Mentality while playing or competing?

[nday]

HI all! Question coming from someone that has competed loosely in the past in Splatoon and other games too and decided its not for me. I'll suspect I'm in the minority here but as background, performing has always been draining no matter what I tried. I think its a combination of nerves, the feeling of losing, not progressing, and so on that get to me to where I question why I subject myself to that further. Not looking for advice to my specific situation, but hoping to open up discussion on how everyone feels.

How is your mentality when playing or competing? Are there things you've found that have helped you, is this something you even struggle with? When do you call it quits?

 

[DzNutsKong]

I'm a Smash player, and the average mentality is way, WAY worse in that game than it is here. If you talk with people about the game for long enough you'd be convinced that most of them hate it. And this is coming from someone who goes to locals where everyone is on friendlier terms with one another and people are less antagonistic towards each other. Because so many people are so complainy towards the game it's very hard for people to maintain a strong mindset if they stay especially active in the community for long enough. I've seen so many people get into this game all cheery-eyed and enjoying playing the game, actually doing genuinely pretty good, and end up hating the game because of how people talk about it. It's genuinely very sad and kind of a reason I've semi-retired from taking the game seriously.

Your mentality is by far the most important thing to how you perform at the game. If you aren't thinking straight you'll do worse, if you're distracted by tilt or something you'll do worse, and if you're even thinking about how much you don't like fighting E-Liter you'll do worse. Conversely if you're feeling confident in yourself you'll find yourself doing way crazier things than usual. Even if you don't perform well it's way easier to notice problems in your gameplan or think up better ways to tackle your current weaknesses as a player if you're in a good mood. As someone who's had lifelong tilt problems literally since the age of 4 it can be a big struggle but is extremely rewarding to manage my way past this.

I know you didn't ask for it but here's a few of the many general tips I have for dealing with mentality that I've had to come up with just for anyone reading who may need them -

• Consider playing less frequently than you currently are or taking a prolonged break, like one that's several weeks long.
• Go into playing with no expectations. Accept that winning or losing is possible because of your nerves
• Improvement is slow. If you expect results in a day you're going to be disappointed. Don't look at day-to-day tournaments for indication of if you're improving or not, and stay patient if it's taking a while to implement something.
• To the above point as well don't expect consistency. Unless you're top level there is no such thing as a player you'll always beat. There's also no such thing as a matchup you can't win though.
• Never get hung up over any kind of setback, ESPECIALLY not the smaller ones. These will exacerbate or introduce a lot of bad emotions that will make you tilted or nervous.
• If you're feeling bad, try taking a step back for a second and telling yourself that how you do here isn't going to hurt you. Nobody will look down at you for playing poorly in a week, and one bad day says nothing about your growth.
• Consider whether or not there's stuff you could change about your life as a whole if you have a bad mentality in this game. Do you need more hobbies? Even something small like not having a tidy room or not eating well. Why do you think you might be the way you are?

 

[Minty!]

Something that helps me specifically is having more than one person to be around while I play. Whether that be someone in the room, on call, or playing with me. I feel more at ease when there's someone to talk with or just be in the presence of. Managing my tilt is much more comforting when I have someone to talk to about it.