I just finished watching the KI world cup (congrats sleep). And I just got to thinking. How much I’ve grown. How much this game has grown. And all I can say is wow. Starting with the game, I joined KI midway through season 2. And I had absolutely no idea how to play, I decided to buy Jago and my ultimate goal was to get into killer league. And fast forward about a year and a half. And I’m now killer league, with 5 characters level 50. And it’s been a blast. Season 3 launch blew my mind and completely changed how the game played for me. And the new characters were amazing. Now about me. Through the year and a half playing I’ve grown Alot. Both irl and in the game. Abs the truth behind it is, I use KI to relax, not nice, lay down relax. I mean scream, and yell till my.throat hurts getting my anger and stress out. Now ive run a bunch of killer instinct tournaments, but never took part and the world cup got me thinking. I’m only 16, and I’m very good. I’m not the best but id say 70th percentile. Abs most people who are competative are 20-30 abs they have been playing their entire life. And I think to myself. I can probably make it to their point in a way shorter time period. But there are two problems. 1. I get very angry at this game, yes I play competitively. But mostly to lose stress and I lose absolutely all focus and go berserk. It’s a miracle I didn’t have a heart attack before making it to killer league. So my focus is horrible especially against cheap players who tbag and are rude etc. To summarize I have a short temper with this game and I lose my focus easily. But when I focus I truly believe I can beat anyone. Now number 2. Huge crowds make me hugely nervous. And also make me do absolutely horrible. I don’t like people watching my back or rooting for me, cause that gets me super stressed and also lose all focus. Nonetheless. Ki has grown and so have I. Ive met alot of amazing people through the game. And have even met a few people in the world cup online. And I think to myself that maybe I can grow. But yea. I believe in this game alot. And I hope it will grow bigger. Thanks ki for helping me through stuff. And thanks for making my day a little better!
Goodluck, best thing you can do to grow as a player is to learn how to control you emotions. I’d make that your primary focus. From the sounds of it, it’s probably the biggest thing holding you back. Glad you’re enjoying the game.
Competitive gaming (and I’d say fighting games in particular, not only KI) is really difficult to do if you are a short fuse person. I can speak from experience, both in myself and people I know from my local scene, that it is the fastest way to be a miserable, unhappy person. You end up hating the game, hating your character, hating your opponent, and not only will you have no chance to really get better and see your own mistakes, but it will be tough times for you in your personal life, as you’ve said.
Some people are just more susceptible to being angry when they lose or things don’t go their way, and maybe that’s a personality trait of yours. But if you want to take any game seriously, and KI in particular, you will have to just learn to try and calm down and take losses with a smile on your face. It’s definitely not easy, but there’s no other way.
Good luck on the temper stuff, OP, and I genuinely mean that. I had issues with my temper when I was your age, and I tended to vent that while gaming. Thing is, gaming competitively doesn’t exactly tend to be a release valve for whatever’s bothering you, at least that’s what I discovered.
If anything, it amplifies the anger and the frustration, especially if you have an opponent that reads you and knows they can push your buttons.
My advice, and feel free to disregard, is to find something that doesn’t just make you happy, but something that makes you feel at peace. Something that can draw the anger out of you instead of simply burying it with a contingent layer of “I’ll be okay so long as no one does something to set me off.”
Going on walks, meditating, working out, those were things that helped me and even made me a better gamer in the long run, as I could spend more time concentrating on what I did wrong and how I can improve / react differently in the future and less time being enraged by whatever my opponent did.
Anyways, sorry for the entirely unsolicited advice. Hope you keep growing as a person and continuing to enjoy KI!