Look I don't appreciate you coming at me with these logical and reasonable points.

One thing that helped me get better is the mindset that if I can't carry, I don't deserve to rank up. I just adapt to whatever I'm given.

They are all ranked the same since they have the same skill level in the end.

Game 1 - Gets an ace, completely dominates tactically, on top of every call
Game 2 - How do you shoot, again?

classic

It’s not some conspiracy, if you are at a 50/50 win rate, that means you are at the appropriate skill level. If you’re better you would have more wins and you’ll move up the ranking until you start losing more games, where you will fall down the rankings to where your average is.

It’s skill based ranking after all, some people have good days where they are better and some also have bad days. It all averages out, but 50/50 win rate means you are appropriately ranked.

Honestly I don't even think it's being elite. Ranked or not, the main concept is understanding 2 things, 1. There is no real consequence to loosing and 2. That looses are nothing more than something you can still have fun in, it's not the destination but the journey that matters.

As someone that had losses and events in my life, the game and most things in life and miniscule, ans with this I enjoy everything. It's great. No need to worry cause there is ALWAYS better evenings ans you have had worse, much worse than loosing 25+ in a row. Elite or not, it just means being logical and not judging your self

incredibly insightful post. thanks a lot for sharing. i never thought about this in that much detail, but it really seems to make sense what you are referencing to.

Agreed. I was huge on League for the better half of my 20s and it was all consuming. Haven't been into any multi-player since. (not knocking people who do, to be clear. Just didn't want to go down that rabbit hole again)

I still haven't read that source about dota 2 but personally, I think it's addictive because it feels sooooo good when you win. It brings the worst of you when you lose, but when you win, it feels really good, it's so satisfying to win a hard match, competitive or not (i play a lot of turbo, feels addictive anyway). After all, if we only felt bad when losing and didn't feel as good when wining, we wouldn't come back. Or at least, I wouldn't. If another game frustrates me, and gives me nothing in return, I leave it

This is a great writeup and matches with my experiences as well. That said, I would say that the discourse around the subject is complicated and itself fraught with emotion. Ironically (or perhaps just appropriately), the discourse is framed as competitive: one between "boomers" and "gamers," with the prevailing narrative being that out of touch pearl clutchers are obsessed with attacking forms of entertainment they don't understand instead of dealing with the real problems of society. Part of the narrative, however, is also the categorical rejection from gamers that video games have the ability to affect your mental state or influence your emotions in ANY capacity. Which, as you've noted, they do. It's competition. We see professional athletes get into fights and engage in poor sportsmanship constantly. In baseball, pitchers will throw balls at batters with the intent to hit. Batters will charge the mound. And this is in a game that explicitly forbids violence.

I think part of the issue is this expectation (and you noted this, as well) that people attach their identity to being "good at video games" - it's a signifier of accomplishment for people who haven't really accomplished much. Often times, this is young people or people whose careers are just getting started, or who are still in school and have a tenuous degree of personal agency. The thing that's tilting, the thing that makes them upset, is that they expect this to be a domain in which they have power and control, and loss is a signifier of the fact that this is not true. It reminds them they don't really have any power over their own lives.

Nah, my win rate is objectively under 50%, and I'm already down to a level where it feels like the outcome of the battle is largely separated to what I'm actually doing any more in comparison to what teammates I get. By logic, I should finally get 50% win rate this time, but somehow it's still not, wtf.

And of course I almost uninstall because of that, and at least already play much less than I could. They clearly already lose money from this, people I know mostly have already quit the game.

But I need my angry loss emotions, I don't have the capacity to deal with any real emotions.

What a save

Trash

I Got it

There are two kinds of gamers. Rage gamers and anxiety gamers.

Ans I hope he was thr happiest one in the group, ignorance is bliss.

Get beaten badly by a team.

Play again.

New team is you plus members of team that recently easily beat you.

Now they are not good.

Ranked usually uses metals and gemstones to identify the skill level of the player. Bronze, silver, gold, usually diamond, etc.

So basically he "got slapped" meaning totally hot his ass beaten in the game by these high level players, but when they ended up in his team on the next round they played like total noobs.