Gaming Discussion

https://youtu.be/-Wqsuzt3e64?t=104

This video mentions (at 1:44) that Activision has a patent on an algorithm idea where you bias the in-game matchmaking to try to get people to spend money. For example, if someone plays as a sniper a lot, you intentionally match them against a guy with a pay-to-win sniper rifle so they lose the sniper duel. Then the game also tells them the gear of the guy who beat them, and they are encouraged to buy it to stop losing.

Watched the Casual v. Hardcore gamer video and found it interesting. I like that it's really about a willingness to learn and make incremental improvements. In the old discord discussion about League of Legends where you pointed out that you think most people don't learn after their childhood, I was thinking about how I got into DotA 2 and what it was that felt so fulfilling about studying the game.

I initially got into it because I had read some stuff about deliberate practice and I wondered if I could apply that to learning a game. DotA 2 was the most daunting, complex game I knew about at the time so I figured why not use it to test these ideas and methods?

I learnt quickly at first and joined some groups that organized inhouse leagues and tournaments. At first I was accused of being a smurf (a skilled player posing as an unskilled, new player) but they quickly realized I wasn't lying as they heard me communicate and ask questions during games.

One thing I really liked about DotA's community was just how seriously people took the game and how generous they were with their time. Almost anyone I messaged was willing to spend hours with me reviewing replays and critiquing my plays. Within a few months I began to have lots of conflict with other players though. I realized that my ideas were very different from others and I had major disagreements in a few areas. One of them was on the path to getting better. Even when I was getting coached by players who were very good, I realized that they had not always gotten good through incremental, deliberate learning. Rather they had brute forced a lot of things, and they had learnt many habits without even knowing how to explain or document them. So their best advice to me to improve was to just "play 10 games a day". But I thought that surely I would learn faster if I played 3 games a day, reviewed 3 replays a day, and spent 3-4 games' worth of time running drills or practice scenarios. They often agreed on this point in the abstract, vague sense, but then disagreed in practical terms when I showed them schedules or plans, instead insisting that playing more would help more than thinking or analyzing the game.

There was one particular coach and analyst who stood out as different though; his name was Cookie. He was known for having spectacular results when coaching people and his own climb was quite quick. He made lots of content and in it he recommended specific, actionable steps and drills, creating all sorts of complex practice methods and objective tests. Some people loved his stuff, but many people disliked it. They felt like he made it too difficult to play a game, and that a game shouldn't be his hard. The weird thing I felt at the time was that his methods made it way easier to learn and climb ranks, not harder. People thought that it would take them too much time to practice like this, but to me it seemed clear that it saved significant amounts of time compared to simply playing repeatedly.

That's when I realized that most people wanted to learn quickly while also playing mindlessly. They didn't want to analyze or think seriously, or spend time running drills or practice sessions. To them it didn't make sense to take a game so seriously, and yet many of them *did* take it seriously when they died or lost games.

One unexpected outcome of my DotA practice and learning was that I began to understand my own emotional and subconscious reactions to situations better. As I paid attention to my thoughts during games, I found myself consistently blaming others when doing poorly and taking credit when doing well, even when I had no objective reason to do so. I was surprised to find that this approach to learning the game also helped me spot different kinds of bias in myself and overcome them.

Hearthstone and DotA both also taught me about playing to win and maximizing odds. Rather than judging the quality of my decision based on the outcome, I needed to judge based on the odds of a good outcome, as well as based on what would happen if I simply continued normally or took no risks.

Another spot where I started to disagree with other players was in risk-taking. The more ahead I was in a game, the more I wanted to cut down on risks and take only safe fights and objectives. The more behind I was, the more I wanted to play aggressively and take risks, because I knew that if things continued normally, we would lose. I found that most other players followed their instincts and ended up reacting the opposite way; playing aggressively and cockily when ahead, opening themselves up to being punished by opponents, and playing too safely when behind, being afraid of dying or losing quickly.

There's a lot to learn from games and I think people underestimate just how much they can learn about their own minds and ideas simply by testing them in an environment that punishes mistakes almost immediately (especially against good players) and rewards good decision-making consistently.

#15622

> You can approach learning philosophy more methodically too. More organized, less just doing a bunch of philosophy and hoping you get good (equivalent to playing a bunch of games).

I think the problem is I'm approaching philosophy kind of like playing a bunch of games. For some reason learning DotA methodically seemed interesting, but learning philosophy chaotically seems more interesting than learning it methodically. Likely a flaw in my ideas.

