How to play with people who are better than you • Hacker News Board

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#91

Post by munmaek » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 12:49 PM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #29

People who can't play games against people who are better than them are over-competitive and lazy! It's more fun when you play against skilled players, you learn more! I've never understood that personality trait, and I love losing at Dominion!

It really depends on how good the player is. I have played people in smash where the skill gap was so wide I could have just put my controller down and it wouldn't have made a difference. I literally lost a match in a tournament where I didn't, couldn't, touch the enemy once. I was probably the lowest seed in that tournament, he was the #1 seed, and was one of the top 5 players of the game.

I normally like playing better players because it forces me to learn and stop using lazy habits that work on worse players, but it's hard to learn anything useful when I'm getting crushed so bad like that. Instead, reflecting and continuing to play with people near my level until I improve enough to revisit that player is a better option for personal growth.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#92

Post by munmaek » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 12:54 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #86

ggm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I speed read. I didn't see go. I went word search for go, didn't find it. But, a fair comment. Critique demands care.

Is speed reading just skimming?

Speedreading is something used by delusional people who think that reading is just inputting words as fast as possible. Slowreading (taking your time to fully understand and reflect on what you read) needs to become a thing. But that isn't as ~distinguished~ as saying "I can read at X words/min" or "I read Y novels/year".

Skimming is useful, because you don't necessarily want to read an entire page if you're looking for one thing. Wikipedia pages are an example of where you might want to skim until you find the relevant section you're looking for.

In fact I skim many articles on HN to decide if they're worth reading or not. If they are, then I go back and slowread the entire thing before making a comment.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#93

Post by forgetfulusr » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 1:00 PM UTC

lapnitnelav wrote: post #68

narag wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the sound of it your intent was to win eventually. Eventually we all die. It's fun to play anyway. In a less philosophical mood: standing against an overwhelming force can be exhilarating. I've felt something like that windsurfing in strong wind conditions. Down to the specific question, losing always against someone you can't defeat is very good training for winning over others.

I play a fair amount of a regular scale FPS (12v12 max) and it happens fairly regularly that I end up being the last one alive in my team and have to face off multiple opponents. I don't always succeed but the pure thrill of trying to survive what is usually a virtual death sentence is something really powerful and when successful so exhilarating.

Have you tried BR(battle royale) games? PUBG gets my heart racing too much. I also like that it mixes you in with both pros and amateurs. Not knowing the skill level of the player you are exchanging shots with keeps everyone on their A game.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#94

Post by Xelbair » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

Noos wrote: post #83

Xelbair wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. If the difference in skill is too high you won't learn anything from playing with them. What's worse - you might ingrain bad habits that let you occasionally win(that happened to…

> if opponents are better than you, but not overwhelmingly so ,it is indeed one of better ways to train. It is a matter of mindset - you are playing to deliberately "git gud", but not necessarily win. if you train in something, you aren't playing. Training is actually the total opposite of play; you need to do things that are not fun but are beneficial for your goal, and it sucks. You have to do a lot of tedious stud…

>if you train in something, you aren't playing. Training is actually the total opposite of play; you need to do things that are not fun but are beneficial for your goal, and it sucks. You have to do a lot of tedious study and memorization to get better at chess beyond a point, or spend a lot of time in a fighting game's training mode just to be able to consistently do moves and combos on demand.

I find training to be fun and engaging - i find bettering myself to be fun! There is a difference between going into practice mode and grinding combos, and just dueling someone with intent of 'i'll try to block each low mixup this game', or 'i'll try to pushing each wakeup'.

You are having fun, with a small extra goal added, and you don't mind losing - as long as you don't fail your extra goal.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#95

Post by michaelscott » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 1:13 PM UTC

Kbelicius wrote: post #69

michaelscott wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To continue the game theory tilt, the problem with making the game harder as the player advantage increases is that it disincentivises the player from seeking advantage at all. In the theoretical game of "capitalism" this sounds like a good idea, but in the real world a government that imposes these kinds of game restrictions through something like taxes only forces the advantaged players to pull out of the "game" co…

> but in the real world a government that imposes these kinds of game restrictions through something like taxes only forces the advantaged players to pull out of the "game" completely (a nett negative for those reliant on their advantage long term) and move their advantage to another "game". This would be true only if profits are the only motivation for humans to do anything... and that is not true. Also, currently,…

Okay, I'll clarify with an example: Apple is a company, and they care about the growth and general value of themselves as a company. Let's say this can be measured as their NAV (simplistic I know, but it suffices) which is what the market will assess them on. Profits absolutely are the motivation for Apple, as with most other companies that make up the microeconomy of what I'm calling here a "game", or nation/jurisdiction (because each jurisdiction has a different set of rules for the game, called the jurisdictional law).

Unlike other companies, though, Apple has now grown to a size where we can say that they have a very strong advantage in this "game", the American market, but there exists a strategy such that they're able to maximise their reward output by switching "games". Since they're a rational player they do so, and switch their tax jurisdiction, or "game", to Ireland, who plays by a different set of rules.

This isn't a perfect example because I don't think the United States penalises companies based on their performance through tax, but if Apple is already doing this in such a situation what would happen if the United States did implement a progressive tax rate on companies [0]? Now consider how many individuals rely on the existence of Apple within the American "game", and how many may or may not be affected by a full move out of said "game" (again, a silly example I know, but I hope it makes the point clear).

