How seriously do you take gaming?

[Barry Admin]

I take it pretty seriously. I'm competitive af and like to do well at things, and also want to learn EVERYTHING.

But what about practicing and stuff? Do you practice, or do you just play? I know - ever since my Quake days - I'll always obsess over sensitivity and control schemes and stuff.

The practice I used to do during the days of Quake III was more aimed at advanced movement, as I really love that shit. Exploiting weird things about the physics engine so that you could jump further and faster by bunny hopping or circle strafing.  Plasma climbing up walls, and of course, rocket jumping. Jesus Christ's so much fun and satisfaction.

I'm in the Apex Legends "Firing Range" now, trying to run some drills, which I find boring, but I really want to improve my aim and strafing skills.

[C_Larence]

I have friends who spend hours upon hours training in rocket league and who have genuinely improved and can do amazing stuff with a low rate of error just through muscle memory, but I don't have the attention span to practice. I need to be playing against people or there's no point. It's like the Nightman episode of Sunny where Charlie announces he's come up with a plan and Mac asks "who is it vs?".

[The Culture Bunker]

Not as seriously as I used to take sessions of Champ Manager with my brother and friends back in the 90s. Now, I generally just like an engaging storyline to fill up an evening, or a sports game I can sense my own improvement in. I avoid online play because I can't be doing with the competitive environment when I just need something to relax and escape the world with.

That said, I did download Train Sim World for PS4 the other day and found myself getting a bit anxious about being a minute late into Paddington due to some ill-timed braking outside Slough.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I was gonna describe myself as a filthy casual, but then I thought about it and I realised that's not entirely true. I replay levels to try and improve my ranking. I love unlocking more game and more extras. I play a lot of time management/resource management sims and I love finding ways to be more efficient so I get bonus points for finishing under whatever time.

I don't practice exactly, I just play over and over again until I find a better way to do something. Back when I used to play Tekken I did take advantage of the training modes to test out moves and combos. The real secret (and it's also true of Street Fighter) is that there are a few sets of button inputs that are the same for several characters and once you know that you can win as pretty much any character. As a result I got good enough to win as Mokujin, the magic training dummy who has a random move set each match.

Recently I "brute-forced" my way through Streets of Rage 4 by dropping down to Easy after I didn't have the patience for Normal. I regretted it when I got into the later levels because I began to realise "oh, this is what they were trying to teach me with those enemies back in Level 1". I felt like I'd cheated myself and like it would've been more satisfying if I'd stuck with Normal difficulty a bit longer.

I wouldn't say I'm "serious" about gaming exactly. It's more that I take it seriously when I'm playing, but at the same time I can go days without playing a "proper", non-mobile game. This is because I usually have hobbies that require leaving the house. Under lockdown I've definitely been gaming more.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

That said, I did download Train Sim World for PS4 the other day and found myself getting a bit anxious about being a minute late into Paddington due to some ill-timed braking outside Slough.

Sims you can lose yourself in like that are the best. I'm playing Weedcraft Inc (a marijuana growing and selling sim) and I get really annoyed when an employee of mine fucks up the quality of my weed because they didn't water it enough.

[Ferris]

Nowhere near as serious as I used to be.

The most fun I've had gaming is playing Worms on the switch with a friend via a zoom call in the background because we're both equally/amusingly bad at it. I considered practicing, but I think either of us suddenly being good at it would take away a lot of the fun

[The Culture Bunker]

Sims you can lose yourself in like that are the best. I'm playing Weedcraft Inc (a marijuana growing and selling sim) and I get really annoyed when an employee of mine fucks up the quality of my weed because they didn't water it enough.

I had that element of "one more run" on it last night, trying to perfect my station stopping skills, and it did take the edge off the usual Sunday night blues. I might have to dabble in that Farming Simulator I downloaded from PS+ at some point.

[bgmnts]

Not anymore, its just sadly the only thing I can do. Just sold my console again, hoping it can free me to do other things. 

[Thursday]

Not so much practising, but with Destiny I keep an eye out for what things are "meta" watch videos where people will calculate what weapon will give you the best DPS against raid bosses, keep an eye out for what's possible with any mods and builds. Not even necessarily to use them, but so I know what the best options are.

[Kryton]

50/50 with me.

Depends on the game. Single player I'm usually serious and just do my own thing and try and play it how I want.

