I want to play... but I suck!

[Arakune]

Ever had a competitive game where you liked to play but you suck at it SO MUCH you can't stand it anymore? Even worse for me that I hate losing (at least I really, really, really, REALLY hate losing streaks) :smallannoyed:

My recent galery starts with MtG.

[valadil]

M:tG is exceedingly difficult to learn. I'm saying that having quit in 2001. 8 more years of rules can't have helped any.

Could you try playing against other people? I started playing several months after all my friends, so they all had better decks. But they were willing to make secondary and tertiary decks that I could play against until I learned.

Alternatively, could you try a sealed deck or draft style? Those styles even the playing field by making everyone make decks out of new boosters of cards. Play skill is a factor and luck is certainly a factor too (I drew a thorn element in a draft tourney and won. The rest of the deck was good but thorny owned). But you won't be at a disadvantage due to inferior cards.

[Arakune]

I was playing T2 at internet with a tool that gives me access to all cards. I just suck at it and didn't wanted to make a copy of all the other decks around. The only deck I managed to get a 45%+ win rate is a strainght Red Deck Win, one that is the closest from the way I played before, but even then my win rate is much lower... :smallsigh:

[Kallisti]

Magic's kind of a complicated game. I understand it pretty well, but I've been playing since Classic was the only edition they sold, so I've been learning the new rules a few at a time. Trying to start from scratch would be...aaaarrgh. Try limiting yourself to one edition. Whichever is most recent. If you use decks that have cards from five or six different editions, you'll end of having to deal with five or six editions worth of fiddly rules. Borrow decks from friends to learn with if you haven't got enough cards to put together a really decent deck. A friend of mine is learning to play, but all of my decks I have been optimizing for quite a while, so his little starter dck gets blown away every time. I just lend him one of mine. It works pretty well.

[Dirk Kris]

Ever had a competitive game where you liked to play but you suck at it SO MUCH you can't stand it anymore? Even worse for me that I hate losing (at least I really, really, really, REALLY hate losing streaks) :smallannoyed:

My recent galery starts with MtG.
I HATE losing. I am a notoriously bad sport with my family, but with friends it is easier to laugh off.

ANYway, what makes it worse is when you suddenly discover that everyone around you is a meta-gamer and optimizes EVERYTHING and that interacting with them only leaves you frustrated. It takes all the fun out when meta-gamers take over.

[Solaris]

Oh Lord, how I hate MtG. It started my decade-long losing streak in every non-combat-related game I play.

[Dispozition]

I was horrible at MtG gathering back in the day, but only for two reasons...I'm not a great deck builder, and I often don't play combos to their best efficiency.

My friends and I had a recent magic nostalgia trip and I was playing one of the decent decks, but was winning a lot of my matches, the ones I lost were because of mana screw :P

Pretty much, you can get better. Know what your weaknesses are and work on them, a lot!

[Dragor]

Warhammer 40,000 for me. It's the reason why I sit in the corner painting the models when everyone else is playing: I can't optimise, I can't tell what's gonna be great, and I have terrible luck. (I rolled two 1's on my first ever psychic test with my Inquisitor, and fried her brains. Yeeeeah. Nice portent.)

Sort of goes for D&D, but I can get away with it in my group, luckily. I don't want to think about optimising, I'm definitely more of a rollplayer. I try my hardest to make my character effective, but I don't know if I succeed or not.

[Eldariel]

Pretty much every FPS ever. I'm usually at under 1-1 kills-to-deaths ratio in any PvP FPS (Counterstrike, Battlefield 1942, Day of Defeat, Doom II, you name it) causing me to have little motivation to play them and thus I shall forever remain mediocre.

Of course, I don't really take losing that hard, but it does eat motivation when I just don't feel like I'm improving at all. It doesn't help that my friends played those a lot.


My bigger problem is that I tend to have completely unrealistic expectations for my performance and get frustrated when I fail to live up to them; I'm not happy at anything under ~80% win rate in basically any game.

Of course, that helps me push myself, but also helps me frustrate myself a lot since it's obviously very difficult to not only be better than people you game with, but to be that much better than the people you game with.

[Inhuman Bot]

Anything that our school system forces me to play. :smallyuk:

[Tirian]

For me, I don't mind losing if I felt I did my best and can learn from my defeats, but when that doesn't happen it is seriously frustrating. For many years, the bane of my existence was Acquire. I've played the game like twenty times and every time I've finished in last place. And more than half of those times, I thought that I was winning most of the way through and that I had finally broken my crazy losing streak. Eventually, I gave away my copy before I totally lost it and threw it into a fire or something.

