Meekness

I have had the DOTA2 beta at my disposal and ready to play for some three or four months now, and I’ve played it exactly twice. This is not a badge of misplaced honor, or some kind of self-congratulatory example of restraint. No, the reason I have not played this game is distressingly simple, not to mention more than a little shameful.

Fact is, I’m completely intimidated by it.

And, it’s not alone. There are lots of games that intimidate me, and try as I might to rationalize and logic my way out of this silly trepidation, I can’t get over my hesitation to play certain games. Games like Magic the Gathering Online, Hearts of Iron III, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Demon’s Souls, Team Fortress 2, Dwarf Fortress, League of Legends and a scattering of others. Sometimes they just seem too complex. Other times the community surrounding the game seems too uninviting, most often competing players have been at the game for so long that it all just seems impenetrable from the outside.

And the tragedy, the real shame of it all, is that all of those games above are ones I’d like to learn and get involved in, right up til the moment that I casually look through an online starter guide that talks about how in just five or six months I might begin to understand the fundamentals. Moments like that, I should have a fully functioning and very real ejector seat, because I would pull that rip cord like I was opening a Christmas present from my long-lost billionaire uncle.

I played StarCraft II for a long time, and I really enjoyed it. I even managed to push myself out of the familiar comfort zone of the single-player game into laddering for a few weeks, learning the new game along with everyone else. As I look back on that I remember two things. First, I had a lot of fun. Second, there were a lot of times when I wasn’t having fun and instead felt strung out.

Eventually I got distracted by another game or two for a few weeks, and when I returned to SC2, what I found was an unforgiving game that had left me behind. In front of me I saw a long road just to get back to where I was. And I tried. Honestly, I gave it a good shot through about 10 ladder losses in a row, at which point I realized my SC2-playing days were over. Ever since, I’ve been completely intimidated by the thought of firing up StarCraft.

Thing is, I really like the game. I still watch professional matches and am interested in the subtle mechanics and ever-evolving strategies. But I also see the confidence in the clicks on the screen, and I realize the colossal gap between myself and these professional gamers. I know logically, of course, that comparing myself to them is insane, but it’s there and for as long as I’ve been away from the game, some Gold leaguer these days might as well be Naniwa or White-Ra for all I’m capable of competing.

It’s a whiny, sulky feeling that I don’t really like in myself. What I should be able to do is just dive into these games and enjoy the sense of learning and improving, finding my way through a complex but ultimately logical maze of actions and evaluations. I know that sweet feel of neurons finally building a critical link, that almost earth-shifting feeling when my brain suddenly grasps a sophisticated concept that was completely elusive before. I know those rewards are scattered and hidden under the morass of struggle and disappointment these games represent, but I just can’t swing myself into it.

And, why should I? The whole point of this gaming thing is to enjoy myself. There’s no shame in choosing to peruse the familiar landscape of a comfortable MMO or chase after high-scores on Orcs Must Die! I have enough areas of my life that almost aggressively seek to push me out of my comfort zone, and there’s no good reason to come home and subject myself to more of the same.

I know I’m missing out on good experiences, but I also accept that you can’t experience everything. To enjoy those games, I would have to invest time that would take away from these other things.

But, that’s not why I’m not playing these games. I’m not playing because when I glance their way, they loom over me with something like malevolence. I can’t quite pin down if it’s just that I am allergic to losing or that I don’t like that lost and hopeless feeling of the first step in pushing a boulder up a hill. Probably both, frankly.

I envy people who are energized by a tremendously difficult game. I hear their whispers in dark halls of the internet, their languages and tongues both familiar and alien to me at the same time. The idea that walls of iron and stone in your path can act as an inspiration instead of a detour is to me both commendable and certifiable.

As for me, I will live quietly enough with my shortcomings and weaknesses, comfortable in the knowledge that I can’t be the only one.

Comments

I don't mind a difficult game, but there are two features of game design that turn me off immediately & they're present in most of the games listed.