[0] The US may actually do this already and I'm just not aware of it. If so, feel free to correct me.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#96

Post by munmaek » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 1:14 PM UTC

Noos wrote: post #78

dragontamer wrote: post #4

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…

The issue isn't you lose to Magnus Carlsen. The issue is that when you play chess, all you can play against are wanna-be grandmasters who drive the skill floor up to the point where you need to make a heroic effort just to be mediocre. You have to understand, you are making the hardcore fallacy; you assume everyone will stick to the game no matter what and take whatever abuse or steps they need to git gud. It doesn't…

> half the posts are just frustration in dealing with the drudgery of playing so many matches to even climb

This has nothing to do with skill floors or ceilings.

Then play newer or different games. Overwatch has been out for a while by now. Chess has been out for a rather long time by now.

> The issue is that when you play chess, all you can play against are wanna-be grandmasters who drive the skill floor up to the point where you need to make a heroic effort just to be mediocre.

On chess.com you start at 800 ELO, on lichess.org you start at 1500(?) ELO and rapidly decline if you lose many games, until you get around where you should be. You do not need to make "heroic effort" in order to start gaining ELO. You do need to learn basic chess theory like how much the pieces are worth, and some strategy, etc, but it's really not that bad if you genuinely like chess.

> It doesn't work that way; what happens over time is the better people raise the skill floor by driving weaker players out.

Alternatively, people who play push the game forward and make exciting breakthroughs, keeping the game fresh. No one is forcing you to play a game that you don't like. There's no point in shaking our fists at the sky because we didn't start playing a game right when it came out.

Games are fascinating when they -don't- explicitly cater to new players. TF2 is a hard game, yet it's one of my most played games at ~1700 hours. Why? Because I was able to improve and because it has a high skill ceiling (and floor) for certain playstyles.

Pressing Shift to rocket up as Pharah is totally boring compared to learning how to Rocket Jump as the soldier. Learning how to do that took me weeks, yet it's now one of my favorite aspects of TF2. I have hundreds of hours in tf2 just on jump maps- something that wouldn't be possible if TF2 were designed to have as little skill floor as possible (like overwatch).

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#97

Post by munmaek » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 1:17 PM UTC

Madmallard wrote: post #80

dragontamer wrote: post #4

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…

Assuming you can keep getting better is a bit of a fallacy too. If that were the case everybody would be challenger!

It's not really a fallacy. However most people think playing == improving. This is not the case.

The best players I know, and the fastest improving players I know, all review their gameplay and take notes on the mistakes they made. They watch other high skill / pro players and take notes on what they do. They practice PERFECTLY, over and over and over (i.e. executing a combo flawlessly 20 times in a row, if you make a mistake, start over. Now do something else for an hour, then flawlessly do the combo 20 times in a row again). They find good players to play with in high stakes situations, such as tournaments or money matches.

Most people don't improve very much because they aren't actively trying to improve. I know many people who are at roughly where they were a year ago, or just marginally higher.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#98

Post by Ntrails » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 1:20 PM UTC

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #14

dragontamer wrote: post #4

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…

I used to play table tennis against my grandfather when I was in my mid teens (he was on the young side). At first, I needed a 15 point head start for it to be close (first to 21). After playing every day for a couple of months we started on equal terms and I only mostly lost.

That was fun! I learned and improved but also every point I won was a victory. Had I played against a professional I'd probably never have won a point, never have got better, and quickly got disheartened. There is just a limit past which the skill gap stops things being fun imo

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#99

Post by michaelscott » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #70

michaelscott wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To continue the game theory tilt, the problem with making the game harder as the player advantage increases is that it disincentivises the player from seeking advantage at all. In the theoretical game of "capitalism" this sounds like a good idea, but in the real world a government that imposes these kinds of game restrictions through something like taxes only forces the advantaged players to pull out of the "game" co…

> but in the real world a government that imposes these kinds of game restrictions through something like taxes only forces the advantaged players to pull out of the "game" completely Given that there is plenty of evidence that relative deprivation is a major source of disutility, getting them to exclude themselves from the social milieu in which other people exist would be a net win, though less than that of them st…

I largely agree, but would just clarify that the players in any economy, capitalist or not, can be both people and companies/legal entities. The more globally oriented modern society means that any player of sufficient resource can implement multiple, compartmentalised strategies for various aspects of that resource (eg. various taxes, corporate structure, government incentives) under differing rulesets.

If a ruleset becomes too onerous (which there is evidence for in modern settings like Zimbabwe or Venezuela) then a player may decide that the utility of the society is not worth the loss in resource and remove themselves from a game which enforces such a ruleset. In all other cases though I agree completely with your insight.

Re: How to play with people who are better than you

#100

Post by cableshaft » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 1:31 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #84

"Snakes and Ladders requires a level of manual dexterity" This seems an odd thing to say. The only "manual dexterity" you need is to be able to throw the dice.

I design board games and play a ton of them, and this threw me also. I don't see how the author thinks there is manual dexterity to Snakes and Ladders.

A Dexterity game is a category of board games, and they all involve your ability to physically manipulate components in a way where you could potentially screw it up by misjudging the action you take, is my understanding.

There's no way to throw dice in a way where it doesn't give you some sort of result, even if it's not the result you want. If that's all it took to be a Dexterity game, than tens or hundreds of thousands of games with dice in them are now Dexterity games (and currently on sites like BoardGameGeek, they're not).