Ranked play is way too stressful

[flat tire]

How do people deal with the anger and stress? Are people who play a lot of ranked simply getting less than extremely upset each time they lose?

[SpoOkyMagician]

Remember, it's just a game. I can understand getting frustrated at times if you are competitive but, you need to "put those feelings aside" and "enjoy the game". Video Games are meant to be for fun. (Competitive or not.)

To be fair, I am a 600-800 range elo player so, meh... But still, my point should still be heard/is still valid.

[FloosWorld]

^ That's good adivce. Remember, you play ranked to get games against similar skilled opponents, so the chances are 50/50 for a win.

[Kampfschwein Fjonda]

1. You are allowed to ban Arabia-like maps if you hate their standard Meta
2. Your defeat is not because of lazy devs, but your own simple and crucial mistakes. Understanding them reduces frustration a bit, watching replay might help understand. Watching Hera coaching for 1000 Elo (Youtube) will teach all common mistakes.
3. Resign if you honestly have to accept there is no more win condition (20 Knights inside your base and you have nothing). Watching your base burn down 5 more minutes will not improve your mood

[Puason]

embrace that points dont matter

[flat tire]

The points are the entire reason for playing ranked and being highly aware that losing is entirely your own fault is part of the reason it's stressful.

Maybe people who don't get that upset find themselves thinking or believing things like "it's just a game" or "points don't matter" but that's not how I feel in ranked and you can't just make yourself believe something.

Anyone start like this and have a metamorphosis to more reasonable play? A potential key issue is the ability to easily get top 1% performance in other domains without feeling stressed or like it's work while playing ranked aoe2 is very difficult just to be a median player. This feeds back into the stress because I could probably do much better if each loss wasn't so unpleasant and mood altering.

[Puason]

Originally posted by flat tire:

The points are the entire reason for playing ranked and being highly aware that losing is entirely your own fault is part of the reason it's stressful.

Maybe people who don't get that upset find themselves thinking or believing things like "it's just a game" or "points don't matter" but that's not how I feel in ranked and you can't just make yourself believe something.

Anyone start like this and have a metamorphosis to more reasonable play? A potential key issue is the ability to easily get top 1% performance in other domains without feeling stressed or like it's work while playing ranked aoe2 is very difficult just to be a median player. This feeds back into the stress because I could probably do much better if each loss wasn't so unpleasant and mood altering.

points dont matter

[flat tire]

OK and the earth is flat. Ranked is for competition and the elo (not points pre se) tells you how competitive you are with respect to the rest of the humans participating. Obviously it matters; it's the most direct reflection of the primary goal which is to win and be better than others.

[Quintem]

Originally posted by flat tire:

Maybe people who don't get that upset find themselves thinking or believing things like "it's just a game" or "points don't matter" but that's not how I feel in ranked and you can't just make yourself believe something.

That's how I feel, I'm not the best at dealing with losses and I beat myself up a lot. Best way I've found to deal with it is, vent hard and fast. Then centre myself and try again. The other method is to get up and walk around for a bit. Generally spike in stress hormones would be needed for fight or flight response but we're sat at PCs and not running towards a threat to attack it or running away from a threat to flee.

Generally just reaching a certain level of acceptance.

[Puason]

Originally posted by flat tire:

The points are the entire reason for playing ranked and being highly aware that losing is entirely your own fault is part of the reason it's stressful.

Maybe people who don't get that upset find themselves thinking or believing things like "it's just a game" or "points don't matter" but that's not how I feel in ranked and you can't just make yourself believe something.

Anyone start like this and have a metamorphosis to more reasonable play? A potential key issue is the ability to easily get top 1% performance in other domains without feeling stressed or like it's work while playing ranked aoe2 is very difficult just to be a median player. This feeds back into the stress because I could probably do much better if each loss wasn't so unpleasant and mood altering.

rank its about competing and u are not competing because u think elo is important.

[KingKickAss]

Don't make winning/losing a pride thing. There are plenty of reasons you could lose a game, but you shouldn't jump to feeling inferior to your opponent.

[IgnisX]

Maybe it's something related to the RTS genre and you? I'll give you an example: I have something with the fighting genre, specifically Street Fighter 6. I love that game, I love the fighting genre, but whenever I start losing nonstop, dropping in rank, I get nervous. The game brings out the worst in me. However, this doesn't happen with RTS games.

Maybe you have something like that with RTS genre.

[Moist Butt]

Originally posted by flat tire:

Anyone start like this and have a metamorphosis to more reasonable play? A potential key issue is the ability to easily get top 1% performance in other domains without feeling stressed or like it's work while playing ranked aoe2 is very difficult just to be a median player. This feeds back into the stress because I could probably do much better if each loss wasn't so unpleasant and mood altering.

I dont know about that one. How many hours have u actually put into MP? Are you reinventing the wheel? I have said it many times and I will say it again its really not that hard to get to 1k elo. Play some art of war and practice. Watch some simple build order. Watch 1 of Hera's how to get to 1k elo video or something similar. With like 50 or 100 games after that u should be 1k which isn't too hard to achieve.

Although going past 1k is where u actually need to put more effort in due to the nature of skill distribution.

[flat tire]

I'm already at 1k. I played like 20 ranked matches when DE dropped and went up to 1100. Then tried ranked again a couple weeks ago found it was more difficult. The problem is getting enough practice in ranked since it's hard to play lots of intense focused matches and lose half of them. If I can get around that I could play several matches a day and probably gain a bunch of elo.

[Moist Butt]

Originally posted by flat tire:

I'm already at 1k. I played like 20 ranked matches when DE dropped and went up to 1100. Then tried ranked again a couple weeks ago found it was more difficult. The problem is getting enough practice in ranked since it's hard to play lots of intense focused matches and lose half of them. If I can get around that I could play several matches a day and probably gain a bunch of elo.

hmm i am a bit confused. If I am understanding this correctly, you are now losing around half of your matches which means u have reached your true elo so to speak. And no matter how bad or how good u are you will eventually reach that point for ranked unless you are some extreme outliers like pro or the -23 elo players.

If losing half the games is your problem then ranked queue is sadly not designed for u as that is the end goal of ranked queue i.e. give you a competitive experience which usually means 50% WR.

[flat tire]

Losing is not the issue, per se, it's that it sucks to lose. The distinction is important. I'm aware that I will be losing a lot at any level in balanced competitive play. I am looking for perspective from others who dealt with this. Right now my reaction to losing makes it very difficult to practice. Played <30 games on ranked.