**Need Help Regaining Competitive Spirit**

[Admiral Zhao]

Melee community, I need you like the Atlanta Falcons need psychotherapy. I sucked ass at melee again today. I played this captain falcon on nuptially, and I found myself staring at him dash dancing and then basically accepting a knee to the cranium. I don’t know if I just had l low energy today, low smash confidence, both, or I just suck, I felt like my character was under 100 times gravity wearing ****ing cinderblocks for shoes. This guy is flying around my Samus like he’s sonic the ****ing hedgehog. And not just sonic, sonic when he gets the smash ball from Brawl. That’s how much it hurt. Now granted I beat him some games, few games. I still got wrecked a lot of the time. My movement, which I thought was good, just felt lazy and sloppy. Not nearly good enough to my standards. I also felt he read me like a book.

I just feel like hating this game now, seeing how I’ve put in all this work to the point where I feel like I can steadily get better, but can’t possibly get worse, but that’s how I feel like this is going for me. I’m digressing. And there is no worse feeling than that: Going backwards. Feeling like “dam I have the ability to beat this kid, but he’s just more focused and competitive than I am.” Why is that? The original thrill of outplaying your opponent is being replaced with mindlessly spamming sex kick after sex kick and random Hugo-level charge shots. I’m just not giving a **** while also wanting to give a ****. I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but I need something to rekindle my drive to play my very best…like no one ever was. I just feel defeated. It sucks. I know I don’t actually suck, because I’ve won local tournaments before, but my confidence and competitiveness have just gone down for some reason.

If anyone has felt like this before, speak up or forever hold your peace. Thanks so much, and God bless.

 

[Ten of Nine]

This can be pretty common in any hobby or sport.

The obvious answer might be just to take a step away for a moment of two. Maybe just watch the national tournaments, or just cold turkey quit it altogether for a bit. You should really start to miss the game a lot if you were really passionate about it, if you don't well...

Maybe Melee isn't your true passion, there might be something else that grips you tighter and never gets old. I stopped playing Melee for a while, learned piano and started animating heavily. I only recently came back to Melee because I missed the fun of it and the local community.

Basically just don't force it (you might like the aesthetic of the game/community more than actually playing it yourself), try out new stuff that might replace the hole that Melee leaves. Also there are many ways to be part of the community without actually playing; maybe help the local/regional scenes grow by streaming or TO'ing, etc.

 

[Admiral Zhao]

This can be pretty common in any hobby or sport.

The obvious answer might be just to take a step away for a moment of two. Maybe just watch the national tournaments, or just cold turkey quit it altogether for a bit. You should really start to miss the game a lot if you were really passionate about it, if you don't well...

Maybe Melee isn't your true passion, there might be something else that grips you tighter and never gets old. I stopped playing Melee for a while, learned piano and started animating heavily. I only recently came back to Melee because I missed the fun of it and the local community.

Basically just don't force it (you might like the aesthetic of the game/community more than actually playing it yourself), try out new stuff that might replace the hole that Melee leaves. Also there are many ways to be part of the community without actually playing; maybe help the local/regional scenes grow by streaming or TO'ing, etc.

I have been strongly considering stepping away from the game for a while. I wasn't sure if it would accomplish anything but now I've heard that from a few people. Usually I try to do this and just cave and play again, but I will try for a longer time. Also I would love to commentate matches so maybe I'll bring a stream set up and start doing that thanks for you're kind words friend. You're really helping somebody out!

 

[bboss]

Melee community, I need you like the Atlanta Falcons need psychotherapy. I sucked *** at melee again today. I played this captain falcon on nuptially, and I found myself staring at him dash dancing and then basically accepting a knee to the cranium. I don’t know if I just had l low energy today, low smash confidence, both, or I just suck, I felt like my character was under 100 times gravity wearing ****ing cinderblocks for shoes. This guy is flying around my Samus like he’s sonic the ****ing hedgehog. And not just sonic, sonic when he gets the smash ball from Brawl. That’s how much it hurt. Now granted I beat him some games, few games. I still got wrecked a lot of the time. My movement, which I thought was good, just felt lazy and sloppy. Not nearly good enough to my standards. I also felt he read me like a book.

