As most of you know, I'm a fighting game fan and player. Ever since I was a kid I have loved fighting games. The very first fighting game I played was MK2. Now, as a kid, all I really cared about was learning the fatalities. I used to play my uncle all the time, and even though he beat me easily, I was really mostly impressed by the fact that he had every single fatality memorized. I knew some fatalities, but I never got to show off my memorization of them because I never won. And because of this, it was the very first time I was motivated to get better at a fighting game, or a video game in general.
I've always been a competitive person. I've played sports my whole life, I never could and still can't get enough of competition. When I wasn't competing in sporting activities, I was competing in video games with my Brother or my Dad. All the attributes were the same, except for the physical aspect. Keep in mind this was a very basic and casual level of competing. I was still a kid and just did random things in order to win. I had no understanding of "high level" and didn't really care to be honest. But the drive to win was still there. Even when my brother complained that I was cheap and threatened not to play me, I could not go easy on him. I didn't want to lose, or even come close to losing. This attitude has stayed with me in every competitive activity I partake in, and is still going strong to this day.
My Uncle also played MK3/UMK3. I was already familiar with MK2's game mechanics, so it was easy to transition to MK3 on a basic level. I was frustrated at first with all the differences, but soon became to love the game based off of the very same differences. I still couldn't beat my Uncle, but I practiced and practiced in hopes that I would one day beat him. I can still remember my attitude back then. I would get really frustrated when I lost because I desperately wanted to show off the fatalities I had memorized. I eventually gave up once I actually did get a win in a very close match, and I was so in shock and just relieved that I actually won, not only did I forget the fatality, I forgot to even attempt it. I think at this point I just snapped. I found myself to just start calling my Uncle cheap, and just pitched a fit when he didn't "let" me win. I still played, but the drive to get better wasn't there anymore.
Even though I've always been competitive and have always tried to be good at everything I did, I wasn't really a high level player in any video game. The first game I got good enough in to consider competing in was Halo 2. But even then my mentality wasn't what it should have been. The drive to win and be the best was there, but I still had a mental block that I didn't even realize was there. Every time I lost, I would blame lag or something other than myself. I found myself behaving just as my brother did when we were kids. I would call others cheap just because they would get the best of me. That wasn't the problem though. The problem was is that I didn't even realize I was making excuses. I had shifted the responsibility off of myself, so I never had to address my short comings. So in return, every time the same situation arised, I would lose and continue to blame lag or unfairness. Even though I had this poor attitude, I was still a good player. However, I was in a plateaued state. I couldn't get better because for one I already thought I was better than I was, and two I had a mental barrier preventing me from improving.
When the 360 was released, I had heard that there was going to be UMK3 on the XBLA to download. And that it would have online capabilities. I was really excited and couldn't wait to play. When I first got it, I looked up all of the combo's online and practiced them all with the characters I wanted to use. When I played online against other players, my main goal was to perform the combo's I had memorized. For the most part I was successful. But occasionally I would run into players where they wouldn't allow me the chance to land a combo. I would get really frustrated when this happened. So I practiced trying to land a hit on my opponent, and ways around them blocking. To look back for a moment to when I played UMK3 as a kid, there was a lot of similarities. The only difference was back then it was fatalities that motivated me to get better, now it was landing cool combo's. Actually, fatalities now would just annoy me. Since I was playing so often, I saw the same fatalities over and over and over, it got boring and stale. However, I was seeing the same combo's too. But just visually seeing the combo wasn't what made them "cool", it was the ability to land them and execute them consistently.
I played someone really good online who in their bio it had a link to a website called "www.UltimateMK.com". I visited the site and signed up to the forums. At this point I still had a scrubby attitude, and a bad attitude in general. I still wanted to play the good players though, which were basically all on the site. When I played better players, it was just fun having competitive matches. I wasn't concerned about getting better, I was just wanted to play. I figured with the game being so old, there was really no point in trying to get really good at the game. As I played, I noticed more and more that there was a lot of people playing this "old" game online. Most of the players I ran into were better than me, and the ones that weren't acted the same as I did when they lost. They would call me cheap or claim lag. I still didn't change though, not until I read about this article called "Playing To Win" that someone posted on UMK.com.
I know everyone has either read or heard about Sirlin's book on Playing To Win (http://www.sirlin.net/ptw). At the time though, not many MK players had. Actually, the majority of fighting game players in general probably have no idea who Sirlin even is to this day. The high level players though, undoubtedly have heard and/or read his book. Anyway, after reading this, it immediately changed my outlook on competitive gaming.
