I used to play various video games semi professionally, both shooters and rts, enough to make a "living" while I finished school and uni. It was a fun time, had some great people to play with, but now I feel like its biting me in the ass in multiple ways.
I either am, or quickly get pretty good at just about every pvp video game that I tried and enjoyed so far. Now with less time I am far from being truly great at any of them, ofc, but still quite up there. For example I picked up playing overwatch a little under 6month ago because friends of mine are playing it. While I played counterstrike at a pretty high level, overwatch is quite different in that it is not as skill based and has some other stuff to learn, so I started out pretty much at the bottom in silver to gold. Fast forward, I am now around grandmaster 2-4 on all roles which is like masters in sc2 / SMFC in cs2. So not the highest regular rank, but decent. I wouldn't even say I enjoy overwatch a lot, but its still a shooter, so I still got that "I could have gone pro if it wasn't for my bad knee" buff.
Problem is: The highest ranked person from my friends is low to mid diamond, which is a whole division apart from my current rank, and generally the overwatch ranking system is quite poor so the difference in skill is even harsher than you would imagine the higher you go. So in other words, when we play together we have lobbies that are absolutely unwinnable because its 5 people closer to my skill level vs me and my buddies, get stomped for enough games for me to derank to the point where I just hard carry the games and 1 or 2 of my friends can somewhat hold their own. I don't mind it as much from a game perspective since I either can flex, or can work on my fundamentals, even if we lose. But its def rough for most of my friends, especially in the games where we get stomped the mood often gets a bit salty. I do want to spend time with them, but it sucks when I know its a miserable experience for them at some point. And it fucks up their ranking too, because when we are done playing and were in the winning phase, then they have a bunch of games ahead of them where they will most likely be the weakest link.
Its like that with pretty much any pvp-game we tried so far that I wouldn't mind playing for the game itself, but most of them have moved away from playing pve/coop games. The only games where we are more compatible skill wise is games that I do not really enjoy playing and that are very much outside my wheelhouse. Like deadlock, we are at similar skill level there / I would say I am probably the weakest link in our team there - but I really do not enjoy any moba game, and that game has absolutely nothing for me to enjoy. I do not like mobas, I find the whole world/artstyle of deadlock super not to be my type, I don't think anything in the game meshes well design wise... there is just absolutely nothing there for me, except for my friends. I genuinely only play it with them for the match banter and the post match/pre match talks just to be with the guys, gals, and nonbinary pal.
Since we are now scattered all around europe/in some cases even across the world, video games is something we all enjoy and that should work great for spending time. Except for the skill issue. Either I am too good at the game and my friends suffer for it, or its a game I don't really enjoy so we end up more compatible in skill, but I am basically just playing it so I can spend time with them.
It just sucks and I am often worried that we will eventually stop playing much together over this, and I find it incredibly frustrating. Being good at video games is something I took some pride in but the last few years have really turned it a bit sour. I just wish my friends would come back to enjoy more comfy pve/coop games so we can play together like we used to without any of us having to just power through it.
I tend to be quite harsh on myself, but my ability in video games is something I used to be pretty happy about and have a healthy relationship with. I was never over competitive where I beat myself up over losses, or even really wanted to win. I just really enjoyed being competent at it and getting better at it. With other things I often fall into pretty toxic patterns where if I am good at it, I feel like I am just living up to what is to be expected. And if not, then any urge of justifying it quickly leads to a pretty self destructive counter reaction where I feel like I am making excuse and are failing to meet basic expectations. I trivialise my successes and beat myself up over failures. For example, I also did martial arts for quite some time, with a similar enjoyment to video games and also quite decent match performances. But nowadays obviously I am shit at it due to no longer training, but even typing this up I can feel the inner voice going "buddy, you did this for over a decade, doesn't matter that you haven't trained you can't tell me you used to be good if you are this shit at it now? No need to make excuses about training, just say you are shit at it". I never had that with video games. I have no ill feelings towards the fact that I am nowhere near the level I used to play cs at, but now I slowly get this new frustration of feeling like I would be better off if I was worse at playing them. And contact with my friends, people who I greatly value and respect, shows me the stuff they sometimes struggle with, or what they appreciate, and that both keeps my negative attitude towards what I do in check, but also keeps me from going too hard on myself because I know if I am slipping somewhere they will tell me. Which makes me worried about a bad feedback loop.
I hate being whiny, but its just not fair that something that used to be pretty good and worth putting a lot of effort into (since it allowed me to pay my bills in a pretty enjoyable way, and probably the best way at the time) is now fucking me over. I am not a very social person. I am not an introvert or shut in, if I happen to spend time with people I have no problem with it. But it is rare for me to actively want to spend time with people, most of the times I rather do my own thing except with the people that I call my friends. I did not have a very sheltered childhood, which forced learning various things and acquiring some traits and behavioural patterns that ended up either being more of a problem once I entered the fully sheltered and stable adult life, or just becoming completely irrelevant. Something I often feel very disappointed or frustrated about, and now this is hitting pretty much the same nerve.
And I suck at casually staying in contact. I already started tracking when I last kept in contact with those friends where its needed, basically I have friend KPIs now that make sure I never fall below various thresholds of keeping contact with various friends. It works, but its also... well work. I just wanna go back to when staying in contact just happened. Live nearby so you just randomly drop by, be in the same lectures, be super excited about the same games so you want to play them together and that is how you automatically spend time together.
Adult life just keeps on sucking more and more in that regard. And the whole friend KPI thing really makes me feel ashamed a little. It feels like everyone who somewhat got their shit together just keeps in touch automatically, and it makes me feel like some weirdo. Just get me back to my uni days man, the struggle years felt more like I belong where as now I feel like some primitive guy from the jungle dropped into a easy 9-5 white collar secure job life. Oh you used to hunt horned beasts with pointy stick for food? Thats cool and all, but please wash that shit of your face, go down to the super market, and forage something from the veggie isle? And maybe just grab the phone and call your buddy you dumbfuck. You know how to make shelter and bring fire? Yeah me too buddy, its called "closing the door/windows" and "turn on the heating".
EPT
