Play Dark Souls. There's cooperative play if you want it, and it's easy to opt out of PVP; just stay hollow unless you need to upgrade a bonfire.
Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?
#22Try Starcraft 2. Games are under 20 minutes and you need to fully commit aggressively to win a lot. Constant attack / harassment / probing or risky expansions(or both). As well, you can watch the replay to see all the times attacking sooner would have won it.
Another +1 for SC2. This game is great in and of itself, but it also punishes camping. If you camp you will be destroyed, so you have to build an army and fight. Games are pretty short (~20min) so there is a pretty quick feedback loop as well
Re: Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?
#23Eve Online is famous for having large battles that "destroy" thousands of dollars worth of in-game ships. Meaning replacing all those ships would cost thousands of real world dollars.
I can't personally recommend anyone sink that much time into the game though.
Re: Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?
#24RimWorld, in spite of what you said, I think hardcode mode where you only have one save can increase your appetite for risk.
The absolutely random events that occur in Randy Random, seeing your city or town get destroyed by a nuclear fall out while being invaded by a huge gang of raiding mechanics can be soul destroying. Learning your appetite for growth and 'fixing' problems while balancing your ability to survive assaults, famine, blights and democratic fall outs can be very humbling.
Re: Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?
#25Minecraft?
Re: Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?
#26Poker with real money. Playing poker with fake money is utterly worthless. There needs to be real money behind your decision making but I promise it is eye opening. Learning how to play poker is one of the most important skills you can learn in life. It teaches you so many things about life: how to make decisions based on incomplete information and being okay with unfavorable outcomes; knowing how to control your ris…
"being okay with unfavorable outcomes; knowing how to control your risk"
Isn't the winning move not playing, then? I've never seen the appeal. If I lose, I feel the loss of money; but if I win, that's not enjoyable in the same way losing that equivalent would be displeasing.
And either I'm playing with friends, in which case there's no joy in depriving someone else (if I win); or I'm playing with strangers, in which case why would I care about what's going on at the table?
Re: Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?
#27Escape From Tarkov or The Cycle: Frontier. Most of the game is managing what resources you have and taking risks to attain more.
Re: Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?
#28Racing games like Asseto Corsa or Automobilista paired with a VR headset and a decent wheel and set of pedals. Learning to race in VR will give you very immediate and visceral feedback about what risks are worth taking. Realistically though, if you want to train yourself to be more risk tolerant you need to take some actual risks in the real world. Try bouldering, abseiling, boxing, anything that makes you uncomfortable like talking to strangers, going to social events on your own if you're shy etc.
Re: Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?
#29Try CS:GO. A useful and very often under-provisioned role in public games is that of the 'entry man.' Basically your job is to get out as far as you can, spot the enemy positions, and do as much damage as you can. Its your team behind you's job to tack on kills based on the space you made.
No one really wants to go out first because you usually die first, and have the least opportunity to get kills if evenly matched skill-wise with the opponents. It also takes the ability to 'just go' when the time is right (when the smokes are set or when everyone is close enough to go together or when a distraction happens elsewhere) even if you don't feel fully ready - waiting too long means the enemies prepare better.
All of that will put you in situations where you have the obvious choice of waiting around, or leading the way, and though they rarely do it, its usually better for worse players to go out first so its no problem being new to the game and trying that play-style.
Re: Ask HN: Games which will help increase my appetite for risk?
#30This isn't a video game but it absolutely did the trick for me. Find a theme park with a lot of particularly scary rides, or a holiday town with a lot of "extreme" activities (bungee jumping, etc.). Precommit to doing every single one of them, ideally with a bunch of friends to hold you to your word. And then do them. Don't allow yourself any excuses, especially for the scariest ones.
These kinds of activities are designed to be scary to your monkey / lizard brain, but also to give a consistent payoff in fun and social bonding. I did this for about a week for a buck's trip, and something clicked in my brain associating fear and reward. It lasted for years afterwards; it's been over a decade and I can still feel a shadow of it now. And as you're hoping, the benefits carried over into my professional life.
It makes me think that painful, risky male bonding rituals are almost definitely a feature, not a bug. They turn up in almost all cultures afaik (bullet ant gloves, anyone?). And being able to overcome irrational primate fear is good for everyone including you.