Work-related stress
When I first purchased SupCom, the first thing I did was play through all 3 campaigns, in the span of a couple days. Then, I immediately started playing ranked games. At first, these were a great deal of fun. Being an old TA player, I could easily crush the many noobs I was matched up against in my first few days of ranked play. Even when things began to harder, I was still able to win most of my games, and at one point I was ranked among the top 50 players.
The problem with playing ranked games all the time is that it is damn stressful. Once you start playing top-ranked players, almost every game is a struggle, with the outcome often determined by razor thin margins. Every time you lose a game, you feel an almost unstoppable urge to go back in and win two or three to make up for it, getting your ranking back up to where they were was before the loss.
Because I’ve been extremely busy with schoolwork (I’m graduating college this semester), I haven’t really had time to play much SupCom this past week. This has been a blessing in disguise. I have been able to relax, at least with respect to SupCom, and realize that there is no reason for me to care at all what my ranking is. I can enjoy ranked games, because they are a good way to get into some very fun competitive matches, but I am through treating SupCom like a job. After all, I play mostly to relax, and it is not at all relaxing to be constantly worrying about your ranking.
So here is my message to all you people out there who are constantly checking your ranking on GPGnet after every game: Don’t worry about it.
April 15th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
I know exactly what you mean. Managed to get myself down to rank 350 or so. Then lost a few games. Nearly killed myself getting back to 400. Then lost a load more against really good opponents. It’s pure stress. I’m happy with my couple of stars at this stage. I won’t lose those anyway. A good competitive match is fun and everything but beating yourself up about your ranking does begin to take its toll. Especially if you’ve got all this other school related stuff that’s wearing you out already.
At least now I can say i’ve played enough good people to have a decent understanding of the game. I can understand whats going on in replays so I’m getting alot of enjoyment out of just watching them. The SupComLive shoutcast was excellent fun. It’s surprising how well you can follow things just by the sounds. Demans fantastic commentary is a major factor too of course.
April 15th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
I actually look forward to losing now, since after my rating goes down it means the heat will get turned down as I play less tough opponenets. Ironically, since I’ve made that realization I’ve won every game, meaning my rating is now around a scary 1750 (very high for me, I’m not that good). So I’m just waiting for the inevitable loss or 3, but now I don’t mind them when they happen. I now know that the game will stay more fun if my rating is less high.
April 15th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
wow this site is becoming tough to keep up with as the blogposts become more prolific compared to the once-every-day-or-so rate it had up to about a week ago! :)
I definitely agree about the stress of ranked games, especially when you lose. This is why I have yet to play any ranked games… I know I’d care way too much about my rank and that’s not enjoyable for me. I mostly play skirmish and enjoy making and testing maps and watching replays. I doubt I’ll play much if at all online except maybe with a friend or two against some AI.
As long as you’re enjoying the game… that’s the important part.
April 15th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Yacoub: Yeah, the entire main page is cycling once a day now. It’s getting quite hectic. There’s still so much to talk about though!
April 17th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Thank you for a good post. You know, I’m so bad that not only do I always check my rank, I always check the rank of my opponent too. Although, in a different way: I am very happy when they are 7-25, etc. It tells me there are people out there that just like to play the game. I am currently something like 32-32-2. Dead 50%. I enjoy the hectic play, and I enjoy the “just one more win tonight”, but you are 100% right. You just can NOT let it get to you. It’s a game; you can take it serious, but in life it will get you no where.
My biggest hope is the people who read this are the ones who are “scared” to play 1v1. I admit, I was one of them. Took me forever to take the leap, but I’ve been hooked sense. But there is no reason to worry. I’ll tell you right now, you probably wont make the top 500. So what? Until the AI is vastly improved the MP community is where it’s at.
April 17th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I’ve actually been playing Tiberium Wars a bit, and it’s AI seems to be rather effective. My friend and I played against a medium (we weren’t allied, but we were mostly ignoring each other) and it used a coordinated strike of two flights of Firehawks (heavy fighter-bombers) to take out my AA while right after it had EMP’d my power generation, then brought in Orcas (light fighter-bombers) to wipe out my defenses, then dropped Zone Troopers, Bloodhounds, and snipers right outside my base. They sent in a commando to kill my anti-vehicle defenses on the other side of my base, then left all my infrastructure there and captured it bit by bit. Everything except my infrastructure took less than 30 seconds. It did that to me *and* my buddy at the same time. And from what we can tell, it doesn’t cheat.
That was a medium AI.
Well, I hope the mid-April SupCom patch brings in some AI upgrades, though I know all the competitive players have many other things that are far higher on the list of things to be fixed/changed.
April 17th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Wow, it sounds like the C&C AI actually uses strategy. That’s probably the one area in which it beats Supreme Commander.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Ahhh, I wouldn’t know anything about rankings… :( GPGnet doesn’t work for me.