First, if the way you are supposed to learn is by losing/dieing a lot. I'm a terrible SC2 player, so what can I look forward to if I want to improve? Lots and lots of losing! Ditto for most multiplayer shooters, where the single player teaches you little more than how to move, and learning the multiplayer maps and tactics requires repeatedly dieing. Some single player games even commit this offence too, providing challenges that are designed to be impossible, even for the most skilled on the first time through, typically due to very specific knowledge of e.g. instradeath traps locations. We talk about some games as having a good difficulty curve - to me, those are the games where we feel the challenge was "fair"; that is to say we were prepared for the challenge by the game and any knowledge we needed was given to us without an accompanying penalty death.

Second, if either the community or the game is inclined to make me feel bad about my lack of competence, I have a real problem with that. The obvious example is something like LoL, where in my experience, my own team would think nothing of hurling abuse at me for something that was perceived as "noobish" play. Even on the GWJ TF2 server, which is extremely friendly, your kills/death ratio, points, etc is thrust in your face at the end of each round, plus who is dominating you is broadcast as you go along. As a new player, this does not make you feel good! This extends to some single player games too, where the game penalizes you heavily (e.g. wide save point spacing) or scores you on a scale where even an apparently average score cannot be achieved without lots of reloads.

We've got a pretty healthy League of Legends goodjer base if you ever want to step in.

Cod:

Small comment.

The win-loss ratio of most of the ladder is roughly the same, skewing only at the extreme ends. What this means for you can be that you may not lose as much as you expected even as a "terrible" player; or that it doesn't matter how good you get, you're going to lose a lot anyway! YMMV.

Maq wrote:

Decent matchmaking/ranking is really the magic bullet for this kind of thing.

This is what I felt was great about League of Legends and a lot of why I played it for almost 2 years. That combined with the fact that it was a team game and we could joke around and talk about what was going on in our lives while we played. I would say LoL was not perfect on the match making front but more often then not it did rather well. It is a complex and ever changing game. I found that even at the end I would almost always have a web browser open to guides/forums open on my second monitor during play for tips and guidance from others that had taken the time to study the deeper side of the game. I would most likely still be playing it regularly except newborns don't mix well with games that don't pause and well free time also goes out the window...

Elysium,

Your problem is sacrificing gaming depth for gaming breadth. Don't you buy and play 90% of AAA games and 50% of everything else? Then you can hardly fault yourself for not being uber-elite at game X. I think in your position, where you surround yourself with other game journalists and folks who play as wide a sampling of games, it's easy to forget that most gamers, including most gamers you play with/against on multiplayer games, buy only one or a few games per year, and extract every minute of joy from that purchase.

Some many conference calls ago there was a discussion where someone (Rabbit?) decried not being an expert at any game. Well, other than WoW, how many of these games did you care about enough to go and do that? How about the people you play against on Starcraft, Team Fortress, or League of Legends? They've clearly done so, so it's not fair to measure yourself against that.

My advice: keep enjoying new stuff, play established games with those you care about and who will respect one another, especially other GWJers, and don't worry if you can't keep up with Johnny Unemployed who plays Starcraft 20 hours per day.

Gnoupi wrote:

The intimidation for DOTA-like games comes mostly from the rules of the game itself, I believe.
It's the kind of game in which your individual failure actually helps the enemy team. If you have a particularly bad time, you are actually making your opponent stronger, and you will most likely get flamed for that.

Likewise for any team-based versus games that don't have infinite respawn. Counter-Strike and Left 4 Dead come immediately to mind. My friends list for L4D is composed nearly entirely of people who have played at the highest competitive levels, and it's funny when we've got two or three of us pubbing with a teammate who is reasonably good but hasn't played competitively (friends of friends are the worst at this!). We'll be providing tips, direction, and cues on how and what would be best to do what, and when that skilled pubby inevitably fails, that person immediately falls back on their overestimated self-assessment that no, they're doing just fine: "I've been playing this since it launched, and always win!" And sure, that's probably true, but I guess it's kind of like "welcome to the NFL"; even if you've won a national championship or won the Heisman trophy, not having experience that next level of play blinds you of understanding what a good team really can and must do. Our solution? If the person seems reasonable and wants to learn, great, keep him on. If he's defensive and uncooperative, then we'll consider taking our chances with a bot.