Even with my attitude gradually changing into the "right" one, I still wasn't performing much better in my matches. Though, instead of raging after I lost, I was analyzing why I lost and trying to not lose the same way the next time. This gradually was making me an overall better player. I just wasn't improving quickly enough with this method. One of the problems is that I didn't fully understand the game. I knew how to play, at least I thought I did. I started to research and study the ins and outs of the game. Most of this information was in the guides on UMK.com (http://ultimatemk.com/cguide.php). After understanding all of the basics, and the terminology I went to the more specific stuff. After reading the specifics of my character, I tried to apply them to my game. This helped tremendously in improving my game. This was the first time I actually "studied" a video game. The results showed too. I still wasn't improving quickly enough though.
The players I was playing weren't forcing me to play my best. I was playing players worse than me, the same or just slightly better. A lot of them had the attitude I once had, the "scrub" attitude. And as I explained this to them, in hopes that they would read Sirlins book and change their ways, they just got even more angry with me. I started to just link them to UMK.com, and to Sirlins book, and saying nothing else. The problem here was I still wasn't that good of a player, so it really wasn't enticing people to visit these sites.
After playing for about a year, I was only a little above average at UMK3. I could beat a lot of people online, but the majority that played online weren't any good. One day in a ranked match I ran into a player named "CRAZY DOMINICAN". He used Nightwolf and absolutely destroyed me in seconds. It immediately triggered my old scrubby attitude, and I sent him hatemail. He made me look like it was my first day I picked up the controller, so it's apparent why I was so angry. A few minutes later after I had calmed down, I was ashamed at how I responded. I was so used to having easy matches, I had forgotten what it was like to lose. The next day I sent an apology message, just to ease my conscious. About a week later, I got to play him again for awhile. I told myself to remain calm and to understand why I was losing and to also mimic some of the stuff he was doing. I started to do a lot better against him, but was still losing. I was working so hard to win, I questioned whether or not it was worth it. What was the point in trying to get better? Just so I can feel better? I realized that these matches with him were the most fun I've ever had in any video game. I then just made it my goal to beat CRAZY DOMINICAN in a series. I played him all the time, along with other great players like Shaney and DC HUSTLE. After a couple of months, I had gotten 10x better than I did in one whole year with a bad attitude and playing average players.
The main thing I did in order to improve was to take responsibility. One thing that a lot of people could do that would better themselves is taking responsibility. In every thing you do, if you take responsibility and analyze what you did wrong and work to fix it, you will improve as a player and as a person. This applies to everything. Stop blaming other people or 'wrong circumstances' as the problem(s). This won't help anything and in the end makes you look like a douche. If you label something that has gone wrong as someone else's fault, there will be literally no reason for you to do better in that situation next time. Because you have made an effort to make yourself feel better by shifting the blame to something else. How can you improve in anything in this life if you always have the mentality that you're perfect and you never can do anything wrong? Well, I finally realized this through playing fighting games, or more generally video games. It may sound nerdy that it took a video game to make me come to this realization, but it is what it is.
So in a sense, the first step into becoming a high level player is taking responsibility. It IS the most essential step, at least as I see it. After this long process, I was finally able to remove most the emotion I had in my matches. Instead of getting angry that I didn't win, I asked myself why I didn't win. I asked myself what I did wrong, and what my opponent did right. When I got punished for making a mistake, I just nodded instead of getting frustrated. Even though I was slowly transitioning into a high level mentality, I wasn't competing at the highest level. This was because I was only playing online.
When SF4 was released, the first major on console was Final Round (http://www.finalround.org/). Final Round is an annual fighting game tournament, that usually takes place in March. Final Round is in my state of Georgia, so I decided to check out the fighting game tournament scene for the first time. I had been to tournaments before, but they were Gamestop tournaments for Halo 2, HDR and SF4. Final Round was an entirely different beast. The room at Final Round was crowded with fighting game competitors. Before the tournament, there was hundreds of people playing casuals, money matches, and joking around with one another. The comradery was pleasant to see, and I wanted to be apart of it. When it finally got time for my match, I was really anxious and nervous. I had no one to support or cheer me on, and I was about to play my first major tournament match in a game I wasn't very good at. As I plugged in my PS3 controller, I heard some snarky comments basically calling me a scrub for using a PS3 pad. This made me more nervous, because now I wanted to win even more to shut these elitists up. The matches were very close, but in the end I lost. I was really disappointed. I waited for about 5 hours for my next match. I played a player in the losers bracket who used Cammy. I won this match easily, and he said that he hadn't played the game but for a couple of days. So even after winning I was still not pleased. I then waited several more hours for my next match, and by the time it got there, I was so exhausted mentally and physically, I basically gave up the match.
