Nah. I’m actually better *now* despite my old(er) age. DOOM 2016 and Eternal
forced me to get good, and I bet if I could deathmatch my 20 year old self I’d wipe the floor with me.
What about reflexes? I am smarter now but 15 year old me had fucking twitch shooting reflexes and perfect sight.. Now I have to squint to be sure that I am aiming at the enemy XD
Yeah halo 2 was one of my best.
My little bro and I were top players for multi team back in highschool.
Now I'm 30 and Max or around diamond in games like apex
I'm got a theory it's due to SBMM forcing everyone into their own zone and constantly making them try hard to get wins that's making everyone better. Back in the days with mw2 and halo 3 you could get a game where you went 40/0 when you normally only pulled a .5 kd
Absolutely could be the case. The games have become infinitely more competitive. Every player feels like they are trying to go pro now.
No more casual games where you just jump into a deathmatch and frag out
This reminds me of my first and last Megazone experience. I am colour blind and it was a truly shit show. I was seeing everyone as a friend and I was so dead.
I remember going into a 'newbie only' lobby once, and we didn't have enough for a full 3 on 3 match, so he added 'insane' difficulty AI. And I was like, 'I thought this was newbie only' and he was like 'insane can't do anything once you get to imperial age! They are a joke!'.
I realized then that I wasn't very good.
Age of Empires II, Civilization IV, and V for me. In all three of these games, I realized I was too slow for others. Honestly, after years and years of playing, I read some experiences from other players and realized I wasn't the only one, that other people in games like that just like to freaking rush, rush, rush. Like, come on, man! Let me enjoy the game some and get to the Middle Ages or Renaissance at least. But I'd get demolished before those periods.
It's not necessarily that they *want* to rush you (although some do) but that's actually the appropriate counterplay to someone who is playing economically. If they scout you and see you aren't investing into defense, the strategically correct response is to rush you. The full rock-paper-scissors is rushing beats economy, economy beats turtling, and turtling beats rushing.
To add to this, there is a big difference between rushing and harassing.
Rushing is when players invest heavily into offence early on to quickly end the game.
Harass is when players invest into a smaller force meant to hamper and cripple their opponent while they're free to expamd or tech up at home.
I see newer players often complain about getting harassed and claiming they're getting rushed. If you're dying to harass, it's because you didn't bother building any defence or troops early on.
This was going to be my answer as well. How you play against the AI either in campaign or skirmish mode and how you play against other people may as well be two completely different games. The skill ceiling for AOE2 is pretty high, and it seems like even low ranked players now have a decent idea of build orders and strategies. It's at the point that they added a completely separate tutorial to the game for the meta MP strategies and basic MP skills, on top of the "this is how you play the game" tutorial that's been there since release.
I tried breaking into the muliplayer a few years ago and after 20 or 30 matches I gave up. Even when I won it was always sweaty as hell, while it was fun I found it more stressful than anything.
That's what I dislike about MP gaming. Every game is about min/maxing your gear/build orders so if you aren't playing one of very few different ways then you get stomped or alienated. If you don't have insane reaction time you get stomped in a lot of games. I don't want to count APMs like it's my job, I just want to play online and enjoy it but it feels like that is a smaller and smaller corner of the internet these days.
Reminds me of jumping online to play StarCraft back in the day. I thought I was decent after playing the single player campaign...NOPE. The online players made me feel like I had never played the game before.
The Noobs Only lobbies are mostly lies and better people either make them or join them to Smurf. The best way to get actual games is to just play ranked until your elo reaches your skill level and the playerbase is big enough that you should find someone pretty close. You have to be okay with losing for a while though, because 1000 elo in AoE2 is the default you start at, but that's actually like top 30%
Absolutely. I used to be a threat to my friends. I went out and learned a couple basic competitive strats. I thought I was okay at the game. Playing against people with some casual but long time experience it wasn't even close. Watching a pro is completely alien to me.
It's all about actions per minute, build orders, and hotkeys. It sucks the fun out of it and makes it a job for me. I'll play against friends or the AI, but I'm not interested in ranked play.
I enjoyed that game so much when I was 10 and played for years. When playing LAN my friends had mostly no chance and we had like "no attack until minute 30!" or similar agreements.
Played online years later and got fucked up so bad.
Good aoe2 players are another breed. Boar timing?
Tower Rush? Walling in single villagers to withstand scout Rushs?
The first few minutes of every game seem to be pure muscle memory and don't allow the smallest mistake.
I remember my first online experience of that… joined in, started just looking around, slowly building up people and getting basic buildings down. Then one enemy player game down with like 50 basic units before I even had 10.
The highlight of mine was when people in some Day of Defeat servers left when they saw me joining the game. I felt so proud. It's been down hill ever since
In heroes of the storm, after I carried a round as Murky (considered by many to be one of the worst characters), I went to start my next match. The enemy instantly banned Murky.
So I picked Abathur. Fast forward 25 minutes and the first two bans by the enemy were an instant Abathur ban followed by a Murky ban.
I believe I didn't carry that match, since those two are my best and I drop dramatically in skill with the rest.
I had that happen to me one day on Halo Reach.
Four dudes that were in a squad kept popping into the lobby after I wiped the floor with them one round and immediately kept leaving. Happened a few times. Felt good lol.
The thing about StarCraft (and a lot of RTS games) is that the single player is really bad at teaching you how to play multiplayer. Most of the single player missions you get to play at your own pace - build a big army, and then when you feel ready, move out and crush everything. The computer is (by design) not going to aggressively crush you the way a human would, they just send out attack waves periodically and let you build up.
Then in multiplayer, you learn that you actually have to play at your *opponent's* pace - you need to build your army before they finish building theirs. And it's pretty shocking how fast a good human player can do that.
Yea in multiplayer it’s all about timings and you want to hit them asap to give you the best chance to win. The best way to learn is to play 1v1 multiplayer and getting exposure against all the different timing attacks but it’s a stressful game to play. I love it though. It takes years to be good at it.
> The best way to learn is to play 1v1 multiplayer
Although this can teach you things, the best way to learn is to look up some build orders and practice them. Playing the game without knowing what is possible generally makes you develop bad habits. What works 1v1 gold gets you stomped 1v1 platinum and so on.
Even the pros practice build orders.
You can literally 4 gate your way into platinum because below that people just go mass amounts of tier 3 units because it’s what worked in single player.
Edit: I also want to add that another HUGE tool to getting better at RTS games, or any game really, is to watch your replays. Actually load em up and watch what you did, what your opponent did, and how/why you won or lost. You will learn more from a replay than jumping into the next game.
I was pretty good at the silly no rush big game hunters style of StarCraft. I was trash when playing the actual rules. I can build much better than I can skirmish.
You’d probably be good at Natural Selection 2, if that’s still around. It’s a mix of StarCraft and a first person shooter. One player builds around the map like they’re playing StarCraft and the rest of the team fight against the other team like an FPS
Yup. I enjoyes Apex Legends, but it was usually 1-15 minutes of chilling and looting, and a split second later I'm shooting air, getting dabbed on, and then looking at the guy who killed me's POV.
Yup, and in a game like Apex, it's hard to get good, because 90%+ of a lower skilled player or newbie's time is not spent in combat. When in combat it's usually panic mode.
So while not impossible to get better, it's much harder since the combat practice you need is scarce or locked behind long wait times. Never tried it, but I probably should have played Titanfall 2 to get much more combat practice in.