Maq wrote:

Decent matchmaking/ranking is really the magic bullet for this kind of thing. Take a football to the park and come up against 3 former Premier League players and you're gonna get bored of Football pretty quickly as well.

Yeah, by the time you've got over them rolling round on the floor, moaning about challenges from your 6-year-old brother and waiting for the non-existent ballboy to get the ball back, it'll be going dark and time for tea. And Lord help you if they start arguing about whether a shot that goes over the jumpers is in or not...

Maq wrote:

Decent matchmaking/ranking is really the magic bullet for this kind of thing. Take a football to the park and come up against 3 former Premier League players and you're gonna get bored of Football pretty quickly as well.

While it helps, it isn't a complete solution. Being matched to appropriate opponents would keep me from running away screaming right at the start, but once I start to improve an enforced 50% win/loss ratio is actually really grating for me.

How do I feel that I'm improving in a strategy game? I win more often or more convincingly. In an FPS? I start to climb the scoreboards, dieing less often and/or making more kills. Too-perfect matchmaking takes that away, replacing an emotional reward of victory due my superior skill or knowledge with the hollow satisfaction of seeing my rank number increase. Yay.

This same effect makes me loathe RPGs where the world levels with you. What's the point in improving if there's no real gain?

I seem to have an irrational fear of gaming on the internet. I love the idea of gaming online since I don't have a readily available group of gaming friends physically near me but what generally happens is I find myself doubting my skills and end up killing any ambition I may have had to even try MP most of the time. One of the hurdles is that I rarely pick up games when they are released so, as has been mentioned, I feel I've fallen too far behind the curve.

The exceptions for me are generally games with non-competitive modes. I played a ton of L4D and Borderlands with some people from another small community and loved it. We also got into Red Faction: Guerrilla MP with is probably the one exception I've had where I enjoyed playing competitively but we had a few "high level" players show up and dominate. Things kind of dissolved and I haven't played since.

If there is a online community where I feel comfortable enough to jump into some of the games I've been wanted to play it's here. I just recently joined a Blood Bowl league here and have been enjoying it. I'm hoping to use the BB experience to break through some of the other invisible walls I've created and try to jump into some other games and gaming groups. I'm looking at you online board gaming group. *peaking out from curtain*

LarryC wrote:

Cod:

Small comment.

The win-loss ratio of most of the ladder is roughly the same, skewing only at the extreme ends. What this means for you can be that you may not lose as much as you expected even as a "terrible" player; or that it doesn't matter how good you get, you're going to lose a lot anyway! YMMV.

Understood. My point there is less about the loss ratio and more about the way Blizzard wants me to learn. The way the game (ignoring mods) wants me to get the basic Bronze/Silver level knowledge and skills I need to play the multiplayer game better is through the experience of losing and seeing what worked against me. I'm not an expert in learning/education, but repeatedly failing doesn't seem like the most fun way that a learning process could be designed.

I don't really have this same problem with overly challenging or complicated single player games. In MP, however, this is a big issue for me too. I avoid multiplayer entirely, and I know that's fine--as long as I'm having fun and hurting no one else, anything I do is fine--but there is some little niggle in me that wishes I'd get over the MP fear thing. I suspect it's a similar niggling voice, a sense that you're not quite the person you aspire to be, that inspired this article because it's video games, of course, and if you're having fun, who cares what your habits and preferences are.

There is the desire to avoid the a-hole-ish-ness of good players who have no empathy for the n00b. There is the avoidance of potentially embarrassing yourself with your amateur play. But really, I think it is this:

teh_boy wrote:

I think there is a tendency for people who have a streak of perfectionism (I have this tendency, it sounds like you do too) to be over-intimidated by things they know they can never be the best at.