This tournament for me was to just test the waters. I wanted to see what the fighting game community was like, and play in my first major tournament. I noticed in my first match, I had played much better than I expected. So good in fact, it was the best I had ever played. I was really surprised by this considering how nervous and anxious I was. It made me really want to go to more tournaments. The only problem was, I really didn't like SF4. I still wanted to compete in UMK3, a game I really loved and was good at. The problem was, was that UMK3 is an old game. The tournament scene for UMK3 was really small, and was non-existent in my area. I thought about trying to develop a scene for it here, but the demand just wasn't there.
I started going to small, local tournaments for SF4/SSF4. I just went to compete and have fun. I did want to get better, but I really just didn't enjoy the game enough. UMK3 started to get more and more popular. It was streamed to a big audience for the ECT2 tournament. And again for Road To Evo and Seasons Beatings. This garnered a lot of interest, and the scene has been growing ever since. When NECXI came around, I really wanted to make it to Philly to compete in UMK3. A lot of great players were going to be there, and I just didn't want to miss this. With the help of a lot of users here on TYM, and on UMK/CMK.com, I was able to make it out. It was an experience I will never forget. Playing the game offline for the first time with players as good and better than myself, is nothing that can be equaled. It's the first time where I could honestly say that I was the only reason I lost. I had no excuses to hide behind, and it was great. Just in a two day time period, I leveled up drastically. My game improved so much this weekend, I was in disbelief. I ended up placing 4th in the tournament, and battled my way there fighting very good players.
I think a lot of players attitudes would change for the better if they would go to tournaments. There's literally nothing that you can blame for losing other than yourself. You will become a better player just by competing in an offline tournament environment. The atmosphere alone is so hype, that in itself is truly fun to be apart of.
Two simple steps into evolving into a better player. Taking responsibility, and going to tournaments. The research I did on the game and characters is pretty much a given. Even those these are simple enough, it took me a long to time to realize how important they were. I was once a scrub like many other players out there. Now I can honestly say I no longer have that mental handicap that prevents me from improving as a player, and ultimately as a person.
I've always been a competitive person. I've played sports my whole life, I never could and still can't get enough of competition. When I wasn't competing in sporting activities, I was competing in video games with my Brother or my Dad. All the attributes were the same, except for the physical aspect. Keep in mind this was a very basic and casual level of competing. I was still a kid and just did random things in order to win. I had no understanding of "high level" and didn't really care to be honest. But the drive to win was still there. Even when my brother complained that I was cheap and threatened not to play me, I could not go easy on him. I didn't want to lose, or even come close to losing. This attitude has stayed with me in every competitive activity I partake in, and is still going strong to this day.
My Uncle also played MK3/UMK3. I was already familiar with MK2's game mechanics, so it was easy to transition to MK3 on a basic level. I was frustrated at first with all the differences, but soon became to love the game based off of the very same differences. I still couldn't beat my Uncle, but I practiced and practiced in hopes that I would one day beat him. I can still remember my attitude back then. I would get really frustrated when I lost because I desperately wanted to show off the fatalities I had memorized. I eventually gave up once I actually did get a win in a very close match, and I was so in shock and just relieved that I actually won, not only did I forget the fatality, I forgot to even attempt it. I think at this point I just snapped. I found myself to just start calling my Uncle cheap, and just pitched a fit when he didn't "let" me win. I still played, but the drive to get better wasn't there anymore.
Even though I've always been competitive and have always tried to be good at everything I did, I wasn't really a high level player in any video game. The first game I got good enough in to consider competing in was Halo 2. But even then my mentality wasn't what it should have been. The drive to win and be the best was there, but I still had a mental block that I didn't even realize was there. Every time I lost, I would blame lag or something other than myself. I found myself behaving just as my brother did when we were kids. I would call others cheap just because they would get the best of me. That wasn't the problem though. The problem was is that I didn't even realize I was making excuses. I had shifted the responsibility off of myself, so I never had to address my short comings. So in return, every time the same situation arised, I would lose and continue to blame lag or unfairness. Even though I had this poor attitude, I was still a good player. However, I was in a plateaued state. I couldn't get better because for one I already thought I was better than I was, and two I had a mental barrier preventing me from improving.