[Arakune]

For me, I don't mind losing if I felt I did my best and can learn from my defeats, but when that doesn't happen it is seriously frustrating. For many years, the bane of my existence was Acquire. I've played the game like twenty times and every time I've finished in last place. And more than half of those times, I thought that I was winning most of the way through and that I had finally broken my crazy losing streak. Eventually, I gave away my copy before I totally lost it and threw it into a fire or something.

I know how you feel. If I lose but I can feel that somehow I'm improving or learning that's good, but most of the times It just looks like I can never improve on the damn thing.

[littlebottom]

i used to lose every game a few years back, but since M10, i joined back in with a few new decks, and im pleased to say, all of a sudden, my winning has come to an approx 90% rate :smallbiggrin: because my decks now rule:smallcool:

i used to play with decks of cards i could just get hold of and that looked good... but putting a load of cards togeather because they are all nice, doesnt work, but put a lot of cards togeather that compliment each other nicely, just jumps you up a fair bit, my 2 main decks currently are a green speed ant-queen token, overun/beastmaster ascention deck, wins quite often as it makes so much mana ive had about 8 mana on my 3rd turn, by which point, no one can handle a 5/5 ant-queen with a token generation ability and normally kills pretty sharpish...

BUT i diverge... what ive come here to say is that, yes, you can lose alot, but take the time to learn whats going on, and slowly improve your deck bit by bit, test things out, see if they work, until you finally manage to make a good deck which will beat 4/5 other decks.

[Cobra_Ikari]

I HATE losing. I am a notoriously bad sport with my family, but with friends it is easier to laugh off.

ANYway, what makes it worse is when you suddenly discover that everyone around you is a meta-gamer and optimizes EVERYTHING and that interacting with them only leaves you frustrated. It takes all the fun out when meta-gamers take over.

When I start losing really, REALLY badly, I cheat outrageously. By that, I mean I make it obvious I'm cheating, and then go with my original results. My way of saying "I couldn't beat you even if I broke the rules! D=". =P

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Basketball. I don't know why, but I cannot, and never have been able, to play it. I almost got a scholarship with soccer, can play football, baseball, dodgeball, heck, even bad mitton and croquet, with the best of them... but I STINK at basketball. I'm even tall and got an enormous reach besides.

Doesn't help that basketball players have the worst attitudes of any sportsman I've played with. Unless it's with family I won't touch one.

[Arakune]

i used to lose every game a few years back, but since M10, i joined back in with a few new decks, and im pleased to say, all of a sudden, my winning has come to an approx 90% rate :smallbiggrin: because my decks now rule:smallcool:

i used to play with decks of cards i could just get hold of and that looked good... but putting a load of cards togeather because they are all nice, doesnt work, but put a lot of cards togeather that compliment each other nicely, just jumps you up a fair bit, my 2 main decks currently are a green speed ant-queen token, overun/beastmaster ascention deck, wins quite often as it makes so much mana ive had about 8 mana on my 3rd turn, by which point, no one can handle a 5/5 ant-queen with a token generation ability and normally kills pretty sharpish...

BUT i diverge... what ive come here to say is that, yes, you can lose alot, but take the time to learn whats going on, and slowly improve your deck bit by bit, test things out, see if they work, until you finally manage to make a good deck which will beat 4/5 other decks.

I DO have some strong decks prepared (both are RDW decks but...), the problem is, even with the strong ones I still suck at the game and deck building and my mind simply refused to bow at copy-pasta... and then somebody else beats me at my own idea/concept I wanted to do! The more competivive I try to change the deck the more it looks like the other ones...

[littlebottom]

well, this is the thing, there is proberbly no successful deck that hasnt already been made by someone somewhere, make what the hell you want, does it matter if its near identicle to annother? no, it doesnt, just as long as you dont go "wow that was an amazing deck! ill copy it card for card" i dont think it much matters :smalltongue:

also, when i said "my 2 main decks are" and only mention one, is because i realised i was waffling on so i stopped before talking about the other

[KilltheToy]

Pretty much every FPS ever. I'm usually at under 1-1 kills-to-deaths ratio in any PvP FPS (Counterstrike, Battlefield 1942, Day of Defeat, Doom II, you name it) causing me to have little motivation to play them and thus I shall forever remain mediocre.

Of course, I don't really take losing that hard, but it does eat motivation when I just don't feel like I'm improving at all. It doesn't help that my friends played those a lot.


My bigger problem is that I tend to have completely unrealistic expectations for my performance and get frustrated when I fail to live up to them; I'm not happy at anything under ~80% win rate in basically any game.

Of course, that helps me push myself, but also helps me frustrate myself a lot since it's obviously very difficult to not only be better than people you game with, but to be that much better than the people you game with.

