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How to play with people who are better than you

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

#151

Post by ggm »

munmaek wrote: post #92
sethammons wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I originally wrote skim. I changed it to speed. I therefore lost again since speed reading is less worthy than skimming which is less worthy than slow reading.

But, I am winning at losing. Nobody can take that away from me.

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

#152

Post by neonate »

friendlybus wrote: post #44
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…

Rats won't play with each other unless the smaller rat wins 30% of the time, even though he will lose every game if the larger rat chooses to do win every game. A decade ago Call of Duty 4 introduced an under-barrel grenade launcher for the m16 rifle as a way to get easy kills even if you could not aim. The devs called it 'first order optimal strategy' and players called it the noobtube. CoD4 did the right thing, eve…

Do you have a source for that claim about rats? Interesting if true.

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

#154

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

Balgair wrote: post #102
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many boards games attempt to make things fun even if you’re losing. 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…

> You make one wrong move and you know you’re in for 2.5 hrs of pain ... I mean, why continue at that point? That just sounds silly.

There are other players, so you can’t just walk away. And you might learn something else from the game or try and do something crazy.

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

#155

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #114
Balgair wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You make one wrong move and you know you’re in for 2.5 hrs of pain ... I mean, why continue at that point? That just sounds silly.

Not a Settler of Catan fan, then?

I was thinking more Food Chain Magnate.

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

#156

Post by TeMPOraL »

dragontamer wrote: post #145
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. If training isn't fun, then don't train up. Instead, learn to be satisfied with losing. Which is fine: I'm satisfied when I play a decent game (but lose) against stronger players. I probably was going to lose anyway. Being satisfied with your skill level, and learning to enjoy a game without necessarily i…

Huh, you have a pretty different perception of what makes a thing hobby vs. work. For me, a hobby gives you a permission to get better - because play is an important part of getting better. Whereas at work, you're constrained by the context in which your work is embedded. For instance, when working on a hobby project, I can afford to do each piece of it right, to the best of my abilities - whereas at work, I have to deal with things like team velocity, time to market, list of features driven by sales instead of utility, etc. - all of which preclude doing great work.

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

#157

Post by steveklabnik »

StacyRoberts wrote: post #125
tluyben2 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I don't find some games fun anymore if you or anyone around the table goes in for the kill; simple example that most people will know; monopoly. There are strategies to almost surely win but it makes the game boring and even annoying for everyone involved. So we usually added rules to prevent those strategies. If someone 'is better at that' it means he/she is a boring/non-fun player and no-one will play anymore a…

I'm curious to learn more about those monopoly strategies and rules against them. I think there are times for both kind of play. It's annoying when people only play one kind of way. It's like beating you is all that matters to them.

Most people mess up Monopoly in two ways:

* Common house rules prolong the game. Don't use house rules.

* People forget the rule that when someone lands on an unowned property and doesn't buy it, the bank auctions it off.

A game of monopoly should take about an hour. It's almost always those exact house rules that people create that make the game drag.

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

#158

Post by TeMPOraL »

friendlybus wrote: post #44
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…

Rats won't play with each other unless the smaller rat wins 30% of the time, even though he will lose every game if the larger rat chooses to do win every game. A decade ago Call of Duty 4 introduced an under-barrel grenade launcher for the m16 rifle as a way to get easy kills even if you could not aim. The devs called it 'first order optimal strategy' and players called it the noobtube. CoD4 did the right thing, eve…

Huh, the under-barrel grenade launcher anecdote would explain why, when playing Alien vs. Predator multiplayer with a bunch of colleagues some 12+ years ago, I was being repeatedly told to never use the pulse grenade launcher under standard marine rifle, because "it ruins the play".

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

#159

Post by V-2 »

rhlsthrm wrote: post #150
V-2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the game. Eg. I'm fairly advanced in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (~10 years of practice, brown belt). The typical approach that I also follow is that when I want to practice some technique I'm not well familiar with, I try it on white belts first, iron the obvious wrinkles out, and then I keep on going up the skill ladder until I'm able to execute it on my equals. As I practice it against stronger and stronger…

I feel like BJJ is pretty unique in this regard. It's the only activity I've come across where it's still fun to go 100% against a complete newbie.

Maybe. Another interesting paradox about it, as one of my former instructors once pointed out, that it's actually harder to submit a white belt than to submit a blue belt :)

The former one may be more clueless, but offers 100% ferocious defence without attempting any reasonable attacks of his (or her) own.

You can sort of see how progressing to the next step - from white to blue - is an inevitable setback of sorts.

Funnily enough, this phenomenon vaguely makes me think of the "trough of disillusionment / slope of enlightenment" syndrome (the hype cycle)

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

#160

Post by Bartweiss »

friendlybus wrote: post #44
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…

Rats won't play with each other unless the smaller rat wins 30% of the time, even though he will lose every game if the larger rat chooses to do win every game. A decade ago Call of Duty 4 introduced an under-barrel grenade launcher for the m16 rifle as a way to get easy kills even if you could not aim. The devs called it 'first order optimal strategy' and players called it the noobtube. CoD4 did the right thing, eve…

Honestly, I don't understand the sentiment of "if you're losing, just get better". That's not what games are, socially. You can have contests in high jumping or pi recitation, but no one organizes weekly games of reciting pi. The definition of "game" is an endless debate, but all of the central examples have both winning and replayability. If you can't play two sessions in a row and hope for something novel the second time, it's probably not a game at all. And part of what makes a good game is providing ongoing interest for many players.

I like chess, but I almost never play chess against anyone I know.

It's too skill-based, and (ironically) too interactive. The better player reliably wins, substantial handicaps warp the game, and at least at amateur levels the better player is often completely dominant. Not only is there no hope of winning, there's very little room to make a good play or try an interesting strategy. If two random people who are familiar with chess sit down to a game, it's very unlikely to be an interesting experience.

There are a lot of ways to mitigate this problem. There are "low skill" strategies that prevent blowouts without dominating (e.g. CoD4), rock-paper-scissors strategies (Stratego), graceful handicaps (Go), or satisfying play while losing (Catan). And of course, hidden information and randomness provide novelty in many of the most popular games like Poker.

Chess is not a bad game by any means, but it's not a party game either. "Accept that they're better and keep losing" is good advice if you want to improve at chess, but it does nothing to provide entertainment for mismatched players. There's nothing wrong with wanting a game that's fun, rather than just educational.

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