LiteralGrill
Smokin' Hot~
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This week, with some hard recent news and unknown progress on v3.6, I think it's time for an article on positivity in Project M. Thanks for your patience and support.
Greater Than Zero
Staying positive in anything is sometimes really simple. It's also often really hard. Positivity is tough to define exactly, but it's a mix of optimism, persistence, hope, and a bit of naivete. It's sometimes effortless and sometimes very draining to stay positive in life or in specific times, because circumstances can really take a toll on you, but I think it's worth talking about positive outlooks in the context of the Project M scene.
Being positive is easy when things are great. You're about to win a tournament, no one can stop you and it's an easy ride to first place. Project M's Dev Team has released new information, and it's reinvigorated the PM fervor. Nintendo gave a shoutout to a tournament that's running Project M and people are excited. These are all examples of times when everything is peachy, the world is on your side, and everything is bright, so naturally you're going to show some optimism and you'll feel happy. This is easy.
Positivity also isn't as important during these times. Whether you're feeling up or down, everything is still in favor of the up at these points. So yes, you might feel nice, but things are probably good either way. That's not to say that these times are not worth feeling happy about when everything appears to be going well, but it's not what I want to focus on here.
Positivity is crucial when things are bad, when others are losing hope, and when the future is uncertain or even scary. You're in round one of your tournament and you're scheduled to fight the number one seed of the pool. Or yet another major tournament is electing to remove Project M from the schedule. These are the moments when staying calm and positive is so difficult and yet so critical. And I feel these are the times we as the Project M Community need to discuss, for now and for the future.
Inner Kamina
First I'd like to talk about positivity in the game. Mental game is a huge part of any fighting game, and attitude is in turn a critical component of mental game. And the core of it boils down to this:
If you don't feel confident and positive in yourself, you are much less likely to see the results you want. Simple as that. Professionals, both of physical sports, strategic games, and, yes, Super Smash Bros, have attested to this. It's just fact. Take it from famed Smasher Mew2King on the value of being at your mental peak, and how it affects your play, in this clip from The Smash Documentary.
“When I’m not playing good in a day… I just get depressed and then I just don’t feel like playing anymore.” Mental state affects everything, down to whether you even feel like playing.
Positivity about your gameplay is made of a lot of factors, but confidence in yourself is the baseline factor; without confidence you have no soil to grow a positive mental attitude. If you don't believe me or Mew2King, take it from this quote attributed to fighting legend Muhammad Ali: “To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you're not, pretend you are.”
"But Orangegluon! How can I be positive all the time? Sometimes it's just dumb to be positive because it's clear that winning in my position against Player X is impossible! I lose this matchup, and they're better than me, and my hair isn't as shiny. There's no chance of success, so isn't it better to be realistic?"
First -- the lovely thing about the future is that it hasn't happened yet, so until you play you don't know what the outcome will be. Second -- there's always a chance that anything can happen. Your goal is that whatever your chance of success, you try as hard as you can as a proper competitor to make grasp those odds and you win. The odds of winning are never 0, meaning you never have an excuse to believe you will lose without trying your damned hardest.
This kind of mindset is hard to maintain. I'll freely admit I'm hypocritical in this respect, as I often find myself committed to the idea of failure before a match. I'm human, yes, but that's no excuse, and I try to actively keep a more positive attitude. Because even when I'm in a tournament and the odds look insurmountable, positivity and pride keep me motivated. And sometimes, just sometimes, it pays off. Because you know what happens when against all odds, someone succeeds against an opponent who is slated to win? It's called an upset, and the winner becomes a LEGEND.
Here's a match of mine in Melee against someone who was set to beat me; I knew they were better, and I knew they had all the tools to beat me, and I was almost set to lose completely. But before this match, I refocused and realized how much I wanted to beat my opponent, and I cleared my head. Nothing else mattered, the tournament was not relevant at this point. I just needed to win this match, and I'd deal with the rest of the world later.
Sure, I'm just one n00b who got lucky in one tournament, but the Smash scene is so volatile in matchups and placings that upsets can happen all the time. In every game from Brawl, to Melee, to N64, to Project M upsets are exciting and real. And the more difficult the challenge, the more memorable those victories will be. Remember -- people love to see underdogs succeed!
Creating good mental states for yourself is tough, but some tricks besides focusing on the goal can help. Music is good at putting me in a fighting mood, so next time you're facing a challenge, try listening to Gurren Lagann or Eminem or Bach, whatever lets you focus and feel like a scrap, either during or before the match. I know Sethlon tries to pace his matches with his favorite high-energy song.
