Working on the ego

The Dojo
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I just read this article.

I usually don’t ask for runbacks unless I want to learn the match up (depending on my mood).

But I experienced this in tournament. While online I can get salty, results doesn’t hurt that much in comparison.

So far I only remember one person asking for a runback and I didn’t want to play him because he was the “nutty” type which I don’t enjoy playing much but… Whatever! No one plays the game the same way and he really insisted.

I ended playing with him and it was actually a fun set to spend some time. But so far I haven’t had ‘offensive’ runback requests. Which, it’s cool xD

And about the ego… it’s hard losing (being realistict I was quite a winner in KI1 and 2, hardly got the chance to fight more skilled players ) but I would never find fun just playing lower skilled levels or just the matches I know I can win.
Still, reality hit hard when I tried to play other fighthing games with bigger audience and better players. I struggled, but I got decent. Better than nothing.

Of course I would love to have a 95% ratio, but I’m not that godlike or have AI reactions. And I don’t go top tiers :rofl:…Still,we are talking about fighters, there’s always a winner and a loser, and if we play this genre we have to deal with it and learn from it too, why not?

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I’ll give this article a read. I suggest you guys do too. @TheNinjaOstrich @oTigerSpirit @MandrillManiac @ZTRAINOVER9000 @lHagenl @STORM179 @Infilament @SneerfulWater57 @WrathOfFulgore @EctopicILLusion

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I don’t know why you tagged me but this is a good article.

Thanks man.

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I’d wager the person ranting on social media was LTG :wink: lol KI scene never got as bad as SF or some of the others, although it did get toxic, but there are plenty of people willing to help. Moreso than other games, you just have to look for them.

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I absolutley hate LTG… I dont wish harm on peopel but he is one excption Id like to see some of his recipients of his mouth just beat the hell out of him.

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Good article. I actually suffered from this during Early season 3, when Kim came out. I was determined to be the best with my inflated ego. It wasn’t until getting beat over and over that I realized that I was looking at it wrong, and my own ego was holding me back. Instead of “I know I can beat him! I’m better than this!”, I had to look at it like “It was a good match! I wonder what I could learn from this?”

Being the best is still a goal, but defeat is the first step to a better player. :slight_smile:

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A good read, would recommend to anyone who plays fighting games.

I try not be a player run by ego. Usually I can keep it in check. If I lose, well I lose. I must have done something wrong, no one else to blame. (Looking back, sometimes it seems like I am driven by it at times or sound like I am…probably due to having a lot of success online, but either way I try not to be)

I remember scores from sets and love to prove myself against familiar opponents but for me it’s all about seeing who is able to grow stronger faster. I’m interested in how it will play again and how I can improve form last time. If I lose again, well I just gotta train more.

However, I think I have a problem with easily broken ego and pride. Having a superior beat me and tell you that you’ll never reach him made me break a little. I ended up in a slump for a short while, my reactions being slower, execution became worse and I started to continually hate that I wasn’t getting better. Ehh, you know, stuff I know I shouldn’t be thinking. Hell, I almost wanted to stop playing Eagle. (Good thing that didn’t happen) I gotta work on that physiological part of the game (not only on this aspect but others as well).

In news not regarding myself, I feel that a large majority of casual players have a situation of this high ego. I’ll be messing around in ranked, play some characters I usually don’t play, and then I lose to some silver or something. Ok, lol that was funny, but then the guy proceeds to message me saying how bad I am, blah blah blah, all the usual s*** talk. It seems like these type of players love to hype themselves up, and boost their ego as much as possible, it’s also pretty obvious that they won’t go for a rematch. Maybe they should read something like this. Would help a lot of people I feel.

