For example, I am terrible at Super Meat Boy, but just playing it has really improved how I play platformers and games that need faster imputs overall.
Multiplayer games taught me that I generally dislike other people.
I’ve been on a decade long hiatus from multiplayer aspect of games - aside from games I was with people I knew in RL.
I only occasionally get a twinge for the comraderie of some epic raid in an MMO, or tight unspoken squad tactics where everyone just does their job as expected (not necessarily well lol) and came out on top.
But really, I don’t have the time to commit to either of those.
Then I hear about my friend in GW2 (RL friend) who is going through some toxic guild BS and I don’t miss it.
I tried DOTA once. Once was enough.
I can play on my own time, and I can play with friends, but god help me I HATE playing on the server’s time. I can kinda do it with Pokemon Go, but that’s one you can play as casually or as hardcore as you like since you’re mostly playing for yourself after a point.
Sorry in advance to people who hate talking about it but Dark Souls is a very paradoxical experience It can:
- Help you learn patience and awareness
- Help you learn not to stress over losses
- Help you learn that people have different experiences of enjoyment and understand your scope of interest in games.
I think that only works if you already have that in the first place though (and you already have enough mechanical skill to get anywhere in those games fast enough to get hooked)
Have made the mistake of introducing people who don’t really play videogames to games like Celeste before thinking it’ll help them improve but it only ends in frustration
Those first two are so true. I got around to Elden Ring recently, and I realized that losses I’ve taken and not sweated and how meticulously and carefully I approach each situation have been influenced by all the games that came before. I’m (relatively) kicking the crap out of it because I know how to play Souls games now because the series has been teaching me these exact things all along. I’ve offed quite a few bosses first try, and damn it feels good. It’s such a great series for giving you a sense of power through perseverance and awareness, rather than just grinding up the XP to trivialize everything like most other RPGs. Miyazaki really did strike gold with the formula. I hope there are way more Souls games coming in the future.
I was also going to say dark souls. It made me better at accepting loss in games.
Though I do think it’s interesting how some people thrive on challenge and getting their ass kicked until they triumph, and some people just aren’t here for that. If the game is hard they just don’t want to fuck with it.
I failed hard at DS then, except for the last item on your list. I remember a friend who was really into it recommended it so much. I found it so ridiculously difficult I lost interest too quickly. But, I don’t have a problem if others enjoy it
Maybe give it another try sometime, I had the same initial reaction years ago, finally gave it a bigger shot after reading some basic tips and tricks, they’re such good and rewarding games imo
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Dark Souls, don’t give up skeleton, rethink your strategy and learn what’s being thrown at you, you’ll get through it.
With all due respect, while I loved the setting if Dark Souls, after I played 50 hours, I got not a tiny bit better and still kept dying at any point and never being able to beat bosses. I had a friend who had 1000s of dark souls hours tell me hints but it didn’t help . At the end I was so demotivated that I just quit playing.
I still feel bad, I’d love to experience that game, but it was beyond frustrating to me.
Not every game is for everyone, and that’s okay!
I bought demons souls, could hardly pass the first level, and put it down.
I bought dark souls when it came out, and again, played a bit, didn’t get it, and put it on the shelf.
Dark souls 2, bloodborne, and darks souls 3, all the same story. I knew they were amazing games, I just didn’t get it.
Then on some reddit post someone talked about summoning a player to help, and the summon charged into the boss fight naked with only a katana like a freaking jedi.
Every time I had played the games, I was slow, with heavy armour, hiding behind a shield.
I put in dark souls 3, and went super light weight with a fast sword, and something just clicked.
Dark souls 2, it was the twin blade, dark souls one, a katana.
While I haven’t platinumed them all like my girlfriend has, I have beaten all the main souls games except bloodborn and Sekiro with a variety of builds.
Elden Ring was the first one we both got to play new together, and our first play through was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
I highly suggest going back to dark souls one and trying out the different styles. Magic, pyromancy, heavy weapons, fast and light, etc.
There is a really good chance one style will click, and the whole series of amazing games will open up for you.
Hollow Knight 100%. Its also my favorite game.
I’m surprised not to see more people mention From Software games. Going all the way back to demon’s souls they consistently teach you how to understand the tools at your disposal, the challenge that you currently face, and how to use the former to overcome the latter. I learned how to “read” opponents to find and exploit vulnerabilities while playing dark souls way back, and that general approach is consistently useful in all sorts of other games. There are lots of other translatable skills involved, of course, like timing and resource management.
Yeah I agree,
Other games mentioned in this thread involve a lot more manual introspection to get better at, otherwise you’re at risk of just repeating the same mistakes again and again without realising.
In the Souls games you simply cannot progress without learning and becoming better.