>> yet many of them *did* take it seriously when they died or lost games.

> Being tilted, upset or mad, or otherwise caring, (which I'm guessing is the observed behavior) is different than taking it intellectually seriously.

I agree that people tilting are not actually taking things intellectually seriously. I was mistaken to conflate the two. It seems possible to care about something in a non intellectual, non-serious, kind of emotional way

where you care about the outcome, but aren't willing to analyze, practice, or objectively document or do anything to improve the outcome objectively.

Maybe that's kind of what love/romance is like in culture, where people want to do better, but don't want to learn PUA or even document what goes wrong in their relationships or look for patterns in their fights or issues with others.

> Yeah I agree with that paragraph, I've noticed that too. It comes up in lots of games.

I really think games have a lot of interesting things to teach people in different areas. I agree with DD that they are destined to be a great way of teaching and learning all sorts of things. I wonder what philosophy games might look like. I'd be interested in playing something like that.

> Another spot where I started to disagree with other players was in risk-taking. The more ahead I was in a game, the more I wanted to cut down on risks and take only safe fights and objectives. The more behind I was, the more I wanted to play aggressively and take risks, because I knew that if things continued normally, we would lose. I found that most other players followed their instincts and ended up reacting the opposite way; playing aggressively and cockily when ahead, opening themselves up to being punished by opponents, and playing too safely when behind, being afraid of dying or losing quickly.

If most people have these instincts then the instinct for how to play from behind is not necessarily wrong.

Playing carefully and defensively can put you in a good position to capitalize when the other team gets cocky and pushes too hard. If they overcommit to an tower push and you wipe their team that could turn the game around.

I can’t think of a similar good reason for taking more risks when ahead, though. I think that’s mostly hubris, or something like that.

Baldur's Gate 3 – First gameplay info

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYSqQuqCAZI

You can use Boot Camp to install windows on your Mac.

#15663

in the BG3 steam page the system requirements are:

"System Requirements

Minimum:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system"

it doesnt mention which operating systems.

> Looking closer at the other BG games available on Steam they all are available on Mac. So I hope BG3 to be that as well.

relevant article that curi wrote about his experience trying to play a BG game on steam http://curi.us/1883-beamdog-fraud#15694

> To summarize:

> The Mac App Store version is unsupported indefinitely. No refunds. Fuck you. Beamdog blames Apple but they can't seem to get things to work on other platforms either:

> The Steam version for Mac doesn't run on a fresh install.

> The Beamdog version, from their website with their own installer ... also don't run on a fresh install.

#15695 & #15695

Thx for info.

As far as I can tell BG3 on Steam will not be published by Beamdog, like the other BG games on Steam, but by Larian Studios.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1086940/Baldurs_Gate_3/

What do you all think of Riot's recent strategy of aggressively developing games in all sorts of genres? they've quickly expanded into card auto battlers, card games, and are now developing a shooter: https://playvalorant.com/en-us/

#15657 re-sparked my interest in one of my favourite games growing up, Baldur's Gate, as they are coming out with a new game soon, Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3).

I was looking for a way to play the game on Mac. I have a MacBook Pro mid 2015.

After some searching and asking here for me the most appealing choice is Steam.

BG3 will be released by Larian Studios (LS). I looked at some games that LS had made previously and they did have another promising D&D game playable via Steam: Divinity 2.

I bought the game on Steam even though my Mac doesn't have the best specs for playing it (it does have playable specs). I did look into some virtual machine kind of ways to help with the gaming experience. I found GeForce Now after some web searching (premium version is free for 3 months).

The game is running much more smoothly when I run it through GeForce Now. I did have to buy a CAT 6 ethernet cable (wifi is not good even though I have 100Mbits fiber).

There are some connectivity issues every now and then, but for an adventure style D&D (turn based combat) game it works fine.

I like Divinity 2 thus far (played about 20h). I think that LS did a good job with this D&D game and I look forward to BG3.

dogman, an Overwatch League pro, has been doing reviews of league games on stream. e.g:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/564716222

#15843 heh I paused the video to write this comment and take a break from watching it. I go back and Cheese literally starts talking about "autopilot" immediately after the stuff about being tired that I commented on.

He starts talking about autopilot at 23:45 and being tired before that.