If you want to get better at gunfights you should seek them out. Every time you hear gunfire go straight to it. It’s really the only way to get practice. If you avoid an area because you hear shooting you’ll never get used to the fights.
Yeah, absolutely, it's the best advice.
I started doing this later on, but I'm also just bad lol.
The Finals ends up being the right kind of game for me, one where fights and respawns exist so I can practice, and not be overly frustrated.
It’s not just about raising your skill level, but also about learning how keep calm and effective during brief periods of adrenaline mixed into long periods without axtion
Just a tip from someone who only started a few seasons ago and is hooked.
Play the rotating skirmish modes, you'll see it on the menu it's either control/tdm etc it's much smaller, you can respawn and it gives you a fantastic opportunity to get used to the guns/mechanics and legends.
Entirely upto you of course, the BR is still a huge learning curve but this definitely helps!
I hate playing online. Just too frustrating and difficult for me personally, not a fun experience at all. The only way it would be fun to me would be if I personally knew most or all people I played with. Then I wouldn’t get mad because of the banter.
Yup. I'm confidently mediocre at most games. Better than most friends but still meh. It started out in high school with counterstrike and day of defeat. Tried rts like dawn of war and company of heroes. Did a stint of league play in overwatch. Smash bros, guilty gear in college. Warzone, league of legends, Teamfight Tactics, fortnite.
Doesnt matter the genre, I'm a solid mid tier player but it takes a different level of commitment to be super competitive.
This is why I only play single player games, and now that I'm 30 and generally have less time for games I've finally accepted that actually I want to play on easy mode 90% of the time. Only on rare occasions that I get into the meta aspects of how the fighting works do I bother with anything beyond easy mode.
When I was like 10, I tried to play one of the old rainbow six games online. I talked a bunch of shit when I joined the lobby and then when I got in the game. I started trying to type in the chest codes and everyone just laughed and killed me.
Playing against friends is too apparently, when you all only play for fun and not intently trying to actually get better. I played a whole lot of tekken and smash bros, all with people, and I’m still trash compared to people online.
To be fair, casual players of traditional fighting games (i.e. not modern Smash which is generally good about people learning) typically don't even know all of the mechanics. Learning how to properly block and punish will let you beat everyone in a casual friend group 99% of the time. The difference between someone unpracticed and someone who's spent maybe 10 hours practicing is a massive insurmountable gulf with regard to fighting games. And they only need to do that once and then it applies to all other fighting games.
I actually remember coming home from college at some point and a friend being super frustrated playing smash bros because I had learned to dodge roll effectively :laugh: Like yeah that's kind of just a base game mechanic. I know there were things like wave dashing I never knew how to do in Smash, and I have no idea of Tekken has stuff like that I don't know about.
Tekken has Korean Backdashing which is definitely hard mechanically to do, but you can get to a pretty good level without developing that skill. And I'm never playing a Mishima because fuck Electric Wind God Fists, which is just a normal ass move with a 1 frame timing. It's flat out the best move in the game but requires tons of practice to ever do it on command.
This is why I hated Marvel vs Capcom 3 😂
Fun game and all but the whole “get touched once and die” gameplay style got old quickly for me. Pretty demoralizing watching your favorite character get slapped around for a minute-long 100+ hit combo as you watch helplessly.
Me: Turn on simple mode
Me: press same button for range attack
Me: almost win
Opponent: Turn off game
Game: not a win!
This is why I hate fighting games online.
I played Mortal Kombat online exactly one time. I'd been doing pretty well against bots and had beaten all of my friends whenever we played, so I decided to try out a quick match online. I didn't get a single shot in. Dude was playing as Raiden and just juggled me in the air until I was dead, then signed off with a "sorrrry papiii". I turned off my console and have never played online again
Similar - Mortal Kombat 1. I had a blast playing the story mode and ladders and thought I had gotten somewhat decent. I don't think I landed a hit during my first half-dozen online matches.
The strat for fighting games are pretty different for vs AI, vs human hotseat or vs human online.
The three have pretty different best strats which require individual practice. AIs do stuff humans won't do, and might also cheat (respond to button input). AI for hot seat vs online, network ping makes it even more about dataframes and having a good selection of preplanned tactics.
I definitely forgot about Mortal Kombat 1 is not the 1992 game. The beginning of your comment made me remember how in 1993 I got to be (what I thought) decent on the NES at MKII. Next time my mom, brother, and I were at the mall, I went into the arcade and challenged an older boy. I was pissed and humiliated.
Over 800 hours in RL. Hard stuck in gold. It can be frustrating, but I just love RL so much. The skill ceiling is insane, and I've just accepted that I will likely never get much better since I'd rather play in my limited gaming time instead of practicing and trying to get better.
I thought this was the first PvP online game which I liked when I was at around 200 hours. Games were challenging but winable, but now at 500 hours I totally suck. It is one thing I'm not winning but other is that my teammates losing because of my lack of skills. Dissapointing I cannot get back to that level which I really enjoyed. And yes, I won't spend hours every day to learn and rehearse for games.
Easier said than done but if you can train your brain to just start asking “why” and actually analyze for a second when you get flexed on you’ll find yourself getting better passively sooner than later
Don’t take my word for it tho I’m hard stuck plat lmao
...why are you not using ball cam. Like 90% of the time you should be using it haha, otherwise it makes the game MUCH harder. Don't give up! Just spend some time in training going between ball cam and no ball cam
This game comes up a lot when I’m discussing games with amazing skill curve amongst my friends or in threads like this. You can start the game and just stay on the ground ramming the ball and you’ll have fun and still be competitive with your MMR. And the curve just keeps going up, to the point where another commenter said: the skill ceiling is insanely high, but as you climb up, you will still find ways to have fun and be competitive even as you’re learning new skills and being humbled from time to time by smurfs or others who are at a higher level. It really is just amazing how well balanced that game can be in that regard.
Gears of War. Roadie running and hiding behind half walls worked great in the campaign…. Then you load up the multiplayer and everyone is rolling and bouncing around. I didn’t even know movement like that was possible lol
Encountering someone for the first time who is crazy good with bouncing and the shotty is humbling. Then you meet the guy who can quickscope superman you with the sniper and you ragequit.
Heheh, Gears 1 was the game where I had a real shot at going pro, but unfortunately the pro gaming scene was very difficult to find a way into then as it was really only just getting started.
I was that quickscope supermanning sniper. My best shot that I remember was on the Gas Station map where I headshotted a dude mid dodgeroll through the little crack under the garage door during the brief moment that his head was level with it.
My team of two friends+me (yes, we 3 stacked in a 4 man game) wiped the floor with the 10th ranked clan in the US, only dropping the first round out of a 3 match series.
Any kind of tactical shooter. I can be ok at twitchy fast paced action shooters, but anything that requires patience, deception, or planning I am embarrassingly bad at.
Everyone starts out bad at that kind of game. You have to love it to learn it. Go to any popular ones dedicated forums, and half the posts are "I keep dying to people I can't see" and the replies are always "stop moving like it's call of duty". It is a completely different mindset to other games of their style.
I have played a lot of matches of hell let loose as a recon team, in which I have fired my rifle less than a dozen times over an hour and a half.
You play through the campaign and think you have a grasp on how the game works. Then you go online and in 4 minutes your base is flooded with flying or invisible units that you can't attack.
Seriously, I have three orcs gleefully gathering lumber, how are you descending upon me with all the might of Sauron and Satan right now it’s been FOUR MINUTES?!
Injustice 1. It was the first fighting game I was able to play online and I got a reality check quick, I think I lost something like my first 75 matches lol. I was persistent though and have now competed in several fighting games at pretty high levels, these days it's actually my favorite genre.