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Haha, I can’t believe those persons! That’s a perfect example of players I really don’t care to play, because of their attitude. Such thing haven’t happened to me with “strangers”. But I did have unplayable matches with lag and players feeling great about it sending messages.
I don’t feel good for random players out because of lag, not something to be proud, but that’s online and if you go for the points it’s okay from time to time, until I come across a player I know I’ll have an interesting match (even I win or lose).
Still, I usually strive to improve my game in every possible situation. Oh, and something really important, I should also play for fun, that’s for real the best aspect of the game. Don’t know why I’m forgetting that.

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Great article! Thx for the link

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The more I play, the more my ego gets inflated. Like “I play this game for so long, i can’t just lose like a bich”. I observe this and can’t stop this. And when I get on a loss streak I get frustrated fast.

It only occurs when I fight randoms from matchmaking. When I play with people I know or friends, losses and even tbags don’t affect me.

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I’m always up for reading things relating to fighting games, though i wonder why Dul named me. Oh well, i’m always good to dive deeper into how to be better.

From my perspective, i agree with a lot of points made in this article. A lot of them seem to mirror my state of mind i try to do for both fighting games and for my profession. In my profession (chef/caterer), i made a point to keep my ego out of it because it would serve me no greater good.

There’s a specific bit i want to point out. Around midway through the article, the author makes this point …

…I’m not against running it back against players who beat you, or accepting rematch requests from players whom I’ve beaten. The motives for these runbacks must be evaluated, however. If you are serious about these games, you should endeavor to make the time you spend playing these games productive.

I used to think that the fact that diligent playing with a purpose on becoming better fufilled that. But i was educated by both my time on this forum as well as something that Wheels said that’s kinda stuck with me. I think he was talking about training mode habits or how to level up your game and someone in the chat commented that they play KI religiously in order to get better. He replied that that doesn’t matter at all. What matters is how you apply that time. If your AA game is weak, are you spending time in games to address it specifically? If your defense is suspect, are you spending time in games to address it specifically? Things like that.

No one wants to tell themselves that they are horrible at an aspect of their game or even the game in general. Much like the article makes note of, it’s easier and often more common to place that blame on outside factors like lag, crowd noise, broken characters/moves, etc, rather than one’s self.

I’m guilty of this as well. Nowadays, i play sets really against either players that i cannot seem to figure out or characters that have tools to beat mine. I lose a lot now, and i am not immune from occastional thoughts or opinions that it’s a fault of something other than myself, or just a good deal of salt. It’s worse to sit and watch replays of the matches.

For the average gamer, i feel like a thought in the article above is just going to fall on deaf ears though. It feels like the ‘culture’ of following the leader is more prevalent. So when someone of some note says ‘xyz is a broken character’ and they lose to said character, it’s not about how they can adapt and grow, it’s about ‘this character is too good and needs to be nerfed.’ And sometimes, the noteworthy player or personality doesn’t even need to come into play. Clearly its never about themselves (or ourselves, rather) and needing to learn. But for better and for worse, that might be why there’s such a big gap in crossing from a decent casual player to a more dangerous, competitive player.

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I hate it when that happens! lol… you get matched against a low tier so you use a less familiar character. then they happen to beat you and act as if they just dethroned the champ of the world. They Tbag and leave

Oh man that gets me riled up every time it happens!

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I was humbled in this game quite early from day one so my ego has always been pretty much in check. I was not a person to go into dojo mode and try things out before I played people. It was pure trial by fire with repeated butt kickings in ranked by better players until I started to figure things out. I lost A LOT during the early days of ranked but I was determined to get better with Thunder at the time.

Now when I play someone I typically get two reactions: When it’s someone lower ranked then me its “Well I am probably going to win but we will see what happens” and if its someone with a higher rank than me and a pro star “Well I’m probably going to get my butt kicked. Lets see if I can at least do well and maybe win one match”.

I haven’t read the article yet but I will when I get a chance.

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It’s beat to just laugh at people like that. The funniest is when you run into them again multiple times and they quit out immediately.

This article is true. I’ve beaten people who dont improve because their ego has them convinced they’re great already. I don’t know a top player who wasn’t really open to suggestions even from someone that isn’t better than them. You’re never too good to learn something new.

