

I totally agree with that. I can easily move on and I’m not upset if I lose to someone who is clearly better than me. In fact, some of the best times I’ve had in the game is getting wrecked over and over by a great player and trying to figure out how to beat him. It’s a valuable learning experience.

It IS a hobby, but it’s a hobby I take seriously and it’s something that I want to get better at.

I get what you’re saying about the stress, but for me the stress makes the winning that much sweeter. If I didn’t have some level of stress, then that means I really don’t care about the result of the match.

For me this was a real problem with Starcraft, but not so in USF4. 1) I know gimmicks and weird shit is going to work in a best of 1 in the way it wouldn’t in a best of 3, and 2) When I go into ranked it’s because I’ve got 5-10 minutes to play a match or two, whereas if I jump into a lobby it’ll probably be for a longer stretch of time.

Honestly, I don’t really play Ranked anymore, but I know the feeling you’re talking about. Right as soon as you hit ready, you sorta feel a nervous rush and wonder how the match is going to go. I’ve been playing SF4 for quite a while, but only began to feel like this when reaching a certain amount of points became a priority. Back when I didn’t actually have a certain plateau I was aiming for, I didn’t really care at all. It’s funny when I think about it; I allowed the points to **define **my online experience.

The nerves would come and go, but they’d usually be in high gear whenever I lost a close game or was in the midst of a losing streak. No matter how often I’d tell myself “It’s not that serious. This is for fun”, I’d *still *be more focused on maintaining my points instead of actually playing. Pretty silly, but that’s how the mind can be at times.

Once you win a certain amount of games, you tell yourself “just one more for the day”, then…you lose and end up playing 8-10 more games just to make up your lost progress. Really, just have fun and really understand that PP/BP, as cool as they may seem, are meaningless to the big picture of why you’re playing Street Fighter in the first place.

Usually I’ve got like 1200-1400 pp. Sometimes it goes up to like 1800ish. Sometimes I go down to like 700, sometimes even lower :slight_smile: It all depends on how good the people that come into my lobby are mostly. Sometimes I lose against some suck ass players or because of lag or even just luck. I try to remind myself I’m having some good ass games though even if i’m on a 10 loss streak.

I Know what you guys are talking about, On endless I can hold my own against 3K to even 4K players but on ranked I can lose to players around 1000-2000K players who just mash DP on every block string and wake-up DP regardless of the situation even if you punished them earlier for it or baited it.

I still play on Ranked, but I’m seriously thinking of giving up on Ranked and play only endless, I noticed that endless has much better players that actually knows what they are doing instead of just random mashing and random DP’s. It doesn’t help that delayed wake-ups is not a thing and that safe jumping is somewhat a bit harder since you need to change your timing and such.

You have to adjust when someone is mashing DP frequently, but it’s a clear sign they don’t know what they’re doing.

After a certain point it becomes trivial to defeat players like that by just never pressuring on their wakeup and beating them with fundamentals. If they mash it’s a free max punish.

what people write here with the pressure and the rush is a big thing for me
i like the competion and the adrenaline thats why i like beat em ups so much
sadly on psn the cheating is to real and rank is zero competition
i hope that they can make sf5 or maybe sf4 ps4 a real competition online
that everyone can enjoy and say damn online is a fair competition and only the best are on top of the leaderboards and not like now that most say online sux and points dont matter

I haven’t played a Ranked match in months until last night…and it wasn’t good. It’s ridiculous the amount of pressure I put on myself, but I think it’s something I need to do to learn how to deal with the nerves.

I lost a match because I fucked up an SRK > FADC > Ultra on wake up. That’s nothing new for me, but I looked down at my hands and thought about what just happened and thought about the sounds that I made on my stick. I didn’t just fuck up an SRK, I butchered it beyond belief. I didn’t look at a replay of the inputs, I didn’t need to. I basically slammed the stick in a million different directions and was slamming my right hand on any button I could in hopes that a magic SRK > FADC > Ultra would come out. Needless to say, nothing came out and I was killed by an obvious jump-in HK.

Sad but true.