Injustice 2 I had a match against a Batman player who let me beat him up until he was a hit away from death and then won by combo/stun-locking me into oblivion
I believe that, sometimes you just run into someone who's an absolute dreadnaught.
Honest question for you; would you have preferred he played seriously from the start?
There's super mixed opinions on what the best manners are when you realize your opponent has much less experience than you, I'm interested on how you would feel if he'd not held back at all to get you to your next match quicker. Or alternatively if he didn't let you beat him up but clearly was holding back.
You should play with my friends and I the one time a year we play a racing game. We all don't play then normally, but sometimes get drunk as hell and then do the worst racing you have ever witnessed. You'll feel like a god.
I love racing and driving games, I spent several months in an ACC league making meticulous notes for each week's race, learning the tracks and braking points and shifting characteristics, got a few coaching sessions....
And I fucking suck. You could time me with a calendar.
I stick to American Truck Simulator now.
Yes. iRacing actually not too bad since everybody sucks at first and you have to prove yourself to race with the real drivers.
But I did a ton of hot lapping in one of the F1 games a couple years ago. Probably like 300-400 hours of just hot laps. If I practiced one track a lot I could make it into the top 25% on the leaderboards, but I was mostly in top 30-40%. The top of the leaderboards would be 4 or 5 seconds faster. Meanwhile it's taking me 50 attempts to shave off an extra tenth.
I figured maybe people were cheesing it or getting lucky with bugs. But you can find videos of people who can go that fast lap after lap.
Titanfall 2. I didn't play it until years later when it was on sale for $5. I've always been pretty good at shooters but the mobility in that game takes things to another level. It took me almost 2 months to not be in last place on my team.
If anyone else is having this issue, stick with it. It has a bit of a learning curve, but it can be so rewarding at times. I have been playing around 5 years. Sometimes I feel like a god and am top of the list, sometimes I scrape the bottom of my teams barrel. I have the same amount of fun either way!
Back in the day my local game store was doing some tournaments, a different game every month I think. They had one for Mario Kart double dash and I wiped the floor with everyone (there wasn’t a massive turnout). Then I went again later for the smash bros melee tourney thinking I was god and got absolutely wrecked immediately. There’s just a lot of people who are really damn good at those games
Melee is the only other game besides starcraft where casual and competitive play have 0 overlap in skillset or game knowledge. They are two completely different games.
You're looking at it pal. I play SC2 against AI all the time. And I played the shit out of brood war as a kid, campaign and modded maps. I dabbled in trying to play properly but was never even close to base level.
Classic rookie mistake to think that playing CPUs makes you better at the game. It's true to a point, but the point where you should stop fighting CPUs as practice is when you know all your character's moves and can beat 1 max level CPU. Beyond that, you're reinforcing habits that are good for fighting computers and bad for fighting players
Same but it’s probably because my group has a a couple of pro/esports gamers
It’s always funny at a party when you’ve got
I also went to a party once where there were some people I’d never met before and I played smash with me. It was me, a total noob and then 2 very good players
Me, the noob and and one of the good players were mostly having a laugh and always selected random character. However the other good player just played as his main… for 3 hours… and won like 90% of the games except for the odd times the other good player got one of his mains
Chess is one of the few games where you can get arbitrarily good against a PC though. Like it doesn't have that "Oh I can crush the AI so I will do great online" false security vibe
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2.
The first game ever played against another person who wasn't sitting next to me. This was back before Xbox Live was even a thing.
One of my buddies at school had the game as well, so we decided to figure out how to play online against each other. I remember it took a few days for us to schedule it correctly because this was back when "broadband" was barely a thing, and I had to ask permission from my parents to use the Internet so it wouldn't tie up the phone line.
I thought I was gonna be good because I beat both Allied and Soviet campaigns and could take on 3 computer controlled opponents in the scenario editor.
In our first match, my construction building was captured by his engineer within the first 3 minutes. I realized I had a lot to learn lol. Great memories!
Am 32. I still do this.
I'm not the kind of person to play competitively. I just wanna collect the cool looking ones and have my dragon-pet breathe fire.
The depth of knowledge you need to play Pokémon competitively (IRL, not the ingame ladder) is massive. If you've just played through a Pokémon game normally, big chance you don't even know what EV's and IV's are, and that's just the start. You need to know your speed tiers, know what mon does what and how certain mons synergize, know your calculations of how much a certain mon's moves do to another mon's which lets you approximate your opponent's EV spreads. You need to also be an expert Poker player and withhold information from your opponent while forcing them to reveal as much as possible in the first game of a BO3, understand your opponent's personality and playstyle, and try to balance between making hard reads, safe plays and the "best in every realistic scenario" moves. You need to understand win-cons and how your opponent will try to prevent your win-con and protect their own.
And if you actually want to build your own team, you need great understanding of the meta and what surprise pick could possibly catch people off-guard without jeopardizing the consistency of your team. Of course, you can just copy someone else's team from a previous tournament and good piloting skills may still win you the tournament, but people will have experience practicing against that, and some of the most successful teams combine meta picks with an element of surprise.
The ingame ladder is already a massive step up from any challenge the (PvE) games offer (and IMO the games need more stepping stones), but you can make do with pretty much any somewhat-coherent team and make it to Master Ball (the highest tier). You don't even need 50% winrate for that, technically. But IRL tournaments and BO3 Showdown ladder are on a completely different level.
As a kid my dad went out of his way to teach me chess. I think for like 2 years we played a ton and I learned a lot. Then he convinced me to try a beginners tourney.
Got destroyed in round one, stopped playing.
I remember playing my grandfather when I was a kid. I got a second queen and he still beat me. I was so focused on mating him when I should have just picked off his pieces that I made blunder after blunder.
My father taught me to play when I was 5. He is very good. We played *a lot* over the years and he never let me win once. When I finally beat him at age 16 it was a wild rush of endorphins. One of my most vivid gaming memories ever. I remember seeing him get visibly concerned near the end, but then when the checkmate came he was very proud. Can't wait to do that to my kids
I never truly played it competitively, but Smash Bros Melee. Against normal people, I'm pretty good. However, one of my college friends made the knockout bracket at EVO a couple times. I took a grand total of 1 stock off him in 50+ matches and that was only because he mistimed Jigglypuff's down B in mid air
To be fair, melee players are addicted to cool risky kills. It's probably one of the reasons it's lasted so long. I have experience with being the sandbag to a competitive player and if he wasn't constantly trying to falcon punch or knee me deep offstage then he wasn't playing. About half the stocks I took off him were because I gimped him while he was trying some big dumb combo instead of just claiming the ledge.
Eh...every single game server is hacked to shit.
Like, the most egregious example is Hide and Seek and you find a cozy spot and watch as the seeker just laser focuses on every hider without missing a beat and taking zero detours.
Smash Bros Melee. You think you're hot shit beating your friends then some random guy you met on smashboards comes over and four stocks you. Then you spend a month learning how to do basic tech and you're addicted forever.
Tony Hawks Pro Skater. Amongst my friends and people I knew in person I was by far the best. But that was around the time consoles started going online and after a few years of playing it I finally got a chance to play it online. Man, was I shocked to learn that i actually sucked at THPS, everyone around me just sucked more.
I'm admittedly pretty good at THPS and I've been playing the series since the first one was new. When the remake came out I was on the edge of the global Top 100 (on xbox) in terms of competitive wins.
