GenXnerd

Rage, everything from calling your opponent every name in the book, to silently having your mind wrapt in anger. It happens to us all to some degree, yes, I even see a little anger in WhiteRa’s face from time to time. It is a natural reaction. you invest emotion into the game, and you try to impose your force, sometimes it doesn’t work. Anger comes from a primal part of our mind, early man, on thru evolution to relatively recently, anger to a degree got us thru a lot. Anger puts you into that fight mode instantly, it strips you of a lot of fear *and rational* and inspires you to fight on. In a fight this can be useful, but in a video game it serves little purpose. Now this subject is close to my heart, I have dealt with anger issues for most of my life, from anger management, to ruined relationships and broken belongings. And trust me, I have been breaking controllers over rage since the original N.E.S. Ive had to learn to control anger for many reasons, a huge one being that it destroys your mental state. You cannot think clearly when you are angry. You make stupid decisions, you get mental tunnel vision, and as anger deteriorates your game play, it begets more anger. It’s a vicious cycle. today I hope to shed some light on the subject, and share some of the ways that I deal with it. In fact, I started my outline for this article, then started to ladder, 2 frustrating losses to Terran *I play Protoss BTW* and I had to alt tab and start this paragraph. Well on to the subject at hand. Rage FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!
Anger is a natural reaction at times. It’s an emotion, it is part of what makes us human. You cannot shut off your emotions, unless you are Vulcan, In witch case, you rock. I know that there are people out there that love to rage, they love to kick up some shit in a game. I’ve done it myself, talked shit just to get my opponent riled up. I’ve also went up against people like that in almost every game I’ve played online…..or even when playing a console game with others. But I want to focus on rage in SC2. Now, there are countless reasons to get angry in the game, you made a mistake, you overlooked something, your opponent made a devastating attack. Sometimes you got angry in the last game, and it carried on into your next game. It would take a very rare patience to play without anger at some point.  Anger is an emotion, you don’t need to fight it, you need to control its effect on you. You take a bad loss and you get angry, you stop thinking clearly due to your angry state of mind, you make mistakes, or try to force the situation and then you’re in another frustrating loss. And the anger builds. You  have to mitigate this affect or stop it. It is far better to take a breather between frustrating games than to kill your rank and get all pissed off. It is like anxiety and adrenaline, it is best to embrace it in a way that doesn’t adversely effect your play. But how does it effect your play? well there is the before stated, mental tunnel vision, your angry and you just want to beat this fucker. The focus of killing your opponent over rides the focus on your build, and it can cause you to force things, you go all in on an attack that wont kill, then you get pissed that it didn’t work. It can get your adrenaline going, causing you to suffer in your fine motor skills. Anger WILL have an effect on you. If someone rages on me in a game, I know I will do things to abuse that, warp prism harass, using stalkers to snipe a building and blink out, basic harass but pair that with some smack talk and it works double time on an angry opponent.  Also I think rage causes some cheese, your pissed so you’re gonna get some good ‘ol cheesy vengeance. I also think some people use cheese to offset ladder anxiety. And that is likely a cause of some of the smurffing. Even in the most likely scenario, it just sucks to play when your pissed. My 2v2 partner will que up match after match with no break, and when I’m angry it is a hard pace to keep. I just don’t like to play mad. There is no benefit or advantage to be had from being angry.
     Well, now I would like to talk about some of the ways I deal with rage in the game. the first step is to try to keep from getting angry. “More GG More Skill” – WhiteRa. It helps to be sportsman like. Don’t look at your opponent as some douche on the ladder, look at them as and equal. Look at them as a opportunity to have a good close fun game. When its done say GG, or just leave, but telling them how they are a piece of shit with no real skill just feeds your anger. Remember that when you leave the game you will probably never see that player again, and there is always the ignore list. Don’t look at it as ‘That fucker got lucky with that engagement.’ but think ‘That was a good push.’ ‘What is the proper response?’ Don’t be afraid of, or get angry over a loss, like Day[9] said, “Let the loses come to you.” Look at a loss as an opportunity to learn. The likely sources of rage and anger are things that just didn’t go as you hoped. You make a push and it fails, you get angry, its is a drive to push harder, to force things to go your way, and wont help a lick in a video game. Maybe your opponent made a push you couldn’t hold off, Or it did damage you cant recover from. These, and many other rage building scenarios can be figured out. You can learn from them and learn to identify and hold them off. The more you understand about these tactics the more prepared you are, both in the game and in your head.  If you like games you like puzzles, that is what a losing replay is. It’s a puzzle, find the proper response, identify the core reasons to your loss then fix them. You can’t look at anything clearly if you are angry. You need to be logical. Keeping a good state of mind, having the want to be respectful will help you to keep from getting angry. Now I’m not saying that cheesers aren’t dickweeds, I’m just not going to let them ruin my game. But when you do get mad, don’t let the rage just pour out, once the game is over take a breather, don’t think about what went wrong, if there was a problem that is what the replay is for. Think about the next game, check facebook, go grab something to drink. Don’t just jump into a game when your pissed. Now I’m not expecting you to be calm and tranquil before each game, just make sure your ready for the next match and that you’re not letting anger and frustration from one game follow you to the next game. I Have had plenty of opponents that Rage, I have had people start with rage right off the bat. I had a recent PvZ where the guy called me a pussy in place of gl hf, so I put a cannon in his natural and started antagonizing him. He raged the whole game and I macro’d my way to the win. I have a friend who responds to gl hf with something to the effect of ‘Fuck You’ 90% of the time. Now IRL as I have said, I have anger issues, I am notorious for road rage. But I understand that anger only hurts you when you let it control you. The bottom line is games are meant to be fun. If your always angry maybe you need to take a second look at why you play the game. Or question if you should be playing the game. I hope you don’t enjoy the rage, but to each their own. I hope you enjoyed this article however. If any of this has helped you with your rage in game leave a comment. I love feed back. And if your on Facebook check out Indy SC2. Well, Good Luck and Have FUN!  And please, don’t take your rage out on your poor computer.