Since there's a lot of new players to the MK and Injustice community, and undoubtedly for some players, (insert current NRS game here) may be their first fighter, I would like to offer some advice. This advice applies to every type of player, regardless if you're new or not. This is PT 1 - How losing helps you get better, and it will cover: "Learning to lose" - "Controlling your emotions" - "Don't label things as cheap" - "Playing better players"
Learn to lose:
On my journey to evolving into a high level player (in UMK3), one of the most essential lessons I learned was learning how to lose. Sounds simple right? The most basic things that seem simple, are actually pretty tough when emotions come into play.
"Losing is part of the game. If you never lose, you're never truly tested, and never forced to grow. A loss is an opportunity to learn" - Sirlin
You have to remember, not one single person can win every round, every match. It's just unreasonable to expect that from anyone, even from the #1 player in their respective game. No one is perfect, we're all humans, and humans make mistakes. However, losing is probably the best learning tool that you can have in a fighting game. Analyze how or why you lost! I can't stress enough how important this is. Instead of getting angry or frustrated when you lose, take a step back and ask yourself why it was that you lost. Ask yourself, "What did your opponent do? How were you losing? What could you have done differently? Why were you doing the things you were doing?", etc. Once you train yourself to do this, you will slowly stop getting upset after you lose, and start learning from your loss.
Controlling your emotions:
It's completely understandable if you get upset right after you lose a match. I get that, I've been there. It's better to not get upset, but if you just can't avoid it, it's understandable. What you would do then is try and let it go. The first step would be to not put too much emotion into a single match. Your judgement will be severely crowded if you're too emotional while you're playing. Try not to think about the opponents emotions either. Don't say "Oh, my opponent is just messing with me", or "Wow, they’re turtling just to piss me off!". Another thing is the teabag or fatalities. Yes it’s obnoxious but try to not let it affect you. Your opponent may very well be trying to do these things in order to effect your mental state, but it really only works if you think that's what they’re doing. So in other words, only you can give the opponent the power to mess with your head. Instead, say to yourself, "What's their next move going to be", or "What is my next move going to be, and why". Now, these questions are kinda hard to process for a newer player. But you have to start somewhere. Just replace the negative thoughts into productive thoughts.
The players who excel the quickest and the furthest are the one's who can move past a loss after analyzing why it was that they lost. After a loss don't say, "Man, I'm so bad", or "Wow, I'm a scrub", "My opponent is too good", etc. As I said before, just ask yourself the why/how/what, work on those things, then forget about the loss.
Don't label things you can't beat as "cheap":
When your opponent does something that is working, and you haven't found a way to beat it yet, DO NOT label it as a cheap tactic. What that does is shift the responsibility away from yourself, so you don't have to find a way to beat it. It's counterproductive, and makes you sound like a scrub. Your opponent is going to do everything they can to win, and you should be doing the same. If there's indeed a tactic your opponent is using that you can't beat, go to training mode! (Current NRS game) has an amazing training mode, so you can learn a lot from it. There's rarely, if ever, a tactic that is unbeatable. So, try everything you can to get around it, defend it, or beat it.
I've also heard players label certain tactics as "boring" or certain gameplay styles as boring. For instance, I know a very common style that gets a lot of complaints is the "keep away". Not necessarily someone who is turtling, but a player who is basically running away the whole match, being very safe. It could also be a player who is zoning. You have to realize, your opponent main goal is to win, as should yours be. So, they’re going to do everything they can to win. If they’re winning by using a certain tactic, why WOULDN'T they use it? It may be the most boring, cheapest tactic in your eyes, but if they’re winning, what would stop them from using this tactic? The only tactics that are "cheap" are the one's that are banned in tournaments. And as I stated earlier, there's very, VERY rarely a move or tactic that is so good that it's banned in a tournament. So basically, anything that's tournament legal, you shouldn't be complaining about.
I've told this to players before, and a lot of the time they say "Well I just won't play that player who is using that tactic". If you're not trying to get better and just playing to play, I guess I would understand that. However, if you want to get better, that's the worst statement you can utter. What the problem is, is that you want to win. And when a player is doing something you can't win against, you want to give it a label to justify losing to it, or losing to that player in general. Instead of actually putting in the effort of finding ways to beat the tactic, it's far easier to just say that the player was playing "cheap" and refuse to play people who play like that. If you actually do want to win, earn it! Don't just play players you can easily beat, what's the point of that? You can just play the AI if you want easy matches. This brings me to my next point, play players better than you!
Playing better players:
By far the thing that I've done to improve my game the quickest was playing players far better than myself. Of course, I had to learn all of the aforementioned things before I could actually learn from losing to these players.
Playing players worse than you is never a good thing. In fact, in most cases, you'll start performing worse if you play bad players consistently. When you play easy opponents, you start falling into patterns. Patterns that work fine against these players, for any number of reasons, but don't work against better players. You don't play at your best, because you don't have to. You can just go through the motions, abusing things that aren't normally abusable.
Playing better players forces you to play better. It will force you to start punishing your opponents mistakes, because your opponent will make few of them. You also won't be as reckless against good opponents, because good players actually punish you for your mistakes as well. Where as a bad player would let you off free a lot of the time. You will also learn a lot from playing good players. From their playstyle, to what they do in certain situations, to even the combos they use. And as I said earlier, you learn from losing. If you're just beating up on noobs all day, what will you learn from that to better your game?
One last thing about learning from better players is you also can do this by watching their gameplay even if you’re not involved in the match. Aka match video footage. You can learn so much watching better players. You also can learn a lot by recording your own match videos, then watching them back and analyzing your mistakes. Basically the entire goal is to get everything you can out of your own experiences, losses, AND the experiences and losses of others.
You will learn so much more from losing, than you ever will from winning. You just have to understand that if you want to improve. Learn from your mistakes, learn from others mistakes, and try to correct these mistakes and not make them in the future. Use losing as a tool. Instead of just getting frustrated, analyze your loss and treat it as a positive learning experience instead of a negative one. Everyone loses, but the best players in the world see losing as a gift, not a curse. Follow their lead, and LEARN FROM YOUR LOSSES!