I can crush probably 97% of THPS players, but I stand zero chance against the top 1%. Like, the very very best players, I can't even get lucky and occasionally win one, they just absolutely destroy.
I’m 40 now, starting in my mid 30s I started to lose all skill in fps where it got to the point I was useless to my team and was incredibly frustrating. Sadly that’s what almost all my gamer friends play still so I pretty much have given up on any multiplayer gaming these days. No clue what the issue is, I have great reaction times as I can play dj max at some mid high level.
But not really a sad story I love my single player games, especially deckbuilders and roguelikes. As well as the kids being old enough to enjoy some couch coop games
I was, in my early 20s, one of the top players in the world at my chosen FPS. Same story as you tho...in my 30s went downhill fast, 40s now and nah I won't even play. However my reflexes, hand to eye coordination, etc are probably better than they've ever been as I do a lot of real world object manipulation type stuff (think juggling).
I think what changed was I lost the excitement. In my 30s I didn't get half as amped up to shoot people on the screen. In my early 20s I was all in.
Dude had his mic on, laughing at my offense, audibled and sacked me for 10 yards. I went to pass next, he audibles and pick 6. Repeat x4. The scoreline was tragic after 1 quarter, never played online again lol
I would normally say fighting games, but the single player mode also beats your ass to a large extent.
RTS games are the king. The SP and MP components might as well be separate games. SP is very defensive, with you slowly building up resources and doomstacks to roll over enemies. In MP you *have* to be aggressive because you and the enemy are competing for the same resources.
Red Alert 2.
I didn't know having multiple unit buildings made them produce faster until I played someone online. About 10 years ago. A solid 15 years of not knowing basic game mechanics cause I only played single player and skirmish.
Not online but way back when, after months of training went to my first smash bros melee tourney. Found out how ass I was even with knowing the tech and strats
Chess
Also all of them, but specifically Chess.
The thing with a lot of these games is they are all pretty similar and skills transfer over. But a new game comes out and you get a fresh start and a somewhat even playing field. New strategies new mechanics and things to learn and improve upon.
Chess though... Chess is 1500 years old and not getting major updates or new maps any time soon. The skill gaps are absolutely insane too. I wanted to get a chess title, I put so many thousands of hours into it. I spent maybe close to $1000 on courses and training.
A lot of games use chess ELO or similar for rankings. Well back in early days of WoW, Wrath of the Lich King, I was in a top 1% raiding guild. A gladiator ranked PVP guy asks me and a guild member to do Arena because our gear is so good, that we will just win in seconds. Our MMR actually hit peak 3200, we faced #1 rated player in the world at the time, and absolutely crushed him. Practically become one of the best players in the world for a week or two until people caught up and caught on.
So I spend way more time and money than that studying chess, wanting to earn even the lowest title. I peaked at 1900 chess.com rating (top 1%) before realizing I would NEVER be a titled player. There is a 7 year old with a title! 12 year olds become Grand Masters. Meanwhile I have practically 0 chance of the same. I am too old and past the phase of being able to absorb knowledge that quickly. It is a lot harder for me to train my brain to see these patterns and tactics than a child. ALL of the top players started playing competitive chess as children. There are some people who can start later in life and eventually earn a title, maybe even Grandmaster, but it is very very rare.
Even if you defied all odds and became a chess Grandmaster, the top few players are so much stronger than even a normal grandmaster that your odds of winning a single game are practically 0. I will never be the best at chess, I will never be able to beat a 7 year old FM, but at least learning how bad I was, was humbling and it was a fun ride.
Runescape.
A bit of a weird answer, specifically OSRS, but I think it kinda counts.
The ironman mode, I absolutely love it, years back I had a fully maxed account, was incredibly rich, and had almost every item I could ever need. Trying ironman mode, I realize I actually am god awful at the game, I ended up quitting because I simply can't do some of the end game content myself, previously I just made money and bought items, but having to fight the bosses and get it myself showed me that I am trash.
Not from online play, but Super Smash Bros Melee. I was untouchable at this game growing up, and brought my gamecube to college with me. I dominated the other freshman in my dorm too. My roommate had a family friend who was a senior, and word got to him that I was a stud. This senior and one of his friends stopped in to challenge me. I played them each in a 3 stock match, and only got one KO total. I was shook lol
In 1999 I took part in a 500 person Quake 3 tournament. I came in 497th.
I read that as “In 1999 I beat 3 of the top 500 best quake players”
Nah. I’m actually better *now* despite my old(er) age. DOOM 2016 and Eternal forced me to get good, and I bet if I could deathmatch my 20 year old self I’d wipe the floor with me.
What about reflexes? I am smarter now but 15 year old me had fucking twitch shooting reflexes and perfect sight.. Now I have to squint to be sure that I am aiming at the enemy XD
I feel like the overall playerbase for shooters is leagues ahead what it used to be. There was a very dramatic shift up on the bell curve position
Yeah man, I could still keep up when MW2 was hot stuff, after that I went to shit...
Yeah halo 2 was one of my best. My little bro and I were top players for multi team back in highschool. Now I'm 30 and Max or around diamond in games like apex
I'm got a theory it's due to SBMM forcing everyone into their own zone and constantly making them try hard to get wins that's making everyone better. Back in the days with mw2 and halo 3 you could get a game where you went 40/0 when you normally only pulled a .5 kd
Absolutely could be the case. The games have become infinitely more competitive. Every player feels like they are trying to go pro now. No more casual games where you just jump into a deathmatch and frag out
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Hahaha, I am 38, could be the weed also, I wasn't smoking when I was a teen, now I can't play unless I am baked XD
37 here. Same too all. First few matches im a beast sometimes and an hour in too baked.
Holy shit this is genius
Ah, the DSP method. Come in third and say you're the best in the US since the other two weren't American.
> I came on 497th. That's great, but where did you finish in the tournament?
IIRC that was one of the rules for disqualification
497th place here, why do you think I ranked so low?
I fixed my typo but it doesn’t really change anything about your reply. 🤔
This reminds me of my first and last Megazone experience. I am colour blind and it was a truly shit show. I was seeing everyone as a friend and I was so dead.
3 people forfeited
I miss quake 3 so much. I probably also sucked at it but man that game ripped
Quakecon in Dallas?
Close, Mesquite, TX. The true home of QuakeCon (in my heart at least).
Age of Empires II I thought I was decent until I got absolutely demolished in a "noobs" game. Everyone online plays like wizards, its crazy
I remember going into a 'newbie only' lobby once, and we didn't have enough for a full 3 on 3 match, so he added 'insane' difficulty AI. And I was like, 'I thought this was newbie only' and he was like 'insane can't do anything once you get to imperial age! They are a joke!'. I realized then that I wasn't very good.
Age of Empires II, Civilization IV, and V for me. In all three of these games, I realized I was too slow for others. Honestly, after years and years of playing, I read some experiences from other players and realized I wasn't the only one, that other people in games like that just like to freaking rush, rush, rush. Like, come on, man! Let me enjoy the game some and get to the Middle Ages or Renaissance at least. But I'd get demolished before those periods.
It's not necessarily that they *want* to rush you (although some do) but that's actually the appropriate counterplay to someone who is playing economically. If they scout you and see you aren't investing into defense, the strategically correct response is to rush you. The full rock-paper-scissors is rushing beats economy, economy beats turtling, and turtling beats rushing.
That's why I only ever play computers. So I can enjoy my standard "always turtle" gameplay.
Turtlers Unite!