I avoid MP because of the agony it causes me to lose a match. I quit playing asynchronous iphone chess because close matches were stressing me out. Forget something like LoL, where I don't know what I'm doing.

And yet...there's a part of me that thinks if I push myself to play these things, play them a lot, lose a lot, and try to be okay with that, I'll "get better": losing as therapy for hyper-self-demanding-ness. But then again, don't we play games to have fun (mostly)? Isn't that turning gaming into exercise or psychotherapy?

Interesting article, nonetheless. I'm glad it's not just me.

Grenn wrote:

We've got a pretty healthy League of Legends goodjer base if you ever want to step in.

Right this way, sir. Only 232 pages to catch up with us.

There is no shame in wanting to have fun while playing games. I have a simple rule: when I stop having fun playing a particular game, I stop playing it. There are so many games out there that I couldn't possibly get to all of them, so why waste time on one title if I'm getting bored or frustrated with it?

Conversely, when I do enjoy a game a lot, I typically play it to death.

Cod wrote:

I'm not an expert in learning/education, but repeatedly failing doesn't seem like the most fun way that a learning process could be designed.

I just finished a masters degree in education. It's not.

IMHO the problem isn't so much you have to lose a lot of matches, it's that you often have no idea why you lost or what you need to do to improve. I've been trying to learn how to PvP in Old Republic. In a lot of games my side gets rolled up by people with the PvP gear. I hate those matches because there's nothing I can do and nothing I can learn from them. When I'm on the same side as the geared/experienced folk the games are just as unsatisfying for the same reason (though they sting less). But my dissatisfaction isn't tied to whether I won or lost. Take my two most recent enjoyable matches: There was game where I tagged along on a successful stealth feint and won Voidstar really quick, learning a new tactic and gaining insight into how to defend against it. Then there was the game of Huttball where we lost 6-0, but I did pull off a nice pass with 6 players wailing on me and learned a bit about how the various routes to the goalless off each other.

Both of those matches were enjoyable because I felt like I learned something, and felt like I made a difference. Too many games make it difficult to figure out why you lost, and they don't do a good job of letting you know when you're improving a little bit.

LarryC wrote:

Specifically, gamers I know who are awesome are electrified by loss, not because they're sadists, but because they view every loss as a teacher - a new secret imparted by a fellow warrior through battle.

The problem is most of the losses I run into are pretty sh*tty teachers, and nobody is actively trying to improve the situation.

Vargen:

The problem is most of the losses I run into are pretty sh*tty teachers, and nobody is actively trying to improve the situation.

That's not true, and especially not in SC2, or even SC1. The best way to view a loss is to save it to disk and then replay it while viewing from both sides. See what your opponent saw, and did. The game even records your opponent's very button presses and screen control, and you can use that view if you like.

Apart from that, Day9 offers comprehensive and good game analysis of beginner and mid-level games every Tuesday, and delivers solid advice for improvement through the Leagues. Specific clans and forum communities (like Team Liquid) offer venues for asking advice on games and on how to improve your game and/or SC experience.

I'm not saying that it's not sh*tty, but some people are doing very solid somethings to improve the situation.

Awesome last few posts. Vargen's declarations mixed with all the multiplayer experiences cited really makes me now appreciate when a game has a good difficulty curve (Zelda) versus one that doesn't (multiplayer Halo). In other words, that I think we've fleshed out the centrality of mentored or otherwise responsibly allotted information toward one's gradual mastery of any task, as opposed to what games often do, an impossible chasm with insufficient feedback. Think of any UFC fighter: I imagine that all of them first learned a discipline, then slowly fought gradually more well-rounded and experienced opponents, giving them the opportunity to do at the end what would not have been possible without so many intermediate steps. Vargen or other educators/consultants, does this all hit home with your mindset? It makes me more appreciate the methods I use to train folks at work.

