Gaming rage and anger management - please help - Page 12
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MatrixX
United States54 Posts
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Shadowbite
United States16 Posts
I want you to know that you are not alone. I've struggled with similar rage issues while playing Sc2. And to the people just saying stop it.... that is pretty terrible advice. Even Day9 who comes across as extremely chill and easy going has talked about smashing keyboards and hitting things. The thing that I find interesting is that like you, I'm a very chill and mellow person in just about every aspect of my life. I don't typically get mad very often. I'm a very calm and go with the flow type of guy. I'm a platinum protoss player that started as bronze. I'll probably never achieve masters rank but I do feel that I've come a long way and have enjoyed learning the game and improving. I have smashed my keyboard (but luckily never broken it), punched my chair and my desk so hard that it hurt, thrown objects around the room, and screamed out obscenities. It's definitely a competitive rage. The things that set me off are when I feel that I should have fun. Like if the opponent did an all in which I held effectively and then he or she proceeded to win anyway. It's a lot of anger at myself that I made stupid decisions and totally should have won. Another thing is when I feel relatively helpless in a game situation. Like I saw mass mutas a bit too late, so I'm struggling to defend and the zerg keeps making me cancel my 3rd base and just harassing the hell out of my mineral lines and I feel like there just isn't anything I can do. To try to cope with my rage issues, I've tried taking a break from the game, playing other modes (free for all, 3v3) etc, playing off race in unranked, playing other games, playing sports (I try to play volleyball at least 3 times a week), seeking coaching from higher level players, and trying to just take lots of deep breaths when I lose and start feeling angry. I definitely feel that I rage way less frequently than I used to in WOL. Best of luck Lauriel and please keep us informed on how things go and what you end up trying. | ||
Technique
Netherlands1542 Posts
Go to a psychiatrist to fix whatever issues you got. Excuse the blunt reply, but reading through this topic you would almost think this is ''normal''... it's not. | ||
Lauriel
United States108 Posts
On May 09 2013 18:46 Technique wrote: Nothing to do with sc2/games... now it's games/keyboards you rage on... next thing it's your girlfriend/wife... Go to a psychiatrist to fix whatever issues you got. Excuse the blunt reply, but reading through this topic you would almost think this is ''normal''... it's not. Hmm...I've never actually hit another human being out of anger, so I don't think that's likely. Also, nothing else makes me rage like this, so I'm pretty sure it has something to do with SC2. | ||
caelym
United States6421 Posts
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Lauriel
United States108 Posts
On May 09 2013 18:27 Shadowbite wrote: Hey Lauriel, I want you to know that you are not alone. I've struggled with similar rage issues while playing Sc2. And to the people just saying stop it.... that is pretty terrible advice. Even Day9 who comes across as extremely chill and easy going has talked about smashing keyboards and hitting things. The thing that I find interesting is that like you, I'm a very chill and mellow person in just about every aspect of my life. I don't typically get mad very often. I'm a very calm and go with the flow type of guy. I'm a platinum protoss player that started as bronze. I'll probably never achieve masters rank but I do feel that I've come a long way and have enjoyed learning the game and improving. I have smashed my keyboard (but luckily never broken it), punched my chair and my desk so hard that it hurt, thrown objects around the room, and screamed out obscenities. It's definitely a competitive rage. The things that set me off are when I feel that I should have fun. Like if the opponent did an all in which I held effectively and then he or she proceeded to win anyway. It's a lot of anger at myself that I made stupid decisions and totally should have won. Another thing is when I feel relatively helpless in a game situation. Like I saw mass mutas a bit too late, so I'm struggling to defend and the zerg keeps making me cancel my 3rd base and just harassing the hell out of my mineral lines and I feel like there just isn't anything I can do. To try to cope with my rage issues, I've tried taking a break from the game, playing other modes (free for all, 3v3) etc, playing off race in unranked, playing other games, playing sports (I try to play volleyball at least 3 times a week), seeking coaching from higher level players, and trying to just take lots of deep breaths when I lose and start feeling angry. I definitely feel that I rage way less frequently than I used to in WOL. Best of luck Lauriel and please keep us informed on how things go and what you end up trying. Tonight I played a few games before bed. I went 4-3. During each game, I said "gl hf." At the end of the game, if I lost, I said "gg." After each loss, I asked myself what happened, and identified it. Two of the losses were to the same thing (templar too clumped for easy EMP), so I made a mental note to be careful to split, especially when engaging. I also took a 1-2 minute break between each game to take a few breaths, and make sure that I closed the book on the game I just played before queueing again. So far so good - my mindset was pretty easygoing each game. We'll see what happens. | ||
eonDE
Canada371 Posts
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Gben592
United Kingdom281 Posts
On May 09 2013 09:01 Lauriel wrote: It depends. Losing several games in a row and often times to cheeses or strategies that prevent me from practicing what I want can set it off. That's the biggest thing. "...prevents me from practising..." Cheese and all in's are all part of the game. You should know and be able to deal with them too. If your against someone and their cheesing you... your still practising - just practising how to deal with cheese. All strats are viable and part of the game, you can't just expect everyone to play how you want them too ![]() Also make sure that whenever you lose you approach the loss from the point of view of "Ok cool, I know what to do next time, next match i'll [scout better/hit that timing/ etc etc etc ] " Losses are how you learn! | ||
anycolourfloyd
Australia524 Posts
you should try lowering your expectations. play some stupid 4v4s. 6pool like 15 games in a row so that you rape your rank to a point where games aren't do or die. grab a beer while you play. mentally commit to the prospect of losing the game before you start. that approach won't make you a better player, it will definitely make you a worse player. however, you're playing the game for fun, so once you know you're not trying your hardest, it's easier to accept being bad. extreme psychological band-aid solution, but it works, lolol. | ||