When the 360 was released, I had heard that there was going to be UMK3 on the XBLA to download. And that it would have online capabilities. I was really excited and couldn't wait to play. When I first got it, I looked up all of the combo's online and practiced them all with the characters I wanted to use. When I played online against other players, my main goal was to perform the combo's I had memorized. For the most part I was successful. But occasionally I would run into players where they wouldn't allow me the chance to land a combo. I would get really frustrated when this happened. So I practiced trying to land a hit on my opponent, and ways around them blocking. To look back for a moment to when I played UMK3 as a kid, there was a lot of similarities. The only difference was back then it was fatalities that motivated me to get better, now it was landing cool combo's. Actually, fatalities now would just annoy me. Since I was playing so often, I saw the same fatalities over and over and over, it got boring and stale. However, I was seeing the same combo's too. But just visually seeing the combo wasn't what made them "cool", it was the ability to land them and execute them consistently.
I played someone really good online who in their bio it had a link to a website called "www.UltimateMK.com". I visited the site and signed up to the forums. At this point I still had a scrubby attitude, and a bad attitude in general. I still wanted to play the good players though, which were basically all on the site. When I played better players, it was just fun having competitive matches. I wasn't concerned about getting better, I was just wanted to play. I figured with the game being so old, there was really no point in trying to get really good at the game. As I played, I noticed more and more that there was a lot of people playing this "old" game online. Most of the players I ran into were better than me, and the ones that weren't acted the same as I did when they lost. They would call me cheap or claim lag. I still didn't change though, not until I read about this article called "Playing To Win" that someone posted on UMK.com.
I know everyone has either read or heard about Sirlin's book on Playing To Win (http://www.sirlin.net/ptw). At the time though, not many MK players had. Actually, the majority of fighting game players in general probably have no idea who Sirlin even is to this day. The high level players though, undoubtedly have heard and/or read his book. Anyway, after reading this, it immediately changed my outlook on competitive gaming.
Even with my attitude gradually changing into the "right" one, I still wasn't performing much better in my matches. Though, instead of raging after I lost, I was analyzing why I lost and trying to not lose the same way the next time. This gradually was making me an overall better player. I just wasn't improving quickly enough with this method. One of the problems is that I didn't fully understand the game. I knew how to play, at least I thought I did. I started to research and study the ins and outs of the game. Most of this information was in the guides on UMK.com (http://ultimatemk.com/cguide.php). After understanding all of the basics, and the terminology I went to the more specific stuff. After reading the specifics of my character, I tried to apply them to my game. This helped tremendously in improving my game. This was the first time I actually "studied" a video game. The results showed too. I still wasn't improving quickly enough though.
The players I was playing weren't forcing me to play my best. I was playing players worse than me, the same or just slightly better. A lot of them had the attitude I once had, the "scrub" attitude. And as I explained this to them, in hopes that they would read Sirlins book and change their ways, they just got even more angry with me. I started to just link them to UMK.com, and to Sirlins book, and saying nothing else. The problem here was I still wasn't that good of a player, so it really wasn't enticing people to visit these sites.
After playing for about a year, I was only a little above average at UMK3. I could beat a lot of people online, but the majority that played online weren't any good. One day in a ranked match I ran into a player named "CRAZY DOMINICAN". He used Nightwolf and absolutely destroyed me in seconds. It immediately triggered my old scrubby attitude, and I sent him hatemail. He made me look like it was my first day I picked up the controller, so it's apparent why I was so angry. A few minutes later after I had calmed down, I was ashamed at how I responded. I was so used to having easy matches, I had forgotten what it was like to lose. The next day I sent an apology message, just to ease my conscious. About a week later, I got to play him again for awhile. I told myself to remain calm and to understand why I was losing and to also mimic some of the stuff he was doing. I started to do a lot better against him, but was still losing. I was working so hard to win, I questioned whether or not it was worth it. What was the point in trying to get better? Just so I can feel better? I realized that these matches with him were the most fun I've ever had in any video game. I then just made it my goal to beat CRAZY DOMINICAN in a series. I played him all the time, along with other great players like Shaney and DC HUSTLE. After a couple of months, I had gotten 10x better than I did in one whole year with a bad attitude and playing average players.
