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Battling yourself- mindset/mind related issues thread

David Galanos

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Oct 13, 2014
Messages
282
Location
Georgia
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Apost1e
If you're like me, you have come across a lot of frustration and get in situations where you are fighting yourself just as much as you are fighting the player.

Whether it's:
- getting scared/nervous mid match/choking
- getting really mad from losing
- getting over zealous for damage or kills, angry or eager to get a kill or percent going
- etc etc

This can be caused by many things, I used to never get frustrated from losing, and would never get nervous, but the more time I put into the game and the more I began to love the game I would develop these issues.

So, this thread is for sharing situations you have with your mindset or any issues you have with yourself that affects your play, or causes you to not enjoy the game like you should. So ask away and share advice with each other.



 

David Galanos

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Oct 13, 2014
Messages
282
Location
Georgia
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I'll start things off with my issue, I personally struggle with choking. In serious sets, I will sometimes get in a bad mindset and say to myself, "There's a chance I could lose, I'm gonna be so upset if I lose." It's more evident if I'm versing a player I know I'm better than, because I hate losing to them and it makes me feel terrible. I tend to enjoy playing against people I know are better than me, because I know I should probably lose, and I can learn from it the most. Like if I lose in tournament to someone I think I had a chance of beating, or should have beat, I get upset and it ruins the fun, when I lose to players I know are a lot better, I learn from it and I have a good time. I just want to lose because I know I lost and I learn from it. I don't wanna lose because I have 20% and they have 100%, and all I have to do is finish them off but I get nervous and scared, and I think too much about losing and then I lose. I get devastated from it.

Has anyone else dealed with choking? I believe it's different from tournament nerves, because those tend to be more about how well you place or if people are watching and stuff, I don't care about that or even how well I place, I just want to know I'm playing to the best of my ability.
 

PokemonyeWest

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Oct 28, 2014
Messages
350
Location
Victoria, Texas
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After years and years of playing fighting games with a competitive mindset, I still frequently get salty after losses. But more recently I'm mad less because I lost and more because I don't believe myself to be playing to the best of my abilities. Everyone loses and it's apart of the game to lose. No one wants to play a game they win all the time.

As far as advice goes, just take each loss as a learning experience. Save replays of losses that made you particularly salty and break down what went wrong and why. You have to lose before you can win. You have to sink before you can swim.
 

David Galanos

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Joined
Oct 13, 2014
Messages
282
Location
Georgia
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Apost1e
After years and years of playing fighting games with a competitive mindset, I still frequently get salty after losses. But more recently I'm mad less because I lost and more because I don't believe myself to be playing to the best of my abilities. Everyone loses and it's apart of the game to lose. No one wants to play a game they win all the time.

As far as advice goes, just take each loss as a learning experience. Save replays of losses that made you particularly salty and break down what went wrong and why. You have to lose before you can win. You have to sink before you can swim.
Yeah I have tried to get into that mindset of learning from my losses, and I am able to do that and have a great time, but when I lose because I get nervous and scared, and choke, it's not really my play that hurt me as much, but more importantly my mind, which greatly affected my play.

In these cases, I know why I'm losing, which is by getting scared of losing, but I don't know how to fix that.

It's not like I'm losing because I am doing this, this, and this, and I need to adapt to this or this, it's because of my mind. That's where I don't know what to do to not lose.
 

PokemonyeWest

Smash Journeyman
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Oct 28, 2014
Messages
350
Location
Victoria, Texas
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Mental fortitude is a very important aspect to playing fighting games. Sadly, there's no secret to keeping your cool during a game. That's usually what separates the Online Warriors from the tournament winners.

You shouldn't fear losing as much I think. Just try to stay rock solid during every match.
 

