On Failure

If there's one thing that you need to become accustomed to, in order to continue improving, it is failure.

A player that I have come across a number of times, named V MIRZA, has written in his XBox Live Bio that "I know my skill level. If you're better than me, I won't try". After the second match that we played in which he just gave up, I grew frustrated, and messaged him.

"Why do you play VF5?" I asked.

His reply was something to the effect of "Because it's a game requiring skill, is good quality and isn't flashy or stupid like DoA".

An excellent reply I thought - these are the key reasons someone should play. So "Why don't you try to actually play then?" I returned. His repsonse was telling. "I get worried that I'll lose and won't get better".

There it is. Loss and failure are funny things. In many ways, they are counter-intuitive to the way we think about improvement. If I'm improving, why do I keep failing? In every skill-based pursuit I've ever tried to improve at, I have found that the formula is inevitably one step backwards, and two steps forwards. The tricky part is that we often greatly perceive the step backwards, and only slightly notice the movement forward.

A loss only truly becomes failure when we are unwilling to take stock of why we lost, and how we can improve from it. Every single loss that you experience during your quest to improve and grow, as a VF5 player, is an opportunity to learn about your own weaknesses, and a chance to grow as a skilled fighter.

V MIRZA's comment is a common attitude. There are a lot of people out there that will avoid losing in many ways. Some players will do what V MIRZA does, and simply give up. If you've given up, you can then take comfort in the claim that your loss wasn't because you tried your best and lost, it was simply because you weren't trying. Some players will blame their losses on luck, or lag. Some players will make ridiculous comments like "I prefer fighting people with variety, instead of canned combos". This just means that they enjoy fighting people that they can beat.

If you truly want to become the best player possible, it is essential that you be willing to look at your own losses with a honest introspection. There is nothing that will provide you greater insight into how you can improve, than by reviewing your own matches, and seeing what your opponent is exploiting.

Over at VFDC, people have made complaints about a player named Unico711. Unico plays a very unique Brad. He doesn't approach Brad the same way I do, and uses a very limited moveset. The first time I played him, I couldn't understand why his level was so high - the first round that we fought, all he did was 2P me. After I adapted to that, he changed up his attack, and started using DM P+K, and full circular sweeps. And so on. People complain about the fact that all he does is low sweep spam, and DM P+K spam. But this isn't something you should ever complain about. You should either determine why you are losing to someone that is spamming moves, or look to this player as someone that you can hone your skills against. Next time you lose and are tempted to say something like this, stop yourself, and ask why you really lost. We don't lose because our opponent was "cheap" and just used 2P. We lost because we were unable to adapt to that method of attack.

One of the people that I respect the most for this approach to gaming is David Sirlin. His blog/book about playing to win advocates an approach like this one, where you do not blame your losses on something like the moves your opponent used, or their attitude, but solely focus your view inwards, and attempt to resolve any issues from there. You can read more about his point of view in his excellent book (freely available on his website), here.

That's all for now.