I know your pain. I also suck at FPSes, team deathmatches especially. Those few seconds I use to verify that the guy over there is in fact on the other team is usually all the time they need to shoot me. I also don't pay much attention to my surroundings, and thus fail to notice the sniper in the window.

I've learned to compensate by only playing deathmatches and playing the smaller maps the game has to offer. Less room to work with means less time looking for the enemy and more time shooting them. You'll have a pretty good kill ratio if you play especially well.

[Linkavitch]

Basketball. I don't know why, but I cannot, and never have been able, to play it. I almost got a scholarship with soccer, can play football, baseball, dodgeball, heck, even bad mitton and croquet, with the best of them... but I STINK at basketball. I'm even tall and got an enormous reach besides.

Doesn't help that basketball players have the worst attitudes of any sportsman I've played with. Unless it's with family I won't touch one.

Pretty much describes me to a tee, even the awesome at soccer and pretty good at everything else, I've always been horrible at basketball. The only thing I'm good at is rebounding, and that's only 'cuz I am almost 6'2" and have three foot arms.

[Solaris]

I know your pain. I also suck at FPSes, team deathmatches especially. Those few seconds I use to verify that the guy over there is in fact on the other team is usually all the time they need to shoot me. I also don't pay much attention to my surroundings, and thus fail to notice the sniper in the window.

I've learned to compensate by only playing deathmatches and playing the smaller maps the game has to offer. Less room to work with means less time looking for the enemy and more time shooting them. You'll have a pretty good kill ratio if you play especially well.

Jebus, do I hate FPS games. Worst part is, they emulate my job - I once shouted "It's not this hard in real life!" after a particularly spectacular loss.

[Mauve Shirt]

Same but different. I want to play certain piano pieces, but after discovering I don't get it right away I get frustrated and stop practicing. For the same reason I drop 50% of the art projects I pick up. I get frustrated, so I stop.

[truemane]

I'm horrible at every physical sport ever created by humans. Hockey, Badminton, Baseball, you name it. I took martial arts for over six years, trained six days a week for most of that time, and at the end was still pretty much a lost cause.

Which is fine with me. I hate sports anyway and don't mind so much.

But, I also happen to be quite poor at chess, and that burns my bum. It's a smart-guy game, right? And I'm a smart guy. Logical and stuff. But skill at chess also happens to corelate very highly with visual-spatial abilities, and I have HORRIBLE visual-spatial abilities.

Love them game, love learning about it and reading about it. Can't play it worth a damn. And the bugger of it is, I understand it JUST enough to see why I'll never be much better, and I play JUST well enough to cream anyone who can't play at all but GET CREAMED by anyone who can play with any real facility. So it's really hard for me to find a good game.

Grrr. Chess. Oh how I love you. And yet we'll never be together.

[Eldariel]

I know your pain. I also suck at FPSes, team deathmatches especially. Those few seconds I use to verify that the guy over there is in fact on the other team is usually all the time they need to shoot me. I also don't pay much attention to my surroundings, and thus fail to notice the sniper in the window.

I've learned to compensate by only playing deathmatches and playing the smaller maps the game has to offer. Less room to work with means less time looking for the enemy and more time shooting them. You'll have a pretty good kill ratio if you play especially well.

Oh, Team Deathmatches... In those my principal problem is that unless I'm the de facto team captain, my ability to follow anyone else's strategic plans is shaky at the best.

I've got very clear vision of what is effective and what I want, but when someone else is calling the shots, I usually just don't either get what he's after and don't follow it at all, or follow it slavishly ('cause I still don't get the idea) and fail at improvisation dying anyways.


This became painfully apparent to me this weekend when we had a LAN with an old-friends group; we played Counter Strike a ton and while my solo performance was actually very good considering my history (since all of them were so rusty that my poor play didn't matter), my team always seemed to get strategically outmaneuvered; we lost a bunch of 3v2s simply due to bad teamplaying and co-ordination - inability to capitalize on our numbers.

Considering I've went through military training and including urban combat training, it's really kinda embarrassing to make rookie mistakes I'd never make in real combat. And god, a mouse is so much harder to aim with than the real thing...though I can't claim I could shoot efficiently while jumping.

[BritishBill]

Ever had a competitive game where you liked to play but you suck at it SO MUCH you can't stand it anymore? Even worse for me that I hate losing (at least I really, really, really, REALLY hate losing streaks) :smallannoyed:

My recent galery starts with MtG.

just stick with it1 the more you play, the more skills and better cards you will acquire and you will get better.

[Volos]

I only seem to get upset when I'm beaten by a computer. If I lose to a human player, suddenly I'm Mr. Sportsmanship. I enjoyed the game and losing didn't matter as long as I wasn't completely slammed. If I either am completely slaughtered or if I win without trying, then I don't have any fun. Anyone else like this?