I just feel like hating this game now, seeing how I’ve put in all this work to the point where I feel like I can steadily get better, but can’t possibly get worse, but that’s how I feel like this is going for me. I’m digressing. And there is no worse feeling than that: Going backwards. Feeling like “dam I have the ability to beat this kid, but he’s just more focused and competitive than I am.” Why is that? The original thrill of outplaying your opponent is being replaced with mindlessly spamming sex kick after sex kick and random Hugo-level charge shots. I’m just not giving a **** while also wanting to give a ****. I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but I need something to rekindle my drive to play my very best…like no one ever was. I just feel defeated. It sucks. I know I don’t actually suck, because I’ve won local tournaments before, but my confidence and competitiveness have just gone down for some reason.

If anyone has felt like this before, speak up or forever hold your peace. Thanks so much, and God bless.

Dude I have felt the exact same way about the game before, I have even taken several weeks off because i was so frustrated. I think that even if you try to quit you will come back to it (if youve seen the keef brothers video youll know what i mean). Getting rekt can sometimes make you feel like you're horrible but this Falcon could have been anyone. My advice: keep playing smash.

 

[Raycu]

Melee community, I need you like the Atlanta Falcons need psychotherapy. I sucked *** at melee again today. I played this captain falcon on nuptially, and I found myself staring at him dash dancing and then basically accepting a knee to the cranium. I don’t know if I just had l low energy today, low smash confidence, both, or I just suck, I felt like my character was under 100 times gravity wearing ****ing cinderblocks for shoes. This guy is flying around my Samus like he’s sonic the ****ing hedgehog. And not just sonic, sonic when he gets the smash ball from Brawl. That’s how much it hurt. Now granted I beat him some games, few games. I still got wrecked a lot of the time. My movement, which I thought was good, just felt lazy and sloppy. Not nearly good enough to my standards. I also felt he read me like a book.

I just feel like hating this game now, seeing how I’ve put in all this work to the point where I feel like I can steadily get better, but can’t possibly get worse, but that’s how I feel like this is going for me. I’m digressing. And there is no worse feeling than that: Going backwards. Feeling like “dam I have the ability to beat this kid, but he’s just more focused and competitive than I am.” Why is that? The original thrill of outplaying your opponent is being replaced with mindlessly spamming sex kick after sex kick and random Hugo-level charge shots. I’m just not giving a **** while also wanting to give a ****. I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but I need something to rekindle my drive to play my very best…like no one ever was. I just feel defeated. It sucks. I know I don’t actually suck, because I’ve won local tournaments before, but my confidence and competitiveness have just gone down for some reason.

If anyone has felt like this before, speak up or forever hold your peace. Thanks so much, and God bless.

I felt something similar to this today. My hands felt off and the beautiful Taj esque (I'm exaggerating please don't think me a braggart) movement I had done yesterday disappeared. So instead I just forgot about dash dancing, I ignored it all together. Everytime I tried to bait or out maneuver this Marth I was playing I would just end up shielding what I thought would be a rising fair, and instead getting grabbed. So I said whatever, stopped trying to out maneuver him and just started wavelanding on every platform in no order. I forced him into the air and ended up taking the match (Albeit I got very lucky because he wiffed a dair and ended up sding for the last stock).

What I'm trying to get at is don't worry so much about it, if you can't predict his dash dancing, don't try, practice that at home. For now just try and do something you can do. If you play falco, laser at him to force him to stop attacking every time he starts dash dancing, if you're marth start spamming double fair and hope his timing is bad. It might be a bit scrubby, but you're no pro, you should just do what you find fun.