Cyril Epix

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Feb 21, 2015
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9
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Netherlands, Stein
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Let me start off by saying that i am not THAT GREAT of a smasher, I only really looked into competitive Sm4sh about 4-5 months ago. That being said, I tend to get rather salty when an opponent keeps juggling me with moves that come out rather predictably. I whiff an airdodge and off I go again. Even when i mix up recoveries and do make it onto the stage, it feels like it takes 3-5 flat seconds before i'm aired again. (at least, at high %) This saltyness is the reason I just choke; i cannot stand being toyed around with like this. At this stage I start throwing out moves and 'fish' for the kill, to the extent that a beginner could just use 1 F-Smash in front of him, and i'd still walk into it.
Even though i notice I'm making some improvements and manage to keep my cool, it's just an inevitable thing that gets to me most of the times. (FG isn't a fun place truth be told) Right now, the only thing that helps is just laughing it off and silently scold myself for being so foolish. I'm sure that i'll gain experience from those losses, though as David said, losing vs players who use predictable moves to keep juggling you (aka, worse players) feels really degrading.
 

David Galanos

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Oct 13, 2014
Messages
282
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Let me start off by saying that i am not THAT GREAT of a smasher, I only really looked into competitive Sm4sh about 4-5 months ago. That being said, I tend to get rather salty when an opponent keeps juggling me with moves that come out rather predictably. I whiff an airdodge and off I go again. Even when i mix up recoveries and do make it onto the stage, it feels like it takes 3-5 flat seconds before i'm aired again. (at least, at high %) This saltyness is the reason I just choke; i cannot stand being toyed around with like this. At this stage I start throwing out moves and 'fish' for the kill, to the extent that a beginner could just use 1 F-Smash in front of him, and i'd still walk into it.
Even though i notice I'm making some improvements and manage to keep my cool, it's just an inevitable thing that gets to me most of the times. (FG isn't a fun place truth be told) Right now, the only thing that helps is just laughing it off and silently scold myself for being so foolish. I'm sure that i'll gain experience from those losses, though as David said, losing vs players who use predictable moves to keep juggling you (aka, worse players) feels really degrading.
Sounds like you have trouble getting combo'd, it's important to never force anything. If you are under pressure, don't try to force an attack or do something to get out of the combos. Of course there are some guaranteed ones, but it's important to not mash air dodge, mash attacks to escape, or mash jump, just do the best option that will reset to neutral, and start over to try and gain your own momentum. Sometimes you may need to air dodge right after, or nair out of it, or jump away, and DI correctly of course, but just know what will be best to do, which comes with experience. I've found that some players have some kind of bait to punish attempts at escaping combos. Some bait air dodges (the most popular option), some players bait combo breakers (attacks to escape like N-airs), and some bait jumps out of combos, react to what they think you'll do, or what they are doing, and do what will help you escape.

Personally, a big thing I do when I first play people is see how people react to throws. If I up throw them the most common thing is an air dodge so I will charge an up smash my first time usually, so if they do air dodge, I will keep doing that. If they jump away, I'm gonna double jump and catch their jump, if they try to attack out of it, I will shield after the up throw and punish out of shield. Mario and Luigi mains do this especially,by nair-ing out of combos. Everyone has their go to options to escape combos, just know that you can't do one option every time, you gotta mix it up, and recognize how they are continuing these juggles, or maybe even how they are starting them in the first place. Yeah grabs most of the time, and if that's the case, see if you are shielding too much, or whiffing attacks too much, stuff like that. Grabs are easy to get, but it's possible to limit them, and of course, limit the follow ups afterwards with this advice.

And Sure if they're sheik and they f throw to fairs, it's pretty guaranteed, but that's where you need to mix up your DI. Hope this helps, I had trouble with escaping combos and stuff too at first, but I learned a lot from getting combo'd hard, and now I also download people in how they react to my own combos.
 
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T-Rae

Smash Rookie
Joined
Apr 19, 2015
Messages
3
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MD
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Yeah...It seems I always get nervous. It always happens when I do well in matches but I tend to lose focus as I can feel my heart sorta pounding. This mostly happens in tournaments but sometimes it happens when I play online against another great player. I also do get greedy and try to get kills in which sometimes I end up causing to SD on accident. I just really have to relax when I play Smash...
 
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