In the past, I've been known as a bit of a rager when it came to competitive games. A "bit of a rager" is actually an understatement. I've had to replaced my mouse three times. I've had to put the keys back on my keyboard five or six times until finally buying another one because I broke it in half. Once, I've had to replace a monitor. Twice I've put my fist through my door and once through my wall. I broke my favorite tobacco pipe (which wasn't cheap) and my ash tray. I've kicked things. I've hit things. I've screamed. I ended some friendships. I even kicked my cousin out of my house for killing me in Gears of War! Yes... I really did.
In the recent months, I've began actively analyzing why I get mad and rage over a stupid game. I've noticed several things and began dealing with them. Most of my reasons actually had nothing to do with the games themselves. They've all been about me and my attitude.
Here were some of my reasons for raging and what I've done to remedy them.
1. I accepted the fact that I wasn't as good as I thought I was.
This was the first step in dealing with my rage issues. By acknowledging that I was not perfect and that I did in fact make mistakes, I accepted the fact that I could get better and that there were things that I could improve on.
This was harder to swallow than it should have been. I've been a bit of a narcissist in the past about my gaming. I've always had a lame excuse or someone to blame. This reinforced my narcissistic attitude even more. I've made the statement that "If I had a team that only consisted of clones of me, then I would rarely, if ever, lose." I was so naive. So dumb. I suffered severely from the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Due to this attitude, I ignored advice from my friends and other players, even those rated higher than me. I would watch my replays but only games that I performed well in and actually won. I physically felt dread in the pit of my stomach when I thought about watching a replay of a game that I lost. Looking back now, I see that it was the fear of seeing myself make a mistake. The fear of learning that I was not the perfect player. The fear of the realization that the self-image I had of myself was wrong. This had nothing to do with the game but was all about my inflated ego and my incapability of accepting my shortcomings and faults.
Once I realized that I was not the perfect player, I began realizing other things:
1. The "noob" on my team who didn't land his stun wasn't the one to blame for the enemy getting away with 1 hp left. I had missed a skill shot 6 or 7 seconds earlier. Had I landed it, the enemy would have died without need of the final CC. My bad play put my teammate in a situation where he had to land a clutch CC in order to secure the kill. I was to blame.
2. The "dumb ass top lane duo" that picked two characters with no synergy and lost the lane weren't the only ones to blame. I was dominating mid but never roamed up to gank for them or help them counter-push. Instead, I flammed them and started a fight. I was too busy calling them names to help stop the enemy team from winning.
3. The "retard" who didn't call a MIA or ping for danger when his lane opponent left to gank didn't get me killed. My lack of map awareness and wards resulted in my death. Had I only been paying attention, I wouldn't have died.
4. The "fucktard" who was not with the team resulting in us losing a teamfight was not to blame. It was my fault for initiating a teamfight without all of my teammates there. I knew he was farming the jungle but I went in anyway.
5. The " skill-less scrub" that killed me 1v1 didn't kill me because his character was overpowered. He killed me because I failed to realize that my character's current level of power wasn't enough to overpower his. I miscalculated the outcome of the battle which resulted in my own death. I shouldn't have fought him. I should have retreated.
It's funny. When I stopped being full of myself and began noticing that I was just as bad as the rest of my team, I got a lot less angry. I noticed that they view me in the same light that I view them. I was just as much of a noob. I made many of the same mistakes. I even made some that they didn't.
The fact of the matter is everyone misses skill shots. Everyone loses lane from time to time. Everyone makes miscalculations. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone loses games. It's no big deal. I just had to accept the fact that no one is perfect, including myself.
2. I had to learn that it is perfectly normal to lose games.
MMR systems are designed to pit you with/against players of equal skill. Due to this fact, everyone will win and lose around the same percentage of games. Everyone should fluctuate within the Standard Deviation of 50% when it comes to wins and losses. Half of the games are wins, half of them losses. This was a fact that I knew but didn't really understand. I mean, I understood it but I didn't really think about it. For every game I win, I will lose one. Guaranteed.
This is was a huge eye opener to me. In a perfect world, I would win one, lose one. This didn't mean I was a bad player. It's just how the system was setup. It's how the game works.
As I corrected small mistakes that I made in my play, I would gain a percentage or two in win percentage until my MMR rose to pit me against better players. This would result in my win percentage going back down to 50% again. Should I correct another mistake, I would find the scenario repeat itself. The bigger the mistake I corrected, the higher my MMR would go.
I couldn't win every game even though I wanted to. At any point, I could find myself in the midst of the biggest winning or losing streak that I had ever experienced in my life. I couldn't control that. All I could control was my actions inside of each of the games that I was involved in.
Eventually, I would find myself at an MMR that produces a 50/50 win ratio for me. That place will be where I am supposed to be until I either get better or get worse. Once I understood this, the outcome of a single game no longer mattered. I would get to where I deserved to be despite winning or losing.
3. I had to accept the things that I could not change.
Accepting that I really had no control over my overall win/loss ratio, I began to think of other things I couldn't control. I couldn't control who I was teamed with or against. I couldn't control their characters or what they did with them. I couldn't control the fact that some heroes were "OP" or some items in the shop were broken. All I could control was what I did with my character and the items I bought or talents I chose.
There was no point in getting angry over any of the things I couldn't control simply because being angry affected what I could control. It would cause me to go on tilt. By getting emotional over things I couldn't control, I would make poor decisions in the things that I could. These poor decisions were the mistakes that I was focusing on not making.
I stopped caring about what the rest of my team did to a degree. I started playing to the best of my ability and tried to work with my team's decisions in order to produce the best result possible.
4. I had to stop focusing on the results.
Once I realized that all I could control was my actions ingame, my focus changed from trying to win games to trying to make no mistakes. It almost sounds counter-productive. In order to win, I have to stop focusing on winning. That focus on winning however was what was stopping me from winning. It was too short-sighted.
I approached each game as if it was the final match at DreamHack. That is was the completely wrong attitude though. I changed my focus to not making any mistakes. Regardless of the outcome, I win if I don't make a mistake or find a mistake that I do make. The outcome of 1 game will not affect my MMR very much. Correcting a mistake would definitely increase it in the long run though.
That was the secret. Instead of my attention being focused on the immediate results, I began looking ahead and playing for the long haul. By playing for the future, I've emotionally detached myself from the immediate results of winning and losing. I've began correcting things that I do routinely that affect me over the course of many games. Since I no longer care about winning or losing, I don't really have a reason to be mad anymore.
I'm confident given enough time using this new attitude that I will obtain significantly higher MMR than I was previously capable of. I can already tell a difference in my decision making as well as overall emotional state while gaming. I can honestly say I have not raged since adopting this mindset.