But Multiplayer: It either depends on my game. MMO's I always, always try to be a bit of a bastard (but if people are nice, I'll be nice). Ultima Online and Eve Online I've done terrible, terrible things.
Competitive teams - I'll play fair WITH my team.

Anything else is hit and miss tbh.

[itsfredtitmus]

I used to turn my Xbox/PS3 off when I went negative on Cod so it wouldn't show up in my leaderboards

[Abnormal Palm]

Competitively, not at all, I don't really care to get good at FPS or whatever, sports games, nah. About a decade ago I was pretty 'serious' about Street Fighter 4 and tried to study and practise and learn frame data and match-ups and stuff. I played in the arcade and online in China and Japan, I played for several hours every day. When I moved back home, I largely stopped playing and I've never really properly got into a fighting game since. That said, a few months ago, I played Ultra SF4 on a back-to-back arcade cab and as I finished off a close first round with Ken's full ultra animation, I quickly got up, walked round and shook the guy's hand as the animation played out. It was just pure mind games, to be honest, and I absolutely crushed him in the next round. It was intended in the spirit of old-school arcade competition, but I don't really know why I did it. Fortunately, he took it well!

After SF4, though, I didn't really play anything 'seriously' for the next ten years or so, until I started playing shmups.

I will play loads of stuff pretty casually, not even really attempting to get a 1CC and then once something gets under my skin, I will try to push the scoring as far as I possibly can - on the first stage! I really really love going as deep as I can, breaking every little section up and trying to optimise and optimise as much as is possible for me. I'll never be at the top tier but I want to feel what it's like to play the game at as high a level as possible. I will then set myself some arbitrary goal and then try to see whether I feel like I can push it further.

The upsides are that it's incredibly satisfying and exciting to me to feel that progress and to look at some superplay and know that I can briefly feel what it is to play at a certain level. I don't mean that to sound at all above my station, I'm just saying that's what motivates me. I find it really satisfying to hit the scoring goals. I also really love having a deeper understanding of a range of games and systems.

The downsides are massive restart syndrome, the grind, diminishing returns, frustration, and that by the time I feel satisfied with how far I've pushed it, I can barely stomach the game any more for a long time. I almost never go onto do the same thing with stage two. I think there's a something a bit weird about that. I've recently been trying to put a bit of time into Ketsui and Muchi Muchi Pork with a view to a 1CC and skipping the grind loop. Unfortunately, I don't find that comes very naturally to me. I have to stop myself from restarting whenever my counter isn't above such and such score on stage one. My instinct is to try to drill down on every tiny section and squeeze as much out of it as possible, for better or worse.

A wise man once informed me that the Japanese players call this 'ichimen bancho', which basically means someone who is superficially good because he can boss the first stage. That always struck me as a funny concept and that's exactly what I am. That said, I've enormously enjoyed playing shmups this way in the last couple of years, more than almost anything in my lifetime.

My prized collection, in order of satisfaction:

1. Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label - Full Chain, All Bees: https://youtu.be/F9UYAyWxzCg

The game that got me into shmups and blew me away at Arcade Club. It took me about two years to learn to play it for score. The timing on many of these chain links is so strict, there's very little actual skill involved, just a muscle memory feeling, it's pure rhythm game stuff. Almost none of this is dodging, just routing and grinding and throwing everything against the wall again and again. I actually messed up the boss kill, you can get two hypers if you destroy the spinning turrets. I set it it all up perfectly well and just blew it, destroyed the main body because I was too excited about getting the full chain while recording. At the time, I was just ecstatic and I've barely touched it since aside from some very casual runs. It's genuinely impossible to explain how tight these chain links are but if you see the little meter in top left, that's how much time you have to destroy an enemy and top the chain meter back up. Even at my best, half a dozen of these chains I could each do maybe 20% of the time, so to pull this off was extremely improbable for me. I will never ever do this again in my lifetime.


2. Ikaruga - S++ Rank: https://youtu.be/HjjWH9LZlbI

This was the first shmup I tried to learn to play properly and it basically broke me, twice. I decided that I was going to start chaining and as I steadily improved, I found it very exciting and satisfying. It felt so good. Then I decided to set myself the target of S Rank (kind of in a race with a mate elsewhere) and something snapped. I dreamed about my route and execution. I woke up at 4am to grind it before work. I played it first thing when I got in. I played it after my wife went to sleep. I watched superplays and couldn't even understand what they were doing but I wanted to replicate it. Eventually, I managed to stumble over the line and basically collapsed and uninstalled it. Fast forward a year or so and I decided to return to it to get max rank now that I was 'good' and it snapped me all over again. It totally snapped me. No joke, I had an existential crisis about whether my will would even be able to overcome my diminished faculties. I regretted not playing these games in my 20s. I gave up many many times and uninstalled it, only to install it again the next morning. When I finally did it, I did it twice in quick succession, and I genuinely felt like I had put a demon to rest. Even with the bizarre death at the last moment, I knew I'd already nailed the scoring well enough to get S++. I actually feel proud of this.