There’s always that special moment when you dip your toes into NG+ and overcome bosses first try that would have taken you dozens of attempts beforehand
Six-ish years ago I would say Overwatch. It was my first online multiplayer FPS and it fosters a lot of skills. Teamwork, communication, mechanical ability, game sense, ability management, managing tilt, etc.
Too bad Blizzard decided to stop new content for Overwatch 1 for years, only to reintroduce Overwatch 1.5 with an upgraded battlepass and cash shop monetization scheme. I don’t get how people are still playing after what they did to it.
Blizzard are still simultaneously making gross comments about how players are just too stupid to see that they are wrong about wanting to play 6v6 whilst not actually delivering on their previous claim that they would offer it as an alternative mode at some stage.
I can’t see how it would be complex for them to do it. They already have a balance patch for multiple tanks and you can enable 6v6 in the workshop. It can’t be very difficult for them to spin up a 6v6 quickplay. What do they have to lose if they are convinced that the playerbase doesn’t realise how little fun they’d have playing it? Either Blizzard are right, people play it and say “y’know what? Their condescending comments about how ‘nostalgia is a powerful drug’ when we say we want 6v6 back like they promised were right after all! 6v6 does suck!” and then they can just take it down, or Blizzard are wrong and offering it as an option makes their players happy and excited to play more Overwatch.
It’s a win-win so long as you’re not making your decisions based on sheltering the ego of the individual developers from having to deal with being wrong about stuff. Multi-billion dollar businesses would never make silly self-destructive decisions based on something like that, right?
I stopped playing shortly after trying Overwatch “2” and so I’m not abreast of the news. But its not surprising that their PR is still this bad.
WoW increased my typing speed and accuracy as without voip, its essential to communicate effectively.
+1 for wow for typing and also it was the game that taught me to think about the enemy’s habilities and how my abilities should be used in a particular way effectively against them.
Same. I wouldn’t stop talking during combat so I was typing full sentences in that one second global cooldown.
Everquest did this to me.
I mained a bard, and back then you had to stop a song and start a new one every so often…
Mathematically it translates to a button press ever 1.5 seconds, ignoring movement, other combat abilities, etc.
I also refused to compromise on spelling and grammar at the time.
I got real good at typing accurately and quickly.
I have lost a lot of that speed, but at comfortable pace I’m probably 80-90 words a minute, and the last time it was measured was a keyboarding class requisite. 121 GWAM for an eighth grader isn’t too shabby. As long as I fixed the printer I got to play games in that class.
I have two answers.
First, my general reflexes, situational awareness in games etc. were strongly improved thanks to Doom Eternal. The game keeps you stressed and engaged the whole time (especially on the harder difficulties) and you have to be very quick. It was the first time I needed custom keybindings to be fast enough to solve some sections. Switching between 8 weapons, sometimes after single shots, is something you have to get used to, but it’s incredibly fun!
Second, specifically for 6DoF navigation, Outer Wilds was incredible. When I started I could barely make the spaceship go anywhere without exploding, now I feel I could be pretty good at a 6DoF racing game!
Gta vice city as I learned how to type properly as I couldn’t figure out how to pause the game to type aspirin with 1 finger. Does that count?
Rhythm Games in general, but specifically osu!mania taught me that I can, like, actually get good at completely new stuff no matter how much I suck at it to begin with
It also taught me that I really like Hardcore EDM, before hand I wouldn’t really listen to music cuz I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of music I was drawn to
Exactly the same as you lol
I can’t n get into rhythm games but I just don’t think I found the right one. I am sure there is a rhythm game out there that will blow me away.
Yeah there’s a decent ton of them out there, each player can find the one that resonates with them!
Something I think worth doing is searching “in 40 rhythm games” on YouTube to get a quick compilation of a bunch of unique rhythm games , and importantly it gives a little preview of their gameplay, usually at a high level
When I was a kid it took me 2-3 weeks to beat the Flight School mission series in GTA: San Andreas, and although I hated nearly every minute of it I did become a better video game flier.
Dude fuck that mission. The draw distance made it nearly impossible because power lines would appear right in front of me
Battlefield 3 was my flight teacher. I could whip any chopper around after playing that game.
Rocket League. If I can reach my fast moving targets without having to adjust pitch, roll, yaw, and thrust, all at once, from a third-person view, there’s just no challenge.
GTFO. It has honed a ton of skills for me. Coordination/cooperation, accuracy, ammo conversation, fast problem solving, the ability to switch from fast to slow and back very quickly, the list goes on. It’s the most intense game of red light green light I’ve played.
“Ammo conversation”, for when you let your guns do all the talking, but you need to express yourself beyond just violence.
Celeste was the first “hard” game I played that I actually ended up 100%ing. It’s so fun and makes me try harder on other games too