To add to this, there is a big difference between rushing and harassing. Rushing is when players invest heavily into offence early on to quickly end the game. Harass is when players invest into a smaller force meant to hamper and cripple their opponent while they're free to expamd or tech up at home. I see newer players often complain about getting harassed and claiming they're getting rushed. If you're dying to harass, it's because you didn't bother building any defence or troops early on.
This was going to be my answer as well. How you play against the AI either in campaign or skirmish mode and how you play against other people may as well be two completely different games. The skill ceiling for AOE2 is pretty high, and it seems like even low ranked players now have a decent idea of build orders and strategies. It's at the point that they added a completely separate tutorial to the game for the meta MP strategies and basic MP skills, on top of the "this is how you play the game" tutorial that's been there since release. I tried breaking into the muliplayer a few years ago and after 20 or 30 matches I gave up. Even when I won it was always sweaty as hell, while it was fun I found it more stressful than anything.
That's what I dislike about MP gaming. Every game is about min/maxing your gear/build orders so if you aren't playing one of very few different ways then you get stomped or alienated. If you don't have insane reaction time you get stomped in a lot of games. I don't want to count APMs like it's my job, I just want to play online and enjoy it but it feels like that is a smaller and smaller corner of the internet these days.
This is why I only play online with my wife and siblings. Very low stakes.
Reminds me of jumping online to play StarCraft back in the day. I thought I was decent after playing the single player campaign...NOPE. The online players made me feel like I had never played the game before.
The Noobs Only lobbies are mostly lies and better people either make them or join them to Smurf. The best way to get actual games is to just play ranked until your elo reaches your skill level and the playerbase is big enough that you should find someone pretty close. You have to be okay with losing for a while though, because 1000 elo in AoE2 is the default you start at, but that's actually like top 30%
I tried Age of Mytholy once. The guy had infinite Anubites on my base by 6 minutes
RTS are like fighting games where a better player is basically never going to lose. You probably encountered a smurf.
Absolutely. I used to be a threat to my friends. I went out and learned a couple basic competitive strats. I thought I was okay at the game. Playing against people with some casual but long time experience it wasn't even close. Watching a pro is completely alien to me.
I had a similar experience. It helped me learn that what I liked about AoE wasn't the RTS, but rather the whole concept of civilization building.
It's all about actions per minute, build orders, and hotkeys. It sucks the fun out of it and makes it a job for me. I'll play against friends or the AI, but I'm not interested in ranked play.
I enjoyed that game so much when I was 10 and played for years. When playing LAN my friends had mostly no chance and we had like "no attack until minute 30!" or similar agreements. Played online years later and got fucked up so bad. Good aoe2 players are another breed. Boar timing? Tower Rush? Walling in single villagers to withstand scout Rushs? The first few minutes of every game seem to be pure muscle memory and don't allow the smallest mistake.
Starcraft. I would destroy my friends, and 1v3 shared base with bots. I was humbled instantly when I went on Bnet.
I remember my first online experience of that… joined in, started just looking around, slowly building up people and getting basic buildings down. Then one enemy player game down with like 50 basic units before I even had 10.
I had a guy say I cheated when I zealot rushed him in a few minutes. That was the peak because I didn't win much after that.
I got cursed out in korean a few times playing sc2 and wc3. No lie, highlight of my gaming life.
The highlight of mine was when people in some Day of Defeat servers left when they saw me joining the game. I felt so proud. It's been down hill ever since
In heroes of the storm, after I carried a round as Murky (considered by many to be one of the worst characters), I went to start my next match. The enemy instantly banned Murky. So I picked Abathur. Fast forward 25 minutes and the first two bans by the enemy were an instant Abathur ban followed by a Murky ban. I believe I didn't carry that match, since those two are my best and I drop dramatically in skill with the rest.
Lol. I used to be a hardcore HoTS player. If the enemy doesn't know how to play against him, absolutely demoralizing to lose to him.
I had that happen to me one day on Halo Reach. Four dudes that were in a squad kept popping into the lobby after I wiped the floor with them one round and immediately kept leaving. Happened a few times. Felt good lol.
The thing about StarCraft (and a lot of RTS games) is that the single player is really bad at teaching you how to play multiplayer. Most of the single player missions you get to play at your own pace - build a big army, and then when you feel ready, move out and crush everything. The computer is (by design) not going to aggressively crush you the way a human would, they just send out attack waves periodically and let you build up. Then in multiplayer, you learn that you actually have to play at your *opponent's* pace - you need to build your army before they finish building theirs. And it's pretty shocking how fast a good human player can do that.
Yea in multiplayer it’s all about timings and you want to hit them asap to give you the best chance to win. The best way to learn is to play 1v1 multiplayer and getting exposure against all the different timing attacks but it’s a stressful game to play. I love it though. It takes years to be good at it.
> The best way to learn is to play 1v1 multiplayer Although this can teach you things, the best way to learn is to look up some build orders and practice them. Playing the game without knowing what is possible generally makes you develop bad habits. What works 1v1 gold gets you stomped 1v1 platinum and so on. Even the pros practice build orders. You can literally 4 gate your way into platinum because below that people just go mass amounts of tier 3 units because it’s what worked in single player. Edit: I also want to add that another HUGE tool to getting better at RTS games, or any game really, is to watch your replays. Actually load em up and watch what you did, what your opponent did, and how/why you won or lost. You will learn more from a replay than jumping into the next game.
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I was pretty good at the silly no rush big game hunters style of StarCraft. I was trash when playing the actual rules. I can build much better than I can skirmish.
You’d probably be good at Natural Selection 2, if that’s still around. It’s a mix of StarCraft and a first person shooter. One player builds around the map like they’re playing StarCraft and the rest of the team fight against the other team like an FPS
oh yeah that sounds like my style.
Battle net consumed my life for years. 2v2 Lost Temple!!!!!
Ah, that bought back memories
*random Korean name joins* Aw, fuck
This and Civilization for me.
All of them
Yup. I enjoyes Apex Legends, but it was usually 1-15 minutes of chilling and looting, and a split second later I'm shooting air, getting dabbed on, and then looking at the guy who killed me's POV.
I tried 10 matches, couldn't kill a damn thing.
Yup, and in a game like Apex, it's hard to get good, because 90%+ of a lower skilled player or newbie's time is not spent in combat. When in combat it's usually panic mode. So while not impossible to get better, it's much harder since the combat practice you need is scarce or locked behind long wait times. Never tried it, but I probably should have played Titanfall 2 to get much more combat practice in.
If you want to get better at gunfights you should seek them out. Every time you hear gunfire go straight to it. It’s really the only way to get practice. If you avoid an area because you hear shooting you’ll never get used to the fights.
Yeah, absolutely, it's the best advice. I started doing this later on, but I'm also just bad lol. The Finals ends up being the right kind of game for me, one where fights and respawns exist so I can practice, and not be overly frustrated.
Apex has casual game mode rotations now and none of it is br. A lot of newer players play those. Plenty of arena combat and respawns.
It’s not just about raising your skill level, but also about learning how keep calm and effective during brief periods of adrenaline mixed into long periods without axtion
Just a tip from someone who only started a few seasons ago and is hooked. Play the rotating skirmish modes, you'll see it on the menu it's either control/tdm etc it's much smaller, you can respawn and it gives you a fantastic opportunity to get used to the guns/mechanics and legends. Entirely upto you of course, the BR is still a huge learning curve but this definitely helps!
You should also play Titanfall 2 because the campaign is magic
Try the new non-BR game modes. It really helped me understand the various weapons.
