11–20 of 190 posts
No mention of go and it's handicap system. I once watched 12 year old Japanese girl wipe the floor with an Australian friend with ranking in the Australian go scene, in a go club behind Tokyo station.
Playing with people who are better than you is easy. Just accept they're better than you and keep losing. Decide if you are comfortable with your current skill level or not. If you want to get better, train up. If you are happy with your skill level, then keep losing. That's fine, and I think its healthy to decide to place limits on your skill. Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty…
I never liked the idea of explicitly changing the rules in order to make a game more fair for new players. If you become accustomed to changing the rules whenever you find yourself outmatched, and then find yourself in a situation where the rules can't be changed for whatever reason, then you're not going to enjoy yourself. It's much more enjoyable for everyone, in my opinion, to play by the same rules as the group,…
One of the best games for this is Concordia, where you don’t count up the points until the end. You always feel that you have a chance. Once you get fairly good however, you can scan the board state and do some rough guesstimating to see who is in the lead.
Other games can be quite brutal. You make one wrong move and you know you’re in for 2.5 hrs of pain and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Playing with people who are better than you is easy. Just accept they're better than you and keep losing. Decide if you are comfortable with your current skill level or not. If you want to get better, train up. If you are happy with your skill level, then keep losing. That's fine, and I think its healthy to decide to place limits on your skill. Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty…
This doesn't mesh with why lots of people play things. It's play. It might just be a nice way to pass the time. I would rather play basketball against someone my level than Steph Curry playing all out. I'm not playing to win or even to get better (getting better is fun, but isn't the point). I just want to have fun.
For many kinds of play, if you have to train for it, you may as well play something else.
Playing with people who are better than you is easy. Just accept they're better than you and keep losing. Decide if you are comfortable with your current skill level or not. If you want to get better, train up. If you are happy with your skill level, then keep losing. That's fine, and I think its healthy to decide to place limits on your skill. Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty…
That's one data point. But I'm sure valve or blizzard or any company with an online gaming community has stats on retention and knows who people want to play with in aggregate. And generally when you play online you get paired with someone with a similar MMR/ELO.
From this I infer that the statement from the article is generally true.
I never liked the idea of explicitly changing the rules in order to make a game more fair for new players. If you become accustomed to changing the rules whenever you find yourself outmatched, and then find yourself in a situation where the rules can't be changed for whatever reason, then you're not going to enjoy yourself. It's much more enjoyable for everyone, in my opinion, to play by the same rules as the group,…
That said, not all games can support this mental model. Chess for instance I always find disheartening to play against much better players. A 600 ELO point difference in chess basically means you will never win, and it becomes futile, and crushing.
Playing with people who are better than you is easy. Just accept they're better than you and keep losing. Decide if you are comfortable with your current skill level or not. If you want to get better, train up. If you are happy with your skill level, then keep losing. That's fine, and I think its healthy to decide to place limits on your skill. Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty…
> If you want to get better, train up. This doesn't mesh with why lots of people play things. It's play. It might just be a nice way to pass the time. I would rather play basketball against someone my level than Steph Curry playing all out. I'm not playing to win or even to get better (getting better is fun, but isn't the point). I just want to have fun. For many kinds of play, if you have to train for it, you may as…
Playing with people who are better than you is easy. Just accept they're better than you and keep losing. Decide if you are comfortable with your current skill level or not. If you want to get better, train up. If you are happy with your skill level, then keep losing. That's fine, and I think its healthy to decide to place limits on your skill. Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty…
>I disagree. I will always lose to Magnus Carlsen in Chess. I will always lose to my friends in (insert any FPS game here, I'm bad at all of them). I will always lose to Mew2King in Super Smash Bros: Melee. That's one data point. But I'm sure valve or blizzard or any company with an online gaming community has stats on retention and knows who people want to play with in aggregate. And generally when you play online y…
Playing with people who are better than you is easy. Just accept they're better than you and keep losing. Decide if you are comfortable with your current skill level or not. If you want to get better, train up. If you are happy with your skill level, then keep losing. That's fine, and I think its healthy to decide to place limits on your skill. Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty…
Playing against someone much better than you sharpens your perception, reactions, everything in a way you can't get any other way. Bring it on!
No mention of go and it's handicap system. I once watched 12 year old Japanese girl wipe the floor with an Australian friend with ranking in the Australian go scene, in a go club behind Tokyo station.
Maybe you decide not to care about starting at the same level. That’s usually an easy fix. The strategy game Go, for example, gives weaker players extra stones on the board to start, allowing both players to try their hardest and feel like they have a chance of winning.