3. Mushihimesama Futari Black Label God Mode - Stage One First Extend: https://youtu.be/lICdq3yZlzM

This is probably the game I'm best at, to be honest. I absolutely adore it and I've never really found it frustrating, even when grinding away. It was my first Cave clear, on Original Mode, and it's likely that I'll want to go on to clear God Mode at some point because every single stage is magnificent. I can get to stage 4 pretty regularly nowadays but it'll take a serious effort to actually clear it. Watching Gus play Ultra Mode is what inspired me to get a 360 just to see what that intensity felt like, and funnily enough, I much prefer God Mode. The scoring is more interesting and it's a more spectacular mode to me. I've thrown away plenty of better scoring runs than this but that's the nature of the game. There's so much to optimise through point blanking and cancelling as late as possible and cashing out your counter and topping up. This is a run where I nailed the full counter cancel on the midboss and the stage boss and scored heavily throughout, and managed to capture it. The goal of hitting the first extend (350m) during the first stage is pretty arbitrary but watching iconoclast and pestro playing this at an amazing level, I loved the ping when they would hit that extend, usually at the stage boss and I wanted to know what that felt like. I was really chuffed as well when Gus said it was a great clip, because he'd got me into the game. That was a really satisfying way to complete the circle...and basically drop it for a year!


4. Psyvariar Delta - Max Buzz 1105: https://youtu.be/ulPX55Uysig

This was another early favourite for me when I was getting into the genre through the Switch, mainly. It took me a good while before I realised that I'd often score better by not shooting. I put a good ten hours or so into this one stage, which seemed mad at the time. How little did I know...It's such an exciting game though once you start stringing the LEVEL UPPPPP vocal cues and diving headfirst into a spray of bullets, riding the i-frames. I don't even know if this is any good, but it's the best I could do and it seems pretty decent. I didn't actually have a goal in mind at the time, and I didn't know about superplays or any of that. This is just all fun. Amazing game.


5. Rolling Gunner - 57m: https://youtu.be/VlkRxhReAEc

Another Switch favourite, and another which I played in a total bubble just having fun and pushing my score for the sake of it. I uploaded it to share with a few people but it was a total surprise when I had a few questions in the comments about my strats and why I did such and such and I basically had no answer because it was just trial and error. It was cool to see that the same dude had used my video in a strategy guide on the shmups forum. It was soon superceded but that was my briefest possible glimpse at shmup fame! As with all these clips, I recently recaptured them all at 60fps and replaced my old dodgy screeners but I regret losing the comments and chat! Anyway, fun times and another great game.

More recently, I've slightly fallen off shmups because they're just too intense at a time when I'm physically and emotionally often drained after work, but I did start getting into rhythm games a fair bit.

The only one I started to play 'seriously' at all is Taiko no Tatsujin (Drum 'n' Fun). I fell in love with the song Natsumatsuri and then became somewhat obsessed with getting a proper Perfect on it (on Normal), where every hit is Good rather than OK. I got 171/172 a few times but more often than not, I would blow it by the half-way point. Many many times I got to the moment when the animals really start bouncing, around 100, and the background changes and the colours start flashing and my heart would start thumping and I would choke. It's obviously not as difficult as clearing it on Hard, but the completely arbitrary 'perfect combo' goal means that you have to concentrate for every single hit and nail it. It's kind of weird because the top players aren't interested in this kind of thing, they're trying to clear the insane difficulty level, but it appeals to me in some strange way. I enjoyed the ritual of pressing record on the capture card and instantly feeling my faculties sharpening, even if 99% ended in failure. In the end, I did it and pretty much not touched it since!

https://youtu.be/CkJuqtnInms

Actually, I also got pretty obsessed with getting a true Perfect on Groove Coaster Wai Wai Party, similar idea to the Taiko game. I wanted to get every single hit as Great (not Cool or Good) on my favourite song and while I did get it fairly quickly, I think that was a fluke. When I tried to actually capture it, it took me quite a long time to nail it.

