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Ask HN: What are some things you learnt from a game that changed your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some things you learnt from a game that changed your life?

#21

Post by runawaybottle »

aaron-santos wrote: post #15

Board games taught me to find the game within the game. There's usually a much smaller game idea hidden within. Within board games, Kingdom Builder for example is a game about point efficiency. Ticket to Ride is a game about risk pacing. And Terraforming Mars is a game about strategic synergizing. Avalon/The Resistance taught me what my tells are when I'm lying. Video games taught me different things. Disco Elysium t…

This is typically called the ‘meta game’ and is a big thing in competitive online games.

Sadly, it’s a bad thing when it enters the real world. Life is very easy, but when people make a meta game out of, I don’t know, who has a better lawn, we become ridiculous.

Re: Ask HN: What are some things you learnt from a game that changed your life?

#22

Post by runawaybottle »

Certain competitive online games (well truthfully, all) are never balanced. It’s too much like real life, as in, not fair at all.

If you try to play the game just to have fun, you will basically never progress unless you are an elite gamer (gifted muscle memory).

If you find out how the game is unbalanced, and play the advantageous strategies, then you can win consistently. Even if it’s not fun.

Software field has something similar going on. Leetcode is the most optimal thing one can do in software at the moment. It’s not fair, but that’s how you win.

At scale, most online competitive games employ matchmaking algorithms that make sure you never really break even unless you are brilliant. Super depressing. You stay at a 50% win rate unless you optimize for the efficient winning strategies. It’s super fucked up.

It’s some odd version of video game Taylorism, and I fear software is going to suffer from this as we scale with more and more people. As I mentioned earlier, it’s already odd that we use Leetcode (an absurd advantageous strategy) to get ahead.

It’s depressing.

So yeah, long story short, when I get tired of losing in these games, I basically suck it up and do the optimal thing and start winning. It’s a really dirty thing and I hate doing it.

Re: Ask HN: What are some things you learnt from a game that changed your life?

#23

Post by rolandog »

nokya wrote: post #12

I played an online MMORPG called "Anarchy Online" (AO) while in my early twenties, probably for a little bit more than a year. At a dinner with friends, I started talking about the game and why I liked it. During that discussion, I came to the realization that even if I did absolutely nothing "productive" in the game, I always had access to food, clothes, health services and shelter. Things were organized in a way th…

The people who push fearmongering on UI are those who would be affected if we had the benefit of being able to pass on harsh or dangerous conditions if that meant being able to eat plain oatmeal for free; it's preferable for them that there is no other alternative.

Re: Ask HN: What are some things you learnt from a game that changed your life?

#24

Post by truth_ »

I feel this question was tailored for me!

I grew up to love history. And read mythologies like the Mahabharata and always glorified wars. I was like 13-14.

It was written in the newspapers that war was bad, my History teacher taught us so, and my father always told me so. But I never bought those. To my early teenager tiny-brain, war was something glorious where you fought for your country/clan. And killing other people effectively was fabulous!

This all came to change when I played Call of Duty (1). It is set in WW2. There were so many deaths! And those deaths were so horrific! I had a sort of an epiphany that each corpse (and there were a lot) lying in there is somebody's brother, son, lover, and so on. And they were dead. Quotes about war was flashed across screen after each "mission".

There was a church scene and so many people died there. The condition was so horrific. I realized for the first time in my life that war so horrific and always a bad thing.

Very few transformations in very few persons' lives are dramatic. But this was exactly as I write. Call of Duty (1) taught me to hate wars. I grew up to be a person to whom wars are a very bad thing.

Especially for the people who have to fight.

I loved to play Call of Duty but decided that wars are cool only in games. Not in real life.

Re: Ask HN: What are some things you learnt from a game that changed your life?

#25

Post by emidln »

Playing poker and magic (really any strategy game with chance built-in) , sometimes you'll make the play with the highest likelihood to win and still lose. You can have all the advantage, play perfectly, and sometimes the cards don't fall your way. Looking to better your own plays without tilting too hard to bad luck is crucial to succeed at a high level. On the flip-side, identifying where luck was a component of your win allows you to make the most of reviewing old game states.

Re: Ask HN: What are some things you learnt from a game that changed your life?

#27

Post by muzani »

I learned more from games than school, and could go on quite a rant on this. But I'll go with Football Manager.

This wasn't really about football, but about management as a whole. I learned to look really deeply into why things were happening. E.g. conceded goals were rarely the goalkeeper's fault, it depended a lot on defense giving them too much space. Also the value of positioning, not just in football, but how much it matters more than technical ability.

I learned that morale matters a lot, often more than other things. Saying motivational/optimistic things isn't how you increase morale - that's a good way to get the players cynical. You have to be realistic.

Also creating rivals helps in making the team focused and the audience happy. You don't have to be violent, but everyone loves a good rival match.

Depth matters a lot too. It's usually better to have a team wholly made of good people rather than one with a few stars and a lot of below average players. The stars are also able to play multiple positions, and sometimes you might not want a star player in their favorite position.

Re: Ask HN: What are some things you learnt from a game that changed your life?

#28

Post by dnh44 »

Final Fantasy 1 for the NES (spoiler alert) has a plot twist at the end where you save the world by undoing a time travel paradox created by the villain. This results in no one being aware that you've just saved the world, or that it even needed saving.

As an 8 year old I learned that one shouldn't need or seek out praise or recognition from others for doing something that I felt was good.

Re: Ask HN: What are some things you learnt from a game that changed your life?

#29

Post by 600frogs »

postalrat wrote: post #18

MOBAs taught me that the correct action is always the one your team expects from you.

I'm not sure I agree with this lesson. I've sunk 1000s of hours into DOTA 2, and would agree with you in such a game where emotions run high and considered, reasoned responses aren't possible, but I think it's a poor takeaway from the game. Sometimes it is correct to stand your ground and stand up for what you believe is the correct course of action. I'd instead emphasise the importance of emotional control and the importance of morale as a better lesson from MOBAs.
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