How does anger affect your gaming?

Thread: How does anger affect your gaming?
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Anger is an interesting thing to me. It can make you lose control and be your undoing, or it can focus you like nothing else. For me, anger and gaming go hand in hand. Inevitably, there will be some boss that pisses me off, or some obnoxious level that drives me nuts. I think there have probably been a few times where I have ranted about some game or another on this forum.

I'm curious how anger effects your gaming. When I'm pissed off, I'm thinking all kinds of awful stuff in my mind. Cursing the game developers, or in the past thinking nasty stuff about some player on the other team in a Halo multiplayer game. My blood pressure probably goes up as well as my body temperature. Now, those are all bad things. However, something amazing happens sometimes when I am angry. Somehow, I achieve a level of focus where it almost feels like someone else takes over my fingers. Suddenly, I'm dodging everything like The Matrix, doing crazy combos I haven't done before. I remember playing Halo years ago and getting multiple back to back kills on players more skilled than me because one of them said something that pissed me off, or just handing someone his ass in Marvel vs Capcom in the arcade when they usually dominate against any challengers.

It's kind of fascinating to me. Anger has the ability to awaken something in you, to sharpen your skills in a way. I can for certain say that I have "entered the zone" quite a few times in gaming simply because I got pissed off. It doesn't happen immediately. It's like my anger has to reach a certain boiling point, but when it does...

Dragon Ball GIF by Toei Animation


On a related note, I'd like to think that it's a good thing that I often get out my anger when playing video games. In my day to day life I'm usually pretty chill and people generally describe me as pretty laid back. Gaming is probably a healthy outlet for my anger. Even when I'm mad at a fellow gamer, it's usually out of my system after I virtually kick their ass
 
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I never really ever get angry to the point I want to damage stuff. At most I get a little annoyed if I'm not doing well in multiplay but I never rage quit
 
I can get pretty angry if a game has an unreasonably difficult part or a poorly implemented mechanic. I generally just avoid games that have a tendency to piss me off. In the rare occasion the developer surprises me with bullshit, I just take a break and try again later.
 
Amorous Biscuit said:
Man has never played 4 player Mario Kart with friends. Shit is enough to make me punch a hole in the wall.
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Oh no, I have, I just wasn't wound up about it.

I've had mates throw their controllers at me over it though, and once my wife was so angry about my dropping a red shell on her and pipping her to the finish line by moments, she kicked me in the forehead.
 
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Stilton Disco said:
Oh no, I have, I just wasn't wound up about it.

I've had mates throw their controllers at me over it though, and once my wife was so angry about my dropping a red shell on her and pipping her to the finish line by moments, she kicked me in the forehead.
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I don't think anything makes me swear more than MK8D with friends. The sheer cuntery on display is astounding.
 
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I've never smashed a controller, but COD has brought me close to that point in the past. It's really easy to get angry at COD lol
 
I bought an arcade stick, learned the zen of arcade games (especially shmups, Vs Puzzle, and fighting games) and I've never raged since. I think playing rhythm games at higher difficulties — where a single mistake crashes your score for the whole song — mellowed me out too. The painstaking process of mastering a 1cc run in a game like Dai Ou Jou really makes the "difficulty" of most other genres trivial. It's all just trial and error and patient improvement.

Playing through Elden Ring was kinda weird because I was getting stomped a lot, but I never felt the same anger and frustration that I felt when I was younger playing through Demon's/Dark Souls.
 
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In my younger days ive thrown controllers but never to the point of breaking, however thats been pure luck a couple times. For at least the last 10 years its more...disgust. I see bosses or events as being hard for the sake of being hard and then i just dont fucking care. I have played Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes for the last 8 years, and the events they hold....its just fucking standard squad's but they boost the stats and speed of the opponents to insane levels.

Having said that, im 20 years into Final Fantasy 11, pain is my middle name. I have partied against Absolute Virtue many times. Fuck you, you cunt of a boss. And their last 5 years of pandering to solo players is fucking amazing, the amount of time i dumped into this game is beyond belief

for reference
 
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I used to get tilted a lot playing multiplayer games, mainly fighters. I realized when I started going to IRL tournaments I didn't get mad or upset when I lost, and I think it was from being in the presence of my opponent and just little things are different, like when they do something good I say "nice", where when I'm alone I might think "bullshit!" World of difference being able to shake hands, exchange compliments and tips. I try to picture a person like that on the other side of the internet connection and it helps.
Like @DonDonDonPata said... "zen" arcade. When I started playing man vs. machine arcade style games, all that shit went away. What would be 'anger' or 'tilt' or 'frustration' is met with so much curiosity and it's exciting to know you're not going to cakewalk through a game until you learn something new or figure something out and apply it.
 
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I used to be the type of gamer that would bang my head against the wall until I won. I'd just keep going and going, getting angrier and angrier. These days if something pisses me off I just say "whatever" and move on. If I'm not enjoying the game, then why am I playing it?
 
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