https://youtu.be/mAR8u4CReRQ

Again, it's the tension of every single hit being spot on when the adrenaline is pumping, and you start to try to consciously act and think about moving your fingers and thumbs which were operating instinctively until that moment. I find that quite fascinating. It's also an interesting lesson in that you reach a point through repeated failure where it's not about succeeding or not, it's just about enjoying playing it the best you can. I'd say that's the case with the rhythm games defo, but also with Dodonpachi and Futari. I knew I was good enough, it was rather a question of when it would happen. Ikaruga was different. Even the night before I did it, I uninstalled it again and tried to pretend it was OK that I couldn't do it with some fortune cookie bullshit wisdom. It was a strange feeling though, as soon as I woke up and reinstalled it, I felt it was coming and I did it within a few minutes.

I don't take gaming at all seriously, it's pure frippery, but I absolutely love the mental and dextrous challenge and I often find games a joyous way to spend my down time.

[peanutbutter]

I'm not competitive at all, even when I am it's usually in weird ways that won't really fit within a game dynamic.

All I care about is trying new shit and tinkering with the various systems.

[Marner and Me]

Not really competitive, I like sticking a headset on and chatting to my mates whilst playing PES20 or Fortnite. Relaxing tbf, unless you're getting properly scudded.

[Barry Admin]

Yeah see I used to do that a lot with Call of Duty/Zombies in particular, but I really like to win in Battle Royale games and find it the most exciting and tense feeling in gaming. So Apex makes me into a sweaty try-hard who is melting under a headset in this damn weather. In fact, I'm currently sitting rewatching a video about response curves and fucking about with my sensitivity again. Need to leave it for a bit and get out in the sun.

[Wonderful Butternut]

My primary source of gaming endorphins is an online racing-sim called iRacing. Terrible name, I know.

In terms of practice, I do a fair bit of it, especially if I want to race a car this week that I don't race regularly, cos if I don't I'll at best be slow and at worst crash into people, which makes me a dick. I'd say on average I'd do at least 3 hours of practice a week for usually between 4-6 races, sometimes more depending on my mood. Races being 20 minutes - 45 minutes depending on series. So from that point of view, I take it seriously. But other people play it obsessively and do 30 races a week.

In terms of competitiveness, it depends. On one hand I know I'm not the fastest guy around and I'm not hung up on that. On the other, there's an in-game rating system which is used for match-making[nb]Races are done on time slots. If 100 people sign up for a race on a specific time slot that has a max grid size of 20, the game will generate five 20 car races, with the 20 highest rated drivers together, and then the next 20 and so on. The idea is that every race is then competitive. Within the races it numbers you based on your rating (the highest rated drive will be given car #1 and so on). Rating gain/loss depends both on overall position and where you did relative to where you should've been. So car #1 finishing 11th in a 20 car race will probably lose a fair chunk of rating, but car #18 finishing 11th might gain a small bit, even though he finished in the bottom half[/nb] and I've downward trended on that for the past 4-6 months. Even thought it doesn't fundamentally change the gaming experience, the numerical representation of my poor form is annoying me. In individual races, I'm generally not the most aggressive racer and if I'm in a good position for my rating I'm not going to attempt any 'marginal' overtaking moves to improve it. I will still try and pass someone if they're slower and I'm stuck behind them, but I'm not going to launch the late-brake divebomb from 5 car length back.

And I do get fairly pissed off if some eejit wrecks me in a race.

So yeah, all in all I suppose I take that pretty seriously, but not quite as seriously as others do.

Outside of pretending I'm a racing driver, I don't really try to hard to be competitive at FPS and the like (cos I'm not that good) and generally play most single player games on their default difficulty. The one MMO I play, Star Trek Online, my character builds are best described as 'good enough'. They're not uber top meta maxxed out to the last, and if I could improve 2 characters by basically copy/pasting my main character's build, but I don't want to do that to have a bit of variety between playstyles. But they're more than capable of the highest level content.

[Marner and Me]

Yeah see I used to do that a lot with Call of Duty/Zombies in particular, but I really like to win in Battle Royale games and find it the most exciting and tense feeling in gaming. So Apex makes me into a sweaty try-hard who is melting under a headset in this damn weather. In fact, I'm currently sitting rewatching a video about response curves and fucking about with my sensitivity again. Need to leave it for a bit and get out in the sun.

