How do you deal with/learn from Losing Streaks in For Glory?

[PixelPoet]

I just started playing For Glory today, thinking maybe I'm better than I thought. The first round was a win, and promising, but then afterwards I had something like seven consecutive losses and I felt pretty disheartened. After losing to the same guy nearly 5-6 times (mostly close losses except the last fight) I finally just had to walk away because I was getting too frustrated and beating myself up over it and my play was suffering from it.
I've had a while to calm myself down, beat up some Sandbags to help myself feel better, and now I'm trying to start reflecting on my losses and what I can learn from them, and how to deal with some big losing streaks in the future.

For me, I think it's that I get too nervous. Just the thought of going online in a game gives me some serious jitters, because when you're not actually seeing who you're fighting it's all too easy to imagine them as someone who's laughing at you and taunting you, for me at least. I always assume that I'm in the lowest skill category, even for games that I've played for a long time. My hands get kind of shaky and when I start to get dominated, I lose my composure, I keep imagining people laughing at me, and then every attack either gets blocked or punished, and then it just all goes downhill from there.

I also think that I need to read up and maybe even practice some of the more popular combos for characters so I can identify weak spots and counter them. I also learned that, in that respect, CPU practice really doesn't cut it. You can brush up on their individual attacks, their damages, hitboxes, etc from CPU practice, but the way that they are employed and how they combo into one another is really something that you can only learn from fighting other people. In the same way, I need to practice a lot more on getting to know my own character's hitboxes, since it really hasn't been that long since I picked up Zero Suit Samus as my main.

And then, there's also trying to find a way to ease the pain of a losing streak, or a particularly bad domination. Since from this experience I now know that, at least for a while, I'm going to have a very high loss-to-win ratio, I tried thinking of ways to laugh it off, to make it a joke, or to at least have it sting a little less, and I think I found it. For now, my online name is "Glass_Joe", something that I found a little amusing. And I told myself, as long as I have more than 1 win for every 99 losses, I'm at least not the worst virtual fighter in history.

But I'm curious to hear what the fellow smashers on this website have to say about this subject. Have you had a rough losing streak? Did you identify your problems and falls, and how to solve them? If so, what were they? And do you have any methods for cooling or laughing off a bad day on For Glory?

I'm looking forward to reading your responses. Maybe we could learn more from each other, and perhaps we could all improve our Smashing a little bit.

 

[Chainz]

I feel ya man, When I play for glory about a good amount Im gettin my a** whooped! Whats worse is when it a spammer throwin s**** at u, and they get lucky when I f**** up and then end up winning. D****! if I had a doller for everytime that happen I be one rich m******f********. Some spammers are good players and got very good defensive tech, but a lot of them busters who aint got clue wht they doin other than button mashing. But when you do fight that one pro smasher. Whether u win or lose. I take it as an honor to fight a good match. I usually send them a NNID request to see if they wanna practice/ coach me a bit. Some accept it and some dont. But like i said it the real fight that u want. hell today I had 20+ matches straight with a dude who got some serious skill. And out of all them, I only won one match. And this kind of scenario happens A LOT to me.

But anyways, try not to let get to u. I know it frustrating man. I got like 77 wins to about 120 losses on my record >.< but u improving man fo real. That how u get better by playing other people. Fo example I may still lose a match against some of these people online. But at least, for them... IT WONT BE EASY! and I usually take 1 stock. Unless I f***** up again, which happens.. I aint no pro. But Ive gotten hella lot better since I started. Fo sure

Just dont worry about man, u good. If u want hmu with a request and we can do some training sometime. Let each other know what we did good and we did bad. Remember man we only learn from our mistakes if we know wht it was we did wrong. Lord knows how much bad play i've done in a match.

Also, save the replays of both really BAD and really GOOD matches. Learn ur opponents style and try to work around it. Study the replays, film them w/ a camera and post them online to get some good criticism. And do research on your Mains, read guides, watch videos on youtube that show pro smashers given out can o' whoopa*** as one of your characters. Try build a style around theirs and see if improves your game.

 

[Mega Rayquaza]

I get nerves too (still do) combined with the fact that I have serious autopilotting issues I can't seem to shake I'm in for a bad time a lot of the time. Generally if you wanna learn off of how you played if you feel like whatever you're doing is hopeless, save your matches and watch them. You can better pinpoint what went wrong that matches and devise strategies that will help you work your way around it. If you're not picking up on it, post them somewhere and ask for criticism. And actually, just ask for advice in general from people you play off of other places besides FG. To me at least, it helps a lot.

 

[Saclam]

When I'm in a bad day or in a constant losing streak,I ask myself what did I do wrong and how can I fix it,how can I counter my opponents strategy,what do I do if my tactics aren't working,how did I lose and what can I do next time so I won't make the same mistake twice.if that's not case and my sodium levels are getting higher I just stop and take a week break and come back in a calm mindset.

I used to get very nervous back then when I first started playing online till I realized its just a game ,there is no money on the line or a big tournament match so It doesn't really matter if it's winning or losing as long as I'm having fun,then it's all good for me

 

[Timbers]

I'm really glad that you are one of the few who can acknowledge that there are holes in your gameplay and are trying to analyze those weaknesses and improve on them, rather than blaming "spammers" or "cheap moves" or whatever.