Playing on point helps you feel more confident, but choking or making mistakes kills your vibes really fast. To avoid negative feedback internally, taking a moment to objectively analyze what went wrong and why while you're on the platform helps, and learning to let go your mistakes and work to fix them will help you adapt on the fly. When you lambast yourself for chokes, positivity slips and you'll find yourslf spiraling. For more on dealing with chokes, check our previous MoM on the topic.
Attitude and perseverance can be the separation between “boys” and “men”; too many people are restrained by negative attitudes in competitions, so it's important you develop good habits of positive outlooks, no matter how good or bad you are!
Face of PM
Project M, like Melee, N64, and Brawl before it, has had to deal with negativity throughout its history. Anger, vitriole, condescension, and indifference have all contributed to this difficult past. Melee and N64 experienced division among the fighting game community for being "casual party games," and Brawl knows well the derision of being a floaty and comparatively low speed game than Melee. Further those communities experienced schisms within them for various reasons, ranging from issues surrounding specific players to arguments of principles.
But these games survived, and not through negativity, but from positive outlooks and common grounds within the community binding them together. People coming together for love of the game is what held these scenes together, and the same has been true for Project M.
I'm sure each of you has heard people chide Project M; it's too fast, too weird, too clunky, too gimmicky, just Melee or Brawl with nonsense doodads. I urge you not to stoop to indignance or offense. Don't feed negativity with negativity. In response to these specific complaints, remember that people have preferences, and that your own taste may dislike other games. Whether some game is "better" than another by some standard is a different matter, but respect and polite discussion go a long way in any kind of conversations about Smash. And if any discussion appears to be based in negativity or to stagnate to standstill, I believe you can always simply end the discussion on a disagreement and save yourself from sinking into a deep, angry hole. Play the games you love, and don't be upset when not everyone loves it.
The elephant in the room here, though, is Project M's situation in the Smash Community. It's stuck in Legal Grey Areatm , and it often feels that PM is disrespected, for that legal reason and for preference to other games. Feeling angry is OK, it's a human emotion. Stewing in that anger, though is dangerous and can lead to even further negative opinions of the PM community. TOs of major tourneys reportedly got death threats as a result of hashing PM. Seriously? This community is not about falling to that kind of base, negative reaction. For the sake of PM, we absolutely must take good news and bad news in stride.
How can we do that? How can we possibly overcome such negativity? The obvious answer is: by staying positive. As long as people love Project M, we can keep it moving well. Being left out of 1 or 100 tournaments won't kill Project M. People insulting PM will not kill PM. Because you, the community, through thick and thin can still be there to support it.
Staying positive about PM is tough, especially in scary times, like when PM is dropped or ignored at big events, but we can do it. Positivity requires optimism, persistence, hope, and naivete, and the Smash community has shown all of these things before; you are capable of showing these things as a community member.
Staying calm in the face of uncertainty is part of optimism; no matter what circumstances, we can always strive toward happier days. Don't just wait for PMDT to fuel your hope; take charge! Create hype events! Contribte by running events! Even if no one shows up, try harder to get players, gamers, whoever wants to play! Create a welcoming, positive environment for anyone looking to play games! You must believe, even naively, that, no matter what circumstance, PM will be OK and there is no reason to panic, because you are working to make a better scene. Try to act as a role model for all of the Smash scenes. Whether or not PM is in any kind of "danger," it will not grow unless people take initiative and show dedication to the game, the same way Melee, N64, and Brawl grew from love rather than negative attitudes. Making sacrifices for your local community, including taking time and effort to find events and attend them or make your own, goes a long way in creating a better PM scene, and it shows a deeply positive attitude in the face of any type of looming dramas.
You, yes you, can create a positive environment for the game we love. I certainly think you can, and I hope PMDT and your local scene does too. But don't believe in me, and don't believe in PMDT or your community, believe in you, that you have something you can contribute to all of us by showing dedication and perseverance to Project M. Show the passion that PM, as well as every other Smash game, needs, from the local community to the national and international ones, and on the internet. Smash has done it before and it will do it again when it needs to. Because as long as you love the game, others will follow and the game will be strong. “If you build it, they will come.”
I made this article partly in response to a lot of fear, confusion, and frustration I had seen on the subreddit here after this week’s disheartening announcement from Big House 5. My point here is that in spite of any scary things going on in the Smash scene, things will still be OK, and we’re going to make it. Banding together as a community for the games we care about will help immensely in overcoming community hurdles like legality issues and lack of representation at major tournaments. But I think no problem is too big for us to overcome if we stay positive, keep focused, and keep collected in the face of challenge.
I hope this MoM helps you succeed in competition and helps the community manage uncertainties in the future.
-Orangegluon
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SmashCapps wishes he had written that, it was incredibly well done! To keep up with all things Smash, follow SmashCapps on Twitter.
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