I've had about 5 solo wins on Fortnite, a few on Duos and countless in squad. I have sometimes won without noticing as I haven't been looking at who is alive still. A solo win is euphoric. First one was great. Then it is like heroin, chasing the high.

[Bazooka]

Do you even SWAT bro?

[Abnormal Palm]

Is SWATTING illegal in this country?

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I just realised today that I'm taking Weedcraft Inc seriously in a way that doesn't actually help progress the game. In Weedcraft you grow various strains of weed to cater to different social groups in order to make money. The weed quality varies depending on grow conditions, soil conditions, whether you have incompetents minding the plants etc. and different social groups have different quality standards. There are six qualities of weed ranging from Poor to Legendary and you can concentrate or dilute your weed. I like to grow the best quality weed possible.

However, I realised that if I took my Epic/Legendary quality weed and then diluted it down depending on which social group buys it, I would have more weed to sell and either meet game objectives directly (sell x amount of weed, make y amount of money in the next three months) or indirectly (by making more money faster and be able to propose bills/sabotage competition faster) a lot sooner.

But then I would blow through each game scenario a lot faster and I'm so invested in the characters that I don't wanna.

[Bazooka]

I haven't played online multiplayer games for some years now, but Battlefield V was on PS store sale and I've been having a bit of an itch, I played BF2 and 4 pretty hardcore until burnout. I don't really give a shot about rankings, because in most games it simply equates to none stop playing and using the optimal in game weapons/builds only.

[Barry Admin]

Did you get it? I saw a youtuber yesterday saying that BV was dead and everyone was going back to Battlefield One, but I dunno. Hmm might dig that out myself, it was so visceral.

[Bazooka]

Yeah I grabbed it, but not installed it yet, need to make some space on hd first.  I have BF1 but haven't played it for over two years, I just bloody love rush mode, it can be a bit frustrating being the only player doing the objective though sometimes.

[Kryton]

Out of all the games I've played, I think Eve online was the most serious. It was like a second job at times - No other game has given me that endorphin rush when things went right and nothing has caused me to panic more when my ship got targeted and alarms start blaring and my shield/armour starts depleting.

[bgmnts]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52920786

[Chollis]

"In reporting the news of his retirement, state media walked a careful line between praising him as a national hero while also highlighting the health risks of excessive gaming."

hah that is awesome

[Chollis]

only really get competitive in online games, playing other people. FPS mainly. COD and Counterstrike 1.6/Source, but Halo 3 was my big one, probably the only game i can think of where in ranked games I was playing in a heightened state of tension, pressurized, probably swearing a lot and getting genuinely pissed off at any perceived injustice against me (usually relating to your opponent having better ping, or "host" as it was called on Halo/Xbox live). proper nerdrage. any game just playing against AI/NPCs i never reach that level of tension. can't wait for H3 on Steam, coming soon. gonna put my fist through my monitor

[Pingers]

I prefer solo games, stuff like the Mass Effect, Mafia and Deus Ex series, that don't have that competitive element. I would say I'm a casual completist - I'm a casual gamer but will do pretty much every side quest and will try and cover the whole map and do everything so it takes me ages to finish a game. I don't know if it's lockdown jitteriness or the lack of such games that I haven't played, but since finishing Mafia 3 I haven't found a game to immerse myself in or that calls me back every day. I've just started Mirrors Edge: Catalyst in the hope that does the job.

[Inspector Norse]

I'm too casual to take gaming seriously. I've been slowly working my way through Dark Souls over the last couple of months, and have no qualms about looking stuff up if I get stuck, or waiting until I can summon help before taking on bosses. I'm more interested in progressing through it and finding my way than repeating something 53 times until I've mastered that one particular move.

I don't play online so much but I used to be fairly decent at the classic-era CoD games - I'm not an itchy trigger finger, amazing eyes and reactions guy but I took time learning the maps and weapons and styles and used to do pretty well by sneaking and creeping around and ambushing and flanking enemies. I'd never have the most kills but I'd not die that often either.
But I never got good at Battlefield One because I never took the time to practice, learn the geography and the little tricks, I just wanted to play.

I was also pretty good at FIFA up to about FIFA 13, but it was around then they started fucking up the online game to make it more appealing for 12-year-olds, and I've never really been bothered adapting my play style when I've bought newer versions.

[Misspent Boners]

Barratt in a nappy