CPUs aren't a great way to train up. They help you get use to a character you're playing, but the biggest hurdle to overcome is how to properly read an opponent and their own playstyle. Assuming you don't have competitive local players, then FG is probably your best bet. It's hard to offer advice on how to cure your nerves, but you seem to be taking the right steps in realizing what gives you "the jitters" and try to find ways to alleviate those issues.

Biggest thing to note is that you should be aware that (almost) no one is laughing at you. We're all on the grind to get better at this game, and not taking a match seriously (by being scumbags or making fun of others) is stunting that process. There's likely a few who are just playing to troll around and be general assholes, but they're faceless individuals that you will never ever ever ever meet or see anyways.

It's natural to be insecure, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing to feel nervous and small and think the whole world is out to get you, because everyone feels like that at times, but in Smash's case you can be rest assured that no one is bigger or better than you because we're all just big baby losers playing a children's game competitively.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

I don't. I blame lag and my controller then watch youtube vids.

 

[Sean²]

I walk away. Getting flustered does not help my play or my temper. I find something else to do for a bit then come back when I clear my mind.

 

[3870x2]

I feel like I am probably older than most in the gaming community, and have some advice to offer. Copy/Pasta from another thread:

I beat 90%+ of the opponents I come across, but I only have a 54% win rate. I will never quit when being beat by an opponent. I don't learn anything when I win. Most people that lose to me leave after 2-3 games, but people who are much better than me stay for 20-40 games. There was a meta knight and a bowser in the last week alone that I lost to something like 50 losses and 1 win.

Let me tell you something about this meta knight and Bowser. I learned more from these two guys than I have in the last month. I want to thank them for staying in the game, because if I win more than 2-3 games I quit to find another opponent.

Saying you got dismantled by an opponent is an absolute falsity. It is just the opposite, that opponent is actually piecing you together as a better player.

Now if I could just do something about these anger issues...

 

[GhostUrsa]

I feel like I am probably older than most in the gaming community, and have some advice to offer. Copy/Pasta from another thread:

And I was just about to copy over my reply from that thread.

Not sure if I should now. But long story short, I'd recommend looking into different meditation techniques for the jitters. I learned a deep breathing one during my school days for performing in front of big crowds that works for me. With practice, what used to take me a few minutes can now be used fairly fast. I've even used it during a match when nerves or anger start to get the better of me.

When it comes to adapting to battle, your own mind can be your biggest opponent if you let it.

 

[dahuterschuter]

I make angry posts on SmashBoards, possibly calling the characters that the opponents beat me with OP.

 

[MarioMeteor]

I stop playing and go read Artemis Fowl. Then I come back and kick ass again.

 

[AlextheTwin]

It's so wierd, FG seems to be really streaky for me. This weekend I only lost twice out of 30+ matches. But last week I lost around half my matches. I guess it's just the luck factor. Sometimes you get a lot of good players, sometimes you don't.

I try and learn from losing streaks by saving the video and watching it later. Try to figure out what I could have done different. It's painful rewatching myself get my butt kicked...but it helps me get better for sure.

 

[Jae]

if i get bodied really hard, then i save the replay(s) and watch thoroughly at what i did wrong

 

[roymustang1990-]

Best thing to do go over your saved replays of your losing matches and ask yourself,what you could or couldn't had done to better combat that situation. I know for myself,I always tend to make crucial errors a lot of the time at the worst of situations when I go through my replays.

 

[PixelPerfect]

When I get on a losing streak, I usually quit. I find that I usually play worse if I am constantly playing so a break usually helps me clear my mind. When I'm winning, I keep playing since I just get that feeling of greatness and I want to keep that going.

 

[EthanSnackUy221]

Every time I would lose a relatively close game I would either say good game or my emotions would get the best of me and say you got lucky and I could’ve have won. I also have tags where it says this character sucks whenever I lost to that character. Especially really bad characters you don’t see on Wii U like Link, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Samus and my number one most annoying character to play against in the low tier, Kirby. It just pisses me off when I lose to such terrible characters that I don’t know why players use them it just irks me inside. So whenever I lose to those characters I say I Hate Kirby, I hate samus, Dorfsux, Linksux, And Puffsux. And I leave the match without giving them a chance to respond. And sometimes they say lol or roll more just to kick me while I’m down. I used the tag SNACK and I had a losing record and finally reached 500 at 270 wins and 270 losses but after that I had like 30 wins and 70 losses after that. Then I changed my tag to SMIFF just something I came up with and my playing really improved and I maintained a winning record for a really long time I had 70 more wins than losses, but after that, I had a ten match loosing streak.I had some matches that I could’ve won against a Falco main. And matches where I got my ass handed to me against a Sonic, a Meta Knight, and even Wii Fit Trainer. I was really fed up with it even though I still had my winning record. I just had to walk away and calm down. And I was doing very after that loosing streak. And all of a sudden I was out of sync.

 

[Cyn]

Please do not bump old threads.