Wasn't there a recent discussion on the conference call or somewhere else about a game, some RTS, that tries to tell you what you're doing wrong in multiplayer? Starcraft 2, League of Legends? Maybe I'm recalling a Three Moves Ahead episode?

Just friendly advice: If you're going to get into Hearts of Iron, just play 2 or one of it's commercial expansions. Three is broken in most ways and after patches is still only "pretty playable" as described by experienced players.

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Part of the problem with matchmaking is that people greatly overestimate the amount of winning you need to do to be good at a game. The top 25 League of Legends solo queue players have something around a 60% win ratio.

If you have more wins than losses in any match making system, no matter by how slim a margin, you're doing great.

I don't get intimidated by complicated or difficult single player games, I do feel a resistance to learning a complex new game when there is a lower hanging fruit sitting waiting for me. Since my graphics card died I have had more time to learn some laptop friendly complex indie games that have been sitting in the pile like AI War: Fleet Command and Star Ruler. These gems have been languishing for a while and are now getting the attention they deserve.

Multiplayer is another story entirely. I couldn't get to a 50% win ratio in Starcraft 2 and while it's possible to learn from one's losses I really don't have the time or inclination to study to play a videogame against other people. Add to the fact that I get really tense when laddering, and it makes it very unappealing as a way to spend my leisure time.

What surprises me here is that there aren't MORE games that cater to exactly this kind of thinking. There are tons of us people with families & jobs & kids who don't have 1,000 hours to spend on a game (er, well, ok, don't look at my DOW time played :P) but who want the ability to play multiplayer somehow simply because it gives you that sense of social contact and fun you can have with other people in a match.

I'm just waiting for SPAZ to come out with coop multiplayer

synertia wrote:

Just friendly advice: If you're going to get into Hearts of Iron, just play 2 or one of it's commercial expansions. Three is broken in most ways and after patches is still only "pretty playable" as described by experienced players.

Or play Vicky 2, like a real man!

Keithustus wrote:

Wasn't there a recent discussion on the conference call or somewhere else about a game, some RTS, that tries to tell you what you're doing wrong in multiplayer? Starcraft 2, League of Legends? Maybe I'm recalling a Three Moves Ahead episode?

If we're thinking of the same thing (G. Christopher Williams on PopMatters), it was about how LoL players don't give the same helpful feedback that they used to.

Norfair wrote:

This is absolutely false. I've seen plenty of engineers and medics on top of the leader board in games without killing anybody.

Aye. The only way I ever get off the bottom rung of the leaderboard on either Stan server is to go medic

EDIT: My only recommendation Elysium is to find a group to play with and stick with them. Don't worry about playing competitively (ie. ladders and all that), just find a crew to enjoy a game with regardless of skill level.

I am the same way with SC2. If my friends would play, I'd be all over it though.

I know I’m missing out on good experiences, but I also accept that you can’t experience everything. To enjoy those games, I would have to invest time that would take away from these other things.

Why is it a binary decision? These games aren't going anywhere; play what you like now, and come back when you have time and interest enough for the more complex games later. Gaming is not "just about fun" or "always about deep neuron-pathway construction" for anyone, I suspect; it's a hobby and a form of entertainment, and can be treated as such.

Although you're a weak-livered soberface if you aren't playing Dwarf Fortress, just so that we're clear.

TheHipGamer wrote:
I know I’m missing out on good experiences, but I also accept that you can’t experience everything. To enjoy those games, I would have to invest time that would take away from these other things.

Why is it a binary decision? These games aren't going anywhere; play what you like now, and come back when you have time and interest enough for the more complex games later. Gaming is not "just about fun" or "always about deep neuron-pathway construction" for anyone, I suspect; it's a hobby and a form of entertainment, and can be treated as such.

Although you're a weak-livered soberface if you aren't playing Dwarf Fortress, just so that we're clear.