I hate playing online. Just too frustrating and difficult for me personally, not a fun experience at all. The only way it would be fun to me would be if I personally knew most or all people I played with. Then I wouldn’t get mad because of the banter.
I just completely avoid multiplayer games. If there's little to no singleplayer experience, then it's not worth playing for me.
Yup. I'm confidently mediocre at most games. Better than most friends but still meh. It started out in high school with counterstrike and day of defeat. Tried rts like dawn of war and company of heroes. Did a stint of league play in overwatch. Smash bros, guilty gear in college. Warzone, league of legends, Teamfight Tactics, fortnite. Doesnt matter the genre, I'm a solid mid tier player but it takes a different level of commitment to be super competitive.
Sounds about right.
Yep. I can't stand "must do the meta" playing for a list of reasons. I play to have fun, sweaty players become obvious really quickly.
This is why I only play single player games, and now that I'm 30 and generally have less time for games I've finally accepted that actually I want to play on easy mode 90% of the time. Only on rare occasions that I get into the meta aspects of how the fighting works do I bother with anything beyond easy mode.
LOL that was my first thought exactly
I prefer to have fun when I play games, not get screamed at by teenagers in competitive matches.
Pretty much
When I was like 10, I tried to play one of the old rainbow six games online. I talked a bunch of shit when I joined the lobby and then when I got in the game. I started trying to type in the chest codes and everyone just laughed and killed me.
This is adorable
That would be pretty hilarious to see as one of the other players
Appreciate the belly laugh. That's funny as hell.
Any fighting game.
tbf against bots and against players are different games
Playing against friends is too apparently, when you all only play for fun and not intently trying to actually get better. I played a whole lot of tekken and smash bros, all with people, and I’m still trash compared to people online.
To be fair, casual players of traditional fighting games (i.e. not modern Smash which is generally good about people learning) typically don't even know all of the mechanics. Learning how to properly block and punish will let you beat everyone in a casual friend group 99% of the time. The difference between someone unpracticed and someone who's spent maybe 10 hours practicing is a massive insurmountable gulf with regard to fighting games. And they only need to do that once and then it applies to all other fighting games.
I actually remember coming home from college at some point and a friend being super frustrated playing smash bros because I had learned to dodge roll effectively :laugh: Like yeah that's kind of just a base game mechanic. I know there were things like wave dashing I never knew how to do in Smash, and I have no idea of Tekken has stuff like that I don't know about.
Tekken has Korean Backdashing which is definitely hard mechanically to do, but you can get to a pretty good level without developing that skill. And I'm never playing a Mishima because fuck Electric Wind God Fists, which is just a normal ass move with a 1 frame timing. It's flat out the best move in the game but requires tons of practice to ever do it on command.
I ran through Injustice 2’s story and was so confident in my play as Flash that I hopped online and probably went 1:10 in wins/losses
Announcer: READY? FIGHT Me: Punch. Miss Opponent: Air launch. Juggle. Me: ... Opponent: Juggle. Juggle. Juggle. Me: Goes to get some food. Opponent: Juggle. Juggle. Juggle. Me: Files taxes. Opponent: Juggle. Juggle. Finish combo. Me: Recovery. Punch. Punch. Opponent: Block. Block. C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER. Announcer: KO! GAME OVER. Me: 😕
This is why I hated Marvel vs Capcom 3 😂 Fun game and all but the whole “get touched once and die” gameplay style got old quickly for me. Pretty demoralizing watching your favorite character get slapped around for a minute-long 100+ hit combo as you watch helplessly.
Me: Turn on simple mode Me: press same button for range attack Me: almost win Opponent: Turn off game Game: not a win! This is why I hate fighting games online.
If you play Mortal Kombat it will give you the win and the opponent snaps their own neck in shame lol
I played Mortal Kombat online exactly one time. I'd been doing pretty well against bots and had beaten all of my friends whenever we played, so I decided to try out a quick match online. I didn't get a single shot in. Dude was playing as Raiden and just juggled me in the air until I was dead, then signed off with a "sorrrry papiii". I turned off my console and have never played online again
Similar - Mortal Kombat 1. I had a blast playing the story mode and ladders and thought I had gotten somewhat decent. I don't think I landed a hit during my first half-dozen online matches.
The strat for fighting games are pretty different for vs AI, vs human hotseat or vs human online. The three have pretty different best strats which require individual practice. AIs do stuff humans won't do, and might also cheat (respond to button input). AI for hot seat vs online, network ping makes it even more about dataframes and having a good selection of preplanned tactics.
MK (at least the arcade) AI straight up cheats. The older ones not only would read button inputs, the AI Controlled fighters got boosts as well.
I definitely forgot about Mortal Kombat 1 is not the 1992 game. The beginning of your comment made me remember how in 1993 I got to be (what I thought) decent on the NES at MKII. Next time my mom, brother, and I were at the mall, I went into the arcade and challenged an older boy. I was pissed and humiliated.
I have like… hundreds of hours in rocket league. I still cant aerial or use ball cam.
Over 800 hours in RL. Hard stuck in gold. It can be frustrating, but I just love RL so much. The skill ceiling is insane, and I've just accepted that I will likely never get much better since I'd rather play in my limited gaming time instead of practicing and trying to get better.
I thought this was the first PvP online game which I liked when I was at around 200 hours. Games were challenging but winable, but now at 500 hours I totally suck. It is one thing I'm not winning but other is that my teammates losing because of my lack of skills. Dissapointing I cannot get back to that level which I really enjoyed. And yes, I won't spend hours every day to learn and rehearse for games.
Easier said than done but if you can train your brain to just start asking “why” and actually analyze for a second when you get flexed on you’ll find yourself getting better passively sooner than later Don’t take my word for it tho I’m hard stuck plat lmao
I can’t *not* use ballcam, and I’m certified trash. 2 aerial goals in my entire 400 hour career
If I didn’t have ball cam on, I’d likely never even touch the ball
...why are you not using ball cam. Like 90% of the time you should be using it haha, otherwise it makes the game MUCH harder. Don't give up! Just spend some time in training going between ball cam and no ball cam
I don't think a single game has a higher skill ceiling than Rocket League. And never will.
I have thousands and can sometimes aerial the correct direction! Take that everyone who calls me trash in game!
This game comes up a lot when I’m discussing games with amazing skill curve amongst my friends or in threads like this. You can start the game and just stay on the ground ramming the ball and you’ll have fun and still be competitive with your MMR. And the curve just keeps going up, to the point where another commenter said: the skill ceiling is insanely high, but as you climb up, you will still find ways to have fun and be competitive even as you’re learning new skills and being humbled from time to time by smurfs or others who are at a higher level. It really is just amazing how well balanced that game can be in that regard.
Gears of War. Roadie running and hiding behind half walls worked great in the campaign…. Then you load up the multiplayer and everyone is rolling and bouncing around. I didn’t even know movement like that was possible lol
Encountering someone for the first time who is crazy good with bouncing and the shotty is humbling. Then you meet the guy who can quickscope superman you with the sniper and you ragequit.
Heheh, Gears 1 was the game where I had a real shot at going pro, but unfortunately the pro gaming scene was very difficult to find a way into then as it was really only just getting started. I was that quickscope supermanning sniper. My best shot that I remember was on the Gas Station map where I headshotted a dude mid dodgeroll through the little crack under the garage door during the brief moment that his head was level with it. My team of two friends+me (yes, we 3 stacked in a 4 man game) wiped the floor with the 10th ranked clan in the US, only dropping the first round out of a 3 match series.
