I think one of the aspects of fighting games that contributes to me placing it at the bottom of the 1v1 totem pole is that a lot of mid~high ranking fighting game players think they’re untouchable geniuses for offering platitudes as advice. I don’t think it really matters what fighting game it is; even though the poster in question is a Tekken player, I see this in Street Fighter, I saw it in Granblue Versus, etc. As someone who has become less of an outsider and more of an insider to the genre, it’s tiresome seeing this same song and dance play out over and over again.
The anonymized player is clearly trying to improve their online ranking and is getting frustrated that their opponents are just pressing their own attack buttons after the player makes their opponent block a plus on block attack. Since that attack is plus on block, the anonymized player should be able to beat their opponent mashing with a button that has appropriate attributes. The player is more than likely not seeing this exchange play out in their favor and it’s driving them up a wall.
Telling this player the secret to higher rank is “doing what isn’t expected” (gambling) and framing it not only as a complete explanation for the player’s woes (i.e., they are just guessing better than you) but also as some deep wisdom (“Tough to stomach but it’s true”) sounds both incredibly condescending and stupid. I think the anonymized player is fully within their right to call that platitude “the dumbest shit [they’ve ever] heard”. It’s entitled and immature to offer something that shallow and dismissive as advice and then go “lol i tried helping guess you’ll never learn :)” when you’re dismissed for it.
This interaction perfectly captures what most fighting game players seem to view as real advice giving: they see someone’s frustration, offer a platitude, and if the player don’t buy into it, the player is the problem. All of the responsibility is foisted onto the player and the advice giver is exempt from it while also placing themselves in position to dunk on the player. If you put yourself in the position of giving advice, you are responsible for not only the words you say/type but actually processing what the other person is saying and understanding the context for why they might be saying it. Advice givers don’t get to smugly go “hehe Keep Gambling bro funny meme” and be offended that they’re called stupid for saying stupid shit.
Even worse is that while the solution to the player’s woes is reasonable if they’re engaged in a conversation, there was never any real desire to help the anonymized player in the first place. I think online gaming, fighting games in particular, suffers from a modern obsession with dunk culture - catching someone saying or doing something foolish/bad/stupid/etc. and being the one to put the spotlight on their failings to look good in front of your peers. Why communicate with other fighting game players when you risk being dragged for it online by people with high follower counts on social media?
People in this genre blather on about how stuff like Monday Mitten Masher, Cryin’ Brian, SF4 Ghandi vs FSP, etc. is organic fighting game culture, “banter” like that is necessary, and how attempting to recreate it is just going to result in an inorganic interaction. They turn a blind eye, however, to the fact that there are dunkslop machines like ScrubQuotes cranking out inorganic salt & beef and “visible” players like Romanjelly farming engagement from dunkslop on clearly less-experienced players. To say it plainly, it’s very two-faced and inorganic, ironic for a group that decries corporate and clout-chasing behavior.
This isn’t something that’ll be fixed in a year or even several years, but I think the way people in fighting games talk to each other really, really needs to change. You guys are in a new era of gaming: people online aren’t lesser beings because they’re not at your local. There’s nothing “soft” about being a reasonable human being if someone you don’t know but is proximal to you is having a rough time. Turning fighting game rites of passage into engagement farming on Twitter is jobless behavior.
N.B.
I’ve said what I said, but I also understand that there are exceptions to everything. You cannot really fix whatever the hell this is with being a nicer person.
Sometimes the guy getting the advice is the one at fault.