ImperialFist
790 Posts
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Xapti
Canada2473 Posts
On May 09 2013 18:51 Lauriel wrote: At the end of the game, if I lost, I said "gg." While I don't think it would significantly help or hinder your situation, I personally dislike this sort of behavior. I don't see why people should be saying "good game" when they really mean "game over"/"You win"/"I'm leaving", especially in the situations where they did not think it was a particularly good game (due to making many bad mistakes, or having the opponent win early on from a lucky or cheesy strategy). Aside from it being disingenuous in many situations, it also completely devalues the meaning of the word if every game is supposedly good. Now more on topic, I think venting out the anger through words may be a reasonable start, if you consider it to be a viable option. No point/need to repress anger if it does exist. If you do go down that road, don't just throw nonsensical/irrelevant insults at a person like "you're a jew/gay/explicative". Trying to explain why you thought the person was doing something bad (if they listen) may not only potentially help them (if it's constructive/respectful criticism) but they will almost inevitably explain what sort of things you may have been doing wrong, which are oftentimes good to at least partially acknowledge. | ||
McDrizzle
United States131 Posts
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Eviscerador
Spain286 Posts
I have enough stress with RL duties to be more stressed with a supposedly fun videogame. Don't get me wrong, I had some moments of great fun with this game, but losing for me is not fun (I always rage, in every sport, game or whatever, its my nature) and this game is made so you and only you are the only responsible for your losses. And you will loss one game every two. In team games like CS or Dota or WoT, you can always blame the team, or heroes/tanks inbalance and let the rage flow. The problem is to find new games while I'm banned for insults and flamming, but hey, more fun finding new games!! XD | ||
Evangelist
1246 Posts
Weirdly this change in mind state resulted in a huge win rate increase and overwhelming opponents with macro - even an offracing masters player at one point which is pretty good for gold league. So now I follow three rules: 1. The only things I say in a game relating to the game are gl hf and gg or gg wp. Everything else is small talk. 2. I am doing what I intend to do and making only tiny deviations. The reason why is that I am confident that I am going to win through sheer macro. If I think a toss is going proxy oracle I may throw down a turret. If the turret doesn't get up and I lose my marines I gg. End of. I just know to throw up a turret earlier. 3. If I lose 3 games in a row I stop playing for a bit and go play something positive. Losing sucks. Losing releases chemicals to make you feel shit. There's no need to subject yourself to it for any length of time. Finally, I abstract myself from the game. My only goal in the game is not to win - it's to do my build and to dismantle the base of whoever I am playing against. Winning is a secondary effect of the latter - I celebrate winning, but I don't mourn losing anymore. It's like getting rejected in dating. You're not a bad person for getting rejected, they just don't know what they're missing. The guy who beat you just didn't get to see your full awesomeness. That's his loss, not yours ![]() | ||
tomatriedes
New Zealand5356 Posts
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HappyZerGling
Ukraine161 Posts
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Eviscerador
Spain286 Posts
On May 09 2013 19:25 tomatriedes wrote: It's funny I never raged much in Starcraft but Dota makes me froth at the mouth sometimes. In Sc2 you rage about losing our your own mistakes, so its more about Ego. In dota or similar team games, you rage about the retards in your team, so it has nothing to do with yourself. | ||
wwJd)El_Mojjo
Sweden173 Posts
I have a question. I'm afraid we have very different problems when it comes to gaming etc so maybe I can't give you any good advice from personal experience. But I always feel like I want to help in some way when I make someone really angry on the ladder or something. I mean, I don't take any of the bm to heart, but I still feel like I caused my opponent harm in some way even though it wasn't intentional of course. So my question to you is, is there anything that the opponent can say or do after you start getting angry that can be helpful or do you think it's best if the other guy just keeps quiet and wont respond? Btw, thanks for writing this thread so that not only you but also other people can benefit from this discussion! I hope you will find a way to make the losses less meaningful for you so you can enjoy the game even more. =) EDIT: I'm a random player who cheeses a lot so it's a common situation for me... ![]() I do it because I enjoy the playstyle though, I don't really want to make anyone angry. | ||
Brett
Australia3820 Posts
On May 09 2013 19:15 Xapti wrote: While I don't think it would significantly help or hinder your situation, I personally dislike this sort of behavior. I don't see why people should be saying "good game" when they really mean "game over"/"You win"/"I'm leaving", especially in the situations where they did not think it was a particularly good game (due to making many bad mistakes, or having the opponent win early on from a lucky or cheesy strategy). Aside from it being disingenuous in many situations, it also completely devalues the meaning of the word if every game is supposedly good. Now more on topic, I think venting out the anger through words may be a reasonable start, if you consider it to be a viable option. No point/need to repress anger if it does exist. If you do go down that road, don't just throw nonsensical/irrelevant insults at a person like "you're a jew/gay/explicative". Trying to explain why you thought the person was doing something bad (if they listen) may not only potentially help them (if it's constructive/respectful criticism) but they will almost inevitably explain what sort of things you may have been doing wrong, which are oftentimes good to at least partially acknowledge. So say "thanks for the game" instead of gg after every match. There's nothing disingenuous about it; you're just being too literal with your interpretation of purpose and meaning of saying gg after the match. Professional sports people tend to shake hands with each other after competition too. Even when they play like shit. | ||
SC2Jan
Germany93 Posts
![]() So, regardless of what you are going to do: All the best to you and try to search in yourself what unhealed experiences and feelings in you are being activated in these situation. Good luck! ![]() | ||
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