The main thing I did in order to improve was to take responsibility. One thing that a lot of people could do that would better themselves is taking responsibility. In every thing you do, if you take responsibility and analyze what you did wrong and work to fix it, you will improve as a player and as a person. This applies to everything. Stop blaming other people or 'wrong circumstances' as the problem(s). This won't help anything and in the end makes you look like a douche. If you label something that has gone wrong as someone else's fault, there will be literally no reason for you to do better in that situation next time. Because you have made an effort to make yourself feel better by shifting the blame to something else. How can you improve in anything in this life if you always have the mentality that you're perfect and you never can do anything wrong? Well, I finally realized this through playing fighting games, or more generally video games. It may sound nerdy that it took a video game to make me come to this realization, but it is what it is.
So in a sense, the first step into becoming a high level player is taking responsibility. It IS the most essential step, at least as I see it. After this long process, I was finally able to remove most the emotion I had in my matches. Instead of getting angry that I didn't win, I asked myself why I didn't win. I asked myself what I did wrong, and what my opponent did right. When I got punished for making a mistake, I just nodded instead of getting frustrated. Even though I was slowly transitioning into a high level mentality, I wasn't competing at the highest level. This was because I was only playing online.
When SF4 was released, the first major on console was Final Round (http://www.finalround.org/). Final Round is an annual fighting game tournament, that usually takes place in March. Final Round is in my state of Georgia, so I decided to check out the fighting game tournament scene for the first time. I had been to tournaments before, but they were Gamestop tournaments for Halo 2, HDR and SF4. Final Round was an entirely different beast. The room at Final Round was crowded with fighting game competitors. Before the tournament, there was hundreds of people playing casuals, money matches, and joking around with one another. The comradery was pleasant to see, and I wanted to be apart of it. When it finally got time for my match, I was really anxious and nervous. I had no one to support or cheer me on, and I was about to play my first major tournament match in a game I wasn't very good at. As I plugged in my PS3 controller, I heard some snarky comments basically calling me a scrub for using a PS3 pad. This made me more nervous, because now I wanted to win even more to shut these elitists up. The matches were very close, but in the end I lost. I was really disappointed. I waited for about 5 hours for my next match. I played a player in the losers bracket who used Cammy. I won this match easily, and he said that he hadn't played the game but for a couple of days. So even after winning I was still not pleased. I then waited several more hours for my next match, and by the time it got there, I was so exhausted mentally and physically, I basically gave up the match.
This tournament for me was to just test the waters. I wanted to see what the fighting game community was like, and play in my first major tournament. I noticed in my first match, I had played much better than I expected. So good in fact, it was the best I had ever played. I was really surprised by this considering how nervous and anxious I was. It made me really want to go to more tournaments. The only problem was, I really didn't like SF4. I still wanted to compete in UMK3, a game I really loved and was good at. The problem was, was that UMK3 is an old game. The tournament scene for UMK3 was really small, and was non-existent in my area. I thought about trying to develop a scene for it here, but the demand just wasn't there.
I started going to small, local tournaments for SF4/SSF4. I just went to compete and have fun. I did want to get better, but I really just didn't enjoy the game enough. UMK3 started to get more and more popular. It was streamed to a big audience for the ECT2 tournament. And again for Road To Evo and Seasons Beatings. This garnered a lot of interest, and the scene has been growing ever since. When NECXI came around, I really wanted to make it to Philly to compete in UMK3. A lot of great players were going to be there, and I just didn't want to miss this. With the help of a lot of users here on TYM, and on UMK/CMK.com, I was able to make it out. It was an experience I will never forget. Playing the game offline for the first time with players as good and better than myself, is nothing that can be equaled. It's the first time where I could honestly say that I was the only reason I lost. I had no excuses to hide behind, and it was great. Just in a two day time period, I leveled up drastically. My game improved so much this weekend, I was in disbelief. I ended up placing 4th in the tournament, and battled my way there fighting very good players.
I think a lot of players attitudes would change for the better if they would go to tournaments. There's literally nothing that you can blame for losing other than yourself. You will become a better player just by competing in an offline tournament environment. The atmosphere alone is so hype, that in itself is truly fun to be apart of.
Two simple steps into evolving into a better player. Taking responsibility, and going to tournaments. The research I did on the game and characters is pretty much a given. Even those these are simple enough, it took me a long to time to realize how important they were. I was once a scrub like many other players out there. Now I can honestly say I no longer have that mental handicap that prevents me from improving as a player, and ultimately as a person.
