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>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 losi

>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 me with one fighting game) >Skill is an infinite treadmill: you can continuously get better at pretty much any subject from now till the end of time. Deciding when to get off the treadmill is just as important as deciding to stay on. Agreed, but the speed in which you progress varies case by case basis. >My inability to defeat the greatest players of a subject does NOT make the game less appealing. Indeed, I often times seek out the challenge of stronger players, especially when I'm explicitly trying to get better at the game. 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. >Losing constantly by playing vs players who are better than you provides a learning experience. You should find other players you can win against of course: you'll never learn to win if you keep losing. But losing teaches you what bad-habits you've formed from playing vs weaker players. This depends on aforementioned difference in skill, too high is prohibitive to learning. The latter part depends on how good game is proving feedback. Some games are great at that(chess, soulsborne), other are horrible(all blizzard games come to mind, DotA, Go). It is very hard to improve in latter group of games without deliberately analysing your past games. For example in Go your mistake might be made really far back into the game, but you are seeing it's effect just now. In chess - it is way simpler to just walk back the history of moves in memory to find the mistake, or at least start spotting the wrong decisions. >I think that's the key: losing all the time is unfun. But I can definitely take "losing for a whole week" or "losing for a whole month" in a row, especially if its for training. Finding players of lower skill, equal skill, and higher skill, is important. Agreed, but there is one exception - games with randomness built into them - this includes matchmade team games. With randomness, losing when you are really ahead feels way more punishing, and in team games it is sometimes impossible to carry your team to win - even if you are literally the best player in the match by overwhelming margin.

Noos 7y ago
> 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 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 think with videogames one of the worries I have is people are now viewing them as work they have to train for; we are creating a professional class of gamers, and whenever we do so eventually players become spectators instead
- munmaek 7y ago
  > ou 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. Things like that are fun for a subset of people. I played competitive smash bros. melee for years. I always had a separate crt tv in my room ready to go, and I would put on music, or a podcast, etc, and just practice things. It was relaxing after a long day and that practice eventually made me much better in real matches- winning matches is a huge high. Chess is different but also the same. I'm slowly learning theory, openings, etc, and it's quite fascinating. > 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. That's -why- these games are fun to play and spectate. What separates bad from decent from good players is how consistently they can apply technical skill under nerve-wracking situations, such as being 1 game in a set away from getting knocked out of a tournament. Stuff like daigo's parry at EVO 2004 was exhilarating precisely because of the technical skill required, and the fact that he had to practice things like that.
- Xelbair 7y ago
  >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.

Noos 7y ago

> 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 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 think with videogames one of the worries I have is people are now viewing them as work they have to train for; we are creating a professional class of gamers, and whenever we do so eventually players become spectators instead

munmaek 7y ago
> ou 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. Things like that are fun for a subset of people. I played competitive smash bros. melee for years. I always had a separate crt tv in my room ready to go, and I would put on music, or a podcast, etc, and just practice things. It was relaxing after a long day and that practice eventually made me much better in real matches- winning matches is a huge high. Chess is different but also the same. I'm slowly learning theory, openings, etc, and it's quite fascinating. > 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. That's -why- these games are fun to play and spectate. What separates bad from decent from good players is how consistently they can apply technical skill under nerve-wracking situations, such as being 1 game in a set away from getting knocked out of a tournament. Stuff like daigo's parry at EVO 2004 was exhilarating precisely because of the technical skill required, and the fact that he had to practice things like that.
Xelbair 7y ago
>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.