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Maybe they don’t want to be zoned out with omen :smirk:
I can’t believe some players quit on you like that. The grinding for points is real

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Indeed. You and Amenty showed to me that Eagle is a character to be respected. I was so wrong about him, I thought that Eagle was bottom tier. Now I realize that his pressure is great. I watched the last set that @ItzTymeToDul posted in his channel, was really entertaining to watch your Eagle in action.

@Thread: Well, I get my ■■■ rekt all the time by good players, my ego already was destroyed since when I started to play online matches :rofl: I thought that I wasn’t talented to play KI, thought about stop for good, and thought that Omen sucks! Like @FallibleJoker14 I thought about drop Omen for good (my main and only character actually), but then I realized that the only one who sucks here is me, the character is good. I got frustrated when I realized that I had a long road to walk in this game if I wanted to be good. It’s not that I don’t get salty sometimes with some jerks, I just think that when you are a casual you are less affected by this ego-hurting stuff. When I started to play online matches I really tried to be good, now I just play to have some fun :grinning:

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I enjoyed this article, it summarizes the author’s personal experience with his ego as a factor in competitive fighting games. More importantly, it emphasizes the impact that ego has on gamers as a whole and how that develops our ability to learn and our reactions.

I liked this quote most “[Ego] can propel us toward great things when we have to prove ourselves capable, but it can also be our greatest detriment”. I acknowledge that ego has been a critical part of my learning, as I have told the story of my first online experiences a few times. I wanted to win, only cared about winning, until I learned that losing was just as or even more important than winning. Part of it is what we learn to avoid losing again and the other is how we react to losing.

Over the course of the last few days of grinding on ranked, I have experienced two examples of how someone managed to deal with their ego versus someone who was genuinely offended because I hurt their pride by simply offering feedback.

I’ll add context to provide clarification. Also, not sure why but the messages start from the bottom up.

Good Games
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This was a ranked match with someone who had two pro stars. My opponent was playing RAAM as I used Jago. I lost convincingly the first round, I was baited into DPing, I whiffed several moves, but more importantly, I played to RAAM’s strengths. The second round I barely managed to scrape by when my opponent made a critical mistake of counter breaking that led to heavy damage and good positioning where I outranged RAAM. The final set I learned from the effectiveness of zoning so I played to that strength. It was still close, especially early on, but I managed to make it seem heavily in my favor. I DP’d jump-ins while putting pressure from a distance using projectiles. I ended up winning via chip damage. Not the cleanest win and considerably a lame victory in terms of stylistic points, but it was a win against a two-time top 32 player. After receiving a message, I immediately thought he was going to be furious because of the method of my victory. Needless to say, his response was appreciated.

Bad Games ex2
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Bad Games ex1
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The opponent here I faced in Ranked using Jago against Fulgore. I will summarize this match in two words for two instances; “jump” and “spam”. My opponent had the tendency to jump in on everything. I’d say 1/9 times he was successful in landing a hit, the others he would be met with a nasty Jago anti-air. It was done to a point where I questioned what the opponent was doing and if they assumed that their pride would resolve them of being tagged, it didn’t. The spam part comes from their obnoxious use of projectiles. I don’t mind being zoned, as I just mentioned, I won by zoning. The problem here was that my opponent had a linear style with no attempt of varying their zoning. They spammed two fireballs, dash/jump away, and used heavy laser beam. They would teleport when I got close enough and repeated the attempt. Anytime my opponent did attempt to pressure me, it would always start with a jump-in. I’ll admit that I was a bit annoyed. Not because of how the players, but because I couldn’t fathom why they were so intent on playing this nonfunctioning linear style. Ultimately I justified his actions because they worked on people at a lower level, but I had hoped my criticism would allow them to at least rationalize changing their approach at a higher level.

Ego. It truly is something fascinating as it can either consume someones methodology in fighting games, or act as a level of inspiration, but never surpassing the barrier of over-confidence.

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