That's something I really think video gaming has to 'solve' at some point if it wants to wear grown up pants like most other entertainment. No one goes into a book shop and moans that all the books are old or that all their friends aren't reading it right now. No one knocks chess for it's age but it's still as good a game as ever. Video gaming needs to be less like consumable perishable goods.

I agree. We need longer tails.

Scratched wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:
I know I’m missing out on good experiences, but I also accept that you can’t experience everything. To enjoy those games, I would have to invest time that would take away from these other things.

Why is it a binary decision? These games aren't going anywhere; play what you like now, and come back when you have time and interest enough for the more complex games later. Gaming is not "just about fun" or "always about deep neuron-pathway construction" for anyone, I suspect; it's a hobby and a form of entertainment, and can be treated as such.

Although you're a weak-livered soberface if you aren't playing Dwarf Fortress, just so that we're clear.

That's something I really think video gaming has to 'solve' at some point if it wants to wear grown up pants like most other entertainment. No one goes into a book shop and moans that all the books are old or that all their friends aren't reading it right now. No one knocks chess for it's age but it's still as good a game as ever. Video gaming needs to be less like consumable perishable goods.

But what has to be changed? There's nothing about gaming that prohibits this now -- I have a copy of White Knight Chronicles sitting on my shelf unplayed, waiting for a time when I can dig in. I own an (excessive) number of Steam titles that I've yet to tear into for the same reason. Hell, I still need to play Baldur's Gate II, having just finished the first game in the series last year!

What's required is a shift in (some subset of) gaming consumers and connoisseurs. Selling the new hotness is how studios stay in business; enjoying games for the long haul isn't something we need approval from on high for, as gamers.

TheHipGamer wrote:
Scratched wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:
I know I’m missing out on good experiences, but I also accept that you can’t experience everything. To enjoy those games, I would have to invest time that would take away from these other things.

Why is it a binary decision? These games aren't going anywhere; play what you like now, and come back when you have time and interest enough for the more complex games later. Gaming is not "just about fun" or "always about deep neuron-pathway construction" for anyone, I suspect; it's a hobby and a form of entertainment, and can be treated as such.

Although you're a weak-livered soberface if you aren't playing Dwarf Fortress, just so that we're clear.

That's something I really think video gaming has to 'solve' at some point if it wants to wear grown up pants like most other entertainment. No one goes into a book shop and moans that all the books are old or that all their friends aren't reading it right now. No one knocks chess for it's age but it's still as good a game as ever. Video gaming needs to be less like consumable perishable goods.

But what has to be changed? There's nothing about gaming that prohibits this now -- I have a copy of White Knight Chronicles sitting on my shelf unplayed, waiting for a time when I can dig in. I own an (excessive) number of Steam titles that I've yet to tear into for the same reason. Hell, I still need to play Baldur's Gate II, having just finished the first game in the series last year!

What's required is a shift in (some subset of) gaming consumers and connoisseurs. Selling the new hotness is how studios stay in business; enjoying games for the long haul isn't something we need approval from on high for, as gamers.

That was one of the driving thoughts behind the formation of Critical Distance, and a reason behind pushes for long-form and print writing like Kill Screen. Unfortunately, I believe both came to realize that "building it" doesn't necessarily mean "they will come." It's an audience that exists in small groups now, but that I hope can be cultivated.

For my part, I'm more than willing to run articles on GWJ about games that came out months or years ago, so long as they say something interesting.

Norfair wrote:
RolandofGilead wrote:

Even though it's team-based, your contribution in TF2 is basically tied to your kill-death ratio.
If I ever lead my team in scores at the end of a match, it means we lost (all games).

This is absolutely false. I've seen plenty of engineers and medics on top of the leader board in games without killing anybody.

No, it's true, whenever I'm in the lead, it means my team is losing.

Also, 1) those engineers and medics helped the other players get more kills and 2) turret kills count and 3) why would I play an online shooter just so I can *not* shoot people?