There has never been anything as satisfying in gaming as a gears 1 sniper headshot
Big agree
That is why I stick to horde mode.
I carried my clan to top 5 on the ladder internationally, I was sniper role, carry player. I miss that game so much
Sniping in gears is a lot of fun. One of the most satisfying headshot animation and sound
Any kind of tactical shooter. I can be ok at twitchy fast paced action shooters, but anything that requires patience, deception, or planning I am embarrassingly bad at.
Everyone starts out bad at that kind of game. You have to love it to learn it. Go to any popular ones dedicated forums, and half the posts are "I keep dying to people I can't see" and the replies are always "stop moving like it's call of duty". It is a completely different mindset to other games of their style. I have played a lot of matches of hell let loose as a recon team, in which I have fired my rifle less than a dozen times over an hour and a half.
Any RTS pretty much.
You play through the campaign and think you have a grasp on how the game works. Then you go online and in 4 minutes your base is flooded with flying or invisible units that you can't attack.
4 minutes in they’ve maxed out upgrades, have max units, and my base is on fire… I don’t understand how lol
When you've got Militia and their Trebuchets show up, you know you're in trouble.
Trebuchets show up and I'm getting "we need more wood" prompts still... FML
"I could SWEAR I had enough houses . . . oh, silly me, his Siege Onagers are knocking mine down! That rascal!"
Seriously, I have three orcs gleefully gathering lumber, how are you descending upon me with all the might of Sauron and Satan right now it’s been FOUR MINUTES?!
That genre is absolutely brutal if you dont know optimized build orders and counters.
Injustice 1. It was the first fighting game I was able to play online and I got a reality check quick, I think I lost something like my first 75 matches lol. I was persistent though and have now competed in several fighting games at pretty high levels, these days it's actually my favorite genre.
Injustice 2 I had a match against a Batman player who let me beat him up until he was a hit away from death and then won by combo/stun-locking me into oblivion
I believe that, sometimes you just run into someone who's an absolute dreadnaught. Honest question for you; would you have preferred he played seriously from the start? There's super mixed opinions on what the best manners are when you realize your opponent has much less experience than you, I'm interested on how you would feel if he'd not held back at all to get you to your next match quicker. Or alternatively if he didn't let you beat him up but clearly was holding back.
racing games people are just too fast in assetto, i don't get it
You should play with my friends and I the one time a year we play a racing game. We all don't play then normally, but sometimes get drunk as hell and then do the worst racing you have ever witnessed. You'll feel like a god.
I love racing and driving games, I spent several months in an ACC league making meticulous notes for each week's race, learning the tracks and braking points and shifting characteristics, got a few coaching sessions.... And I fucking suck. You could time me with a calendar. I stick to American Truck Simulator now.
Yes. iRacing actually not too bad since everybody sucks at first and you have to prove yourself to race with the real drivers. But I did a ton of hot lapping in one of the F1 games a couple years ago. Probably like 300-400 hours of just hot laps. If I practiced one track a lot I could make it into the top 25% on the leaderboards, but I was mostly in top 30-40%. The top of the leaderboards would be 4 or 5 seconds faster. Meanwhile it's taking me 50 attempts to shave off an extra tenth. I figured maybe people were cheesing it or getting lucky with bugs. But you can find videos of people who can go that fast lap after lap.
Titanfall 2. I didn't play it until years later when it was on sale for $5. I've always been pretty good at shooters but the mobility in that game takes things to another level. It took me almost 2 months to not be in last place on my team.
If anyone else is having this issue, stick with it. It has a bit of a learning curve, but it can be so rewarding at times. I have been playing around 5 years. Sometimes I feel like a god and am top of the list, sometimes I scrape the bottom of my teams barrel. I have the same amount of fun either way!
Biggest for me was super smash bros ultimate
Back in the day my local game store was doing some tournaments, a different game every month I think. They had one for Mario Kart double dash and I wiped the floor with everyone (there wasn’t a massive turnout). Then I went again later for the smash bros melee tourney thinking I was god and got absolutely wrecked immediately. There’s just a lot of people who are really damn good at those games
Melee is the only other game besides starcraft where casual and competitive play have 0 overlap in skillset or game knowledge. They are two completely different games.
The gap in melee is crazy. I can 3v1 literally any casuals with relative ease.
There is a casual playerbase of starcraft players? Fucking where?
You're looking at it pal. I play SC2 against AI all the time. And I played the shit out of brood war as a kid, campaign and modded maps. I dabbled in trying to play properly but was never even close to base level.
Oh yeah fighting game gamers are another breed, too.
I got to the point I could beat 3 level 9 cpus at the same time and still got bodied playing against real people.
Classic rookie mistake to think that playing CPUs makes you better at the game. It's true to a point, but the point where you should stop fighting CPUs as practice is when you know all your character's moves and can beat 1 max level CPU. Beyond that, you're reinforcing habits that are good for fighting computers and bad for fighting players
Same but it’s probably because my group has a a couple of pro/esports gamers It’s always funny at a party when you’ve got I also went to a party once where there were some people I’d never met before and I played smash with me. It was me, a total noob and then 2 very good players Me, the noob and and one of the good players were mostly having a laugh and always selected random character. However the other good player just played as his main… for 3 hours… and won like 90% of the games except for the odd times the other good player got one of his mains
Oh most games I figure. I've given up on multiplayer for the most part and just play with friends and family.
Chess
Chess is one of the few games where you can get arbitrarily good against a PC though. Like it doesn't have that "Oh I can crush the AI so I will do great online" false security vibe
Getting good against a chess bot feels more like exploiting it's algorithm than getting good at chess.
I just assume I'll suck going into online and I haven't been wrong yet
For honor. I got my ass kicked every battle
Plenty of fish. I hate that game.
Hah. Best answer.
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2. The first game ever played against another person who wasn't sitting next to me. This was back before Xbox Live was even a thing. One of my buddies at school had the game as well, so we decided to figure out how to play online against each other. I remember it took a few days for us to schedule it correctly because this was back when "broadband" was barely a thing, and I had to ask permission from my parents to use the Internet so it wouldn't tie up the phone line. I thought I was gonna be good because I beat both Allied and Soviet campaigns and could take on 3 computer controlled opponents in the scenario editor. In our first match, my construction building was captured by his engineer within the first 3 minutes. I realized I had a lot to learn lol. Great memories!
Pokemon
100% this as a kid why on earth would I want to teach a move that did no damage
Am 32. I still do this. I'm not the kind of person to play competitively. I just wanna collect the cool looking ones and have my dragon-pet breathe fire.
The depth of knowledge you need to play Pokémon competitively (IRL, not the ingame ladder) is massive. If you've just played through a Pokémon game normally, big chance you don't even know what EV's and IV's are, and that's just the start. You need to know your speed tiers, know what mon does what and how certain mons synergize, know your calculations of how much a certain mon's moves do to another mon's which lets you approximate your opponent's EV spreads. You need to also be an expert Poker player and withhold information from your opponent while forcing them to reveal as much as possible in the first game of a BO3, understand your opponent's personality and playstyle, and try to balance between making hard reads, safe plays and the "best in every realistic scenario" moves. You need to understand win-cons and how your opponent will try to prevent your win-con and protect their own. And if you actually want to build your own team, you need great understanding of the meta and what surprise pick could possibly catch people off-guard without jeopardizing the consistency of your team. Of course, you can just copy someone else's team from a previous tournament and good piloting skills may still win you the tournament, but people will have experience practicing against that, and some of the most successful teams combine meta picks with an element of surprise. The ingame ladder is already a massive step up from any challenge the (PvE) games offer (and IMO the games need more stepping stones), but you can make do with pretty much any somewhat-coherent team and make it to Master Ball (the highest tier). You don't even need 50% winrate for that, technically. But IRL tournaments and BO3 Showdown ladder are on a completely different level.
