Today’s article is written by Nicholas M Whittier (NMW) who talks about mindsets and attitudes in gaming.

Introduction

Competitive gamers come from a wide array of backgrounds, each with their own predilections. Given that we are all part of the Melee community, I will assume that we all have the urge to compete–some innate drive to win. This is not a trivial assumption, as there are many out there who don’t have the drive to compete at all. With the newest generation of Smashers, who are largely inspired by Evo and the documentary, the internet has had countless threads about how to convert one’s casual friends into competitive players. Those casual players frequently lack the drive necessary to be a competitive player. The thirst is not something that can be instilled into your friends. Assuming people have knowledge of the competitive scene and know what top level Melee looks like, they will either have the thirst or they won’t. If you are aspiring to be Isai, SS, or Lord, and you want to do cool shit and wins and losses don’t matter to you, this article will not be relevant for you.

Mindset Archetypes

In many years of traveling and meeting top gamers from all around the world, I have seen five common mindsets. It would be worthwhile to designate these archetypes. Sore loser is an obvious one. I’ll call my own mindset the Rocky mindset. My losses don’t deter me from playing my best, and I try to take every loss gracefully with the determination to outfox my opponent somewhere down the line. I’ll harshly designate those who are easily discouraged as quitters. Then there are the tryhards, who care so much about winning that they can’t stand losing even in meaningless friendlies. These people might be sore losers, but I find that more often than not in the Smash community, they aren’t. And lastly, we’ll call those who live and die by their results the overcompensators. They measure their worth just with results and not by the actual quality of their play.

This list is by no means comprehensive, nor are the categories mutually exclusive, but I’m willing to bet most of you identify with one or two of these categories. I’m definitely a Rocky with a bit of the tryhard in me. It’s important to identify which category you identify with because each has its own barriers that will impede your growth as a player. As far as I can tell, aMSa and Armada are the only players with perfect mindsets. Aspiring players are often ignorant of the mental battle that is one of the most challenging parts of becoming an exceptional player. Going into every tournament set, you are engaging in a mental battle both with your opponent and with yourself.

Limitations of Mindsets

Sore-Losers

Growing up as the younger brother, I am all too familiar with the sore loser. If I ever beat my brother, he would throw a fit. Sore losers limit their own progress in several ways. First and most importantly, they let their losses shake their own mental foundation. The sore losers are always the ones who say “THAT WAS SO CHEAP” or whatever other scrubby exclamations you can think of. They are the most prone to attributing their losses to something but themselves.

Even if you did get lamed by something–and don’t get me wrong, there are countless lame things in Melee–you should always blame yourself for the loss. Avoid the situation. Execute cleaner. Even if it mostly wasn’t your fault, blaming yourself is always the best attitude because it gets you to improve your play. Anger cripples your ability to perform in the moment, and it also has detrimental longterm effects with regards to mental health and enjoyment of the game. Sore losers are often avoided by other players because no one likes when their opponents get needlessly salty. Any aspiring player has had their bad tournament losses, and while it’s not possible to always stay well composed, the people who are habitually salty are never fun to be around. It’s often neglected that one of the best ways to play well and to improve in the long run is to have fun while you play.

Tryhards

Tryhards severely limit themselves with their compulsion for winning. Innovation is still a big part of Melee. Every player should try to diversify their bag of tricks. If your only desire is to win the game you are currently playing, it cripples your ability to win in the long run. Friendlies are for practice. You should experiment and incorporate new things into your game. Don’t be scared of an SD. Push your combos to a level that you are unsure about. If there’s even a small chance your opponent might have enough hitstun to pull something crazy off, go for it. Sometimes you should try things that don’t even make sense to you. If you do something that you saw in a video that you didn’t understand, odds are that if you do it enough times, you will understand why that player chose that option. If you stick to what you know all the time, you will never have any surprises or breakthroughs to push you to another level.

Quitters

Winners never quit and quitters never win, the aphorism goes. The weakness of quitters is probably the most obvious one. It’s hard to improve if you defeat yourself as consistently as quitters do. “I just can’t beat him!” they say. “What am I even supposed to do?!” Don’t be a quitter. Don’t worry if there’s a better player who has beaten you a dozen times. Don’t dwell on your losses against your shitty friend who spams wavedash back forward smash. Learn from your losses and don’t go into matches thinking you have no chance. It’s easy to think that certain opponents are currently unbeatable for you and that it’s pointless to try until you are better. Your friend beats you every day, how could you possibly take this set from him? Don’t think this way. Tournament matches are a rare occurence where you will probably see your friend try his hardest against you. This gives you insight both into his tendencies and your own limitations. Watch your matches closely and try to see why he can beat you so consistently. Better players often whomp on their training partners consistently because of just a few bad habits. Identify your habits and you might win.

Overcompensators

Overcompensators are hindered by their attachment to tournament results. Results follow from improvement, not the other way around. Anyone can beat anyone given the right circumstances. Flukes happen frequently (though the relative infrequency of them is one of the beautiful aspects of Melee). Ego is one of the greatest impediments to improvement. Focus on your skill, not your results. Know that your own skill and don’t rely on external measurements. If you are playing friendlies with your regional king and he is telling you are good, then you know your practice is paying off. Don’t worry about if you got out of pools at your first tournament. Believe it or not, it doesn’t actually matter if you beat a sandbagging Mango in pools. He doesn’t care, and you shouldn’t either. With all this said, in general, incremental goals are a good thing and there’s nothing wrong with taking pride in some good wins. While sore losers tend to not blame themselves enough, overcompensators tend to be overly critical of themselves. Everyone has bad days, and just because you lost to a bad player does not mean you are bad. It’s important to stay optimistic and not let yourself start to think like a quitter.

Rocky

Rocky is always on the comeback trail and manages to defeat his opponents despite prior adversity. While I believe this is the best mindset for improvement, there’s also some things to keep in mind if you think you are in this category. Counterintuitive as it may seem, it’s actually quite easy to become a quitter if you are a Rocky. Seeing yourself as a perpetual underdog can make you perform poorly against opponents who are better than you. You might underestimate yourself and think like a quitter. You might think that you can’t beat your opponent yet because you aren’t quite good enough. If your opponent beats you down for two stocks, it’s easy to think “I’ll beat him next game.” Just because a situation looks bleak is no reason not to try your hardest. I’ve actually won two matches in tournaments in the last month where I was about to ragequit. I didn’t choose not to ragequit for any particular reason–it was just that no particular moment in the game was decisively bothersome to push me over the edge. Even if you think the match is hopeless, you should use your remaining stocks to regain mental composure. Get your tech skill on point, see what your opponent is doing and think about how he got so far ahead, and then think about what adjustments you can make. Don’t be complacent and resign yourself to defeat because you feel that you will win in the future. Optimism for the future can actually result in pessimism for the present.

If you are serious about playing Melee or any other game competitively, some introspection about your mindset is worthwhile. Along with bad practice habits, a bad mindset is one of the most problematic things for new players. It’s not a coincidence that some of the most notable new blood, such as aMSa and Gravy, seem to have great attitudes when interviewed. Remember that Melee is a game and we play it because of how much fun it is. Negative attitudes detract greatly from the fun. Along with Gravy and aMSa, think about the winners of the last several majors. HBox won one while rapping. Mango at his best always seems to exhude confidence and positivity. M2K’s resurgence in results coincided with him finally seeming to have fun. If you stay optimistic and practice intelligently, there’s nothing limiting how good you can get.

Nicholas M. Whittier is an aspiring Captain Falcon main from Norcal. He has had previous success as a signed E-Sports player in Warcraft 3. At his peak, he was one of the best human players in the world.