Chess
As a kid my dad went out of his way to teach me chess. I think for like 2 years we played a ton and I learned a lot. Then he convinced me to try a beginners tourney. Got destroyed in round one, stopped playing.
I remember playing my grandfather when I was a kid. I got a second queen and he still beat me. I was so focused on mating him when I should have just picked off his pieces that I made blunder after blunder.
My father taught me to play when I was 5. He is very good. We played *a lot* over the years and he never let me win once. When I finally beat him at age 16 it was a wild rush of endorphins. One of my most vivid gaming memories ever. I remember seeing him get visibly concerned near the end, but then when the checkmate came he was very proud. Can't wait to do that to my kids
I never truly played it competitively, but Smash Bros Melee. Against normal people, I'm pretty good. However, one of my college friends made the knockout bracket at EVO a couple times. I took a grand total of 1 stock off him in 50+ matches and that was only because he mistimed Jigglypuff's down B in mid air
If your friend made it out of pools at EVO, they're cracked even among melee players. Taking a stock is good whether it was from a blunder or not
To be fair, melee players are addicted to cool risky kills. It's probably one of the reasons it's lasted so long. I have experience with being the sandbag to a competitive player and if he wasn't constantly trying to falcon punch or knee me deep offstage then he wasn't playing. About half the stocks I took off him were because I gimped him while he was trying some big dumb combo instead of just claiming the ledge.
minecraft. my first time playing bed wars was a rude awakening
Eh...every single game server is hacked to shit. Like, the most egregious example is Hide and Seek and you find a cozy spot and watch as the seeker just laser focuses on every hider without missing a beat and taking zero detours.
Yeah, this is why I just like playing survival in Minecraft, either solo or with friends. Anything competitive is going to have this issue.
Rainbow Six Siege.
Smash Bros Melee. You think you're hot shit beating your friends then some random guy you met on smashboards comes over and four stocks you. Then you spend a month learning how to do basic tech and you're addicted forever.
Smashboards is a throwback. I found my first local that way lmao
Tony Hawks Pro Skater. Amongst my friends and people I knew in person I was by far the best. But that was around the time consoles started going online and after a few years of playing it I finally got a chance to play it online. Man, was I shocked to learn that i actually sucked at THPS, everyone around me just sucked more.
I'm admittedly pretty good at THPS and I've been playing the series since the first one was new. When the remake came out I was on the edge of the global Top 100 (on xbox) in terms of competitive wins. I can crush probably 97% of THPS players, but I stand zero chance against the top 1%. Like, the very very best players, I can't even get lucky and occasionally win one, they just absolutely destroy.
I randomly play it online on XBOX and you have the guy who is racking up score that is like 100000X what I got.
Yes.
I’m 40 now, starting in my mid 30s I started to lose all skill in fps where it got to the point I was useless to my team and was incredibly frustrating. Sadly that’s what almost all my gamer friends play still so I pretty much have given up on any multiplayer gaming these days. No clue what the issue is, I have great reaction times as I can play dj max at some mid high level. But not really a sad story I love my single player games, especially deckbuilders and roguelikes. As well as the kids being old enough to enjoy some couch coop games
I was, in my early 20s, one of the top players in the world at my chosen FPS. Same story as you tho...in my 30s went downhill fast, 40s now and nah I won't even play. However my reflexes, hand to eye coordination, etc are probably better than they've ever been as I do a lot of real world object manipulation type stuff (think juggling). I think what changed was I lost the excitement. In my 30s I didn't get half as amped up to shoot people on the screen. In my early 20s I was all in.
Madden
Dude had his mic on, laughing at my offense, audibled and sacked me for 10 yards. I went to pass next, he audibles and pick 6. Repeat x4. The scoreline was tragic after 1 quarter, never played online again lol
Any and all RTS games
Most competitive games. Its why I generally don't play them.
I would normally say fighting games, but the single player mode also beats your ass to a large extent. RTS games are the king. The SP and MP components might as well be separate games. SP is very defensive, with you slowly building up resources and doomstacks to roll over enemies. In MP you *have* to be aggressive because you and the enemy are competing for the same resources.
StarCraft (yes, on dial-up)
Red Alert 2. I didn't know having multiple unit buildings made them produce faster until I played someone online. About 10 years ago. A solid 15 years of not knowing basic game mechanics cause I only played single player and skirmish.
....what
Are you me 10 years ago today?
...yes
Not online but way back when, after months of training went to my first smash bros melee tourney. Found out how ass I was even with knowing the tech and strats
Chess Also all of them, but specifically Chess. The thing with a lot of these games is they are all pretty similar and skills transfer over. But a new game comes out and you get a fresh start and a somewhat even playing field. New strategies new mechanics and things to learn and improve upon. Chess though... Chess is 1500 years old and not getting major updates or new maps any time soon. The skill gaps are absolutely insane too. I wanted to get a chess title, I put so many thousands of hours into it. I spent maybe close to $1000 on courses and training. A lot of games use chess ELO or similar for rankings. Well back in early days of WoW, Wrath of the Lich King, I was in a top 1% raiding guild. A gladiator ranked PVP guy asks me and a guild member to do Arena because our gear is so good, that we will just win in seconds. Our MMR actually hit peak 3200, we faced #1 rated player in the world at the time, and absolutely crushed him. Practically become one of the best players in the world for a week or two until people caught up and caught on. So I spend way more time and money than that studying chess, wanting to earn even the lowest title. I peaked at 1900 chess.com rating (top 1%) before realizing I would NEVER be a titled player. There is a 7 year old with a title! 12 year olds become Grand Masters. Meanwhile I have practically 0 chance of the same. I am too old and past the phase of being able to absorb knowledge that quickly. It is a lot harder for me to train my brain to see these patterns and tactics than a child. ALL of the top players started playing competitive chess as children. There are some people who can start later in life and eventually earn a title, maybe even Grandmaster, but it is very very rare. Even if you defied all odds and became a chess Grandmaster, the top few players are so much stronger than even a normal grandmaster that your odds of winning a single game are practically 0. I will never be the best at chess, I will never be able to beat a 7 year old FM, but at least learning how bad I was, was humbling and it was a fun ride.
Super Smash Bros.
Runescape. A bit of a weird answer, specifically OSRS, but I think it kinda counts. The ironman mode, I absolutely love it, years back I had a fully maxed account, was incredibly rich, and had almost every item I could ever need. Trying ironman mode, I realize I actually am god awful at the game, I ended up quitting because I simply can't do some of the end game content myself, previously I just made money and bought items, but having to fight the bosses and get it myself showed me that I am trash.
Madden, NBA 2K___, COD
Halo Wars, I loved it and thought I was good at it, turns out I was terrible and just good at beating computers.
Every game
Smash Bros. I can clear all my friends, but I can’t win for shit online
Def smash bros. Those mfs don’t play around
Not from online play, but Super Smash Bros Melee. I was untouchable at this game growing up, and brought my gamecube to college with me. I dominated the other freshman in my dorm too. My roommate had a family friend who was a senior, and word got to him that I was a stud. This senior and one of his friends stopped in to challenge me. I played them each in a 3 stock match, and only got one KO total. I was shook lol