#15859 yes he talks about managing stress and mindset being really important for high level speedrunners because they are already good at the game, they can do everything, they've practiced it a lot, they just need to avoid screwing up. tilt and bad mindsets are a big source of screwups. in his world record, he says he made some mistakes that he might have reset over if he was in a different mood. he thinks people reset too much or start playing bad because they get too frustrated or have other negative thoughts or feelings.

i think mindset is partly such a big deal because they're bad at it. like there are a lot of people who are above average regarding mindset (so they're bad) and way way way above average regarding doing all the speedrun movements, tricks, etc (so they're good). so for those people, a lot of their problems are mindset related.

in a world with more people good at mindset, you can imagine more people who don't have many mindset problems but have more trouble with other stuff: the mechanics, buttons, timings, memory, etc. but in our culture today, a lot more people can deal with the strategies and buttons than mindset stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7KZ_l-3uEE

I like Asmongold commentary on other videos. You get extra bonus stuff compared to just watching the original vid. + his chat reactions + he finds some pretty good stuff to watch.

#16350 We reached level 20. I streamed it on YouTube. More tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/curi42/status/1250815345373274112

People are overly accepting of psychology stories.

#16350 I'm playing World of Warcraft classic now. Reached 20 mage yesterday. More people welcome.

Smolderweb server (US) as horde.

We are:

curi: 20 mage

internetrules: 20 mage, 14 druid

justin: 16 mage

freeze: 8 warrior

ratnfuture: planning to start today, i think as a healer.

Join the FI discord if you're interested.

I stopped streaming because classic wow + mac catalina + OBS = graphical glitches.

I did some local recordings yesterday, will get them uploaded at some point. Today I'm going to try streaming with wirecast trial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaoISnrYSoc

> Drops are Ruining Twitch - The Valorant Effect

Good points. I like this channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdT69ngp-qI

> Asmongold Accused of STEALING WoW Videos - Full Response

i liked this. Asmon even said some reasonable stuff about fair use.

Lots of informative, thoughtful WoW analysis here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/gvsbpw/would_anyone_be_able_to_take_a_look_at_my_guilds/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT8Zy8olkkc

Major mutable state bug found in Breath of the Wild.

https://gaming.tobii.com/product/eye-tracker-5/

The Tobii Eye Tracker 5 is a head and eye tracker. It sits in front of your monitor and uses an IR camera to track your head and direction of your gaze and streams this info to your computer.

One of the uses for this product is esports training. You can record your gaze during your games and, afterwards, review where you were looking at different times:

> ANALYZE YOUR GAMEPLAY THROUGH YOUR EYES

In League of Legends, visual attention is the #1 difference between Challenger and Bronze. Become a better player by identifying areas of improvement based on your visual attention in-game – using metrics such as tunnel vision, awareness, and focus, to perfect your play.

I don't know if their specific LoL claim is true, but it makes sense that skillfully deploying visual attention would be helpful.

Stats info including attack formula

Weapon Base Attack Scaling

(Game Mechanism) The REAL formula for Fatui shields and Regisvines: How Elemental Resistance actually works \*Translation\*

defense formula

All About Energy Recharge

Passive Talents (town/exploration)

artifact guide

Ascension Mats and Talent Books sorted by material

CN usagi tier list (nov 10)

Apparently at AR 55 you get a guaranteed 5star artifact drop from the 40 resin world bosses like cubes and vines.

I don't plan to ascend anyone to 90 until AR 55. Partly I planned to stay at 80 longer anyway to increase the game's difficulty. I got AR 50 a few days ago and haven't even ascended any weapons to 80/90.

I often play every other day. On the off day I go on my phone and craft 3 condensed resin (and possibly some of the blacksmith ore that costs resin) and do expeditions. I skip mostly of my dailies even when I play on PC. I haven't seen a rush to increase AR after I hit AR 45 so I could farm artifacts. I still have tons of artifact farming left that I can do.

My 5 stars now are: Diluc, Ganyu, Skyward Atlas (catalyst).

I leveled Barbara to 79 because she was my only catalyst user over 20. I'm trying her as a damage dealer instead of a pure healer. She's OK at it using the 5star atk% catalyst. I'm giving her atk% and hydro dmg% but not worrying about crit. She has some hp% but not as a artifact main stat. She currently has a healing% helm but I'll try critrate helm sometime.

I got Ganyu on purpose. I was at 60/90 pity and had missed the 50% chance on Childe earlier, so I was guaranteed to get her within 30 wishes. I'm now at 0/90 character banner pity and like 3/90 on standard banner, but I have like 12.5k primo gems and 5 intertwined fate.

I'm 100% free to play. I strongly recommend it. Paying money is pay to win. The game isn't too hard. Don't screw it up.

I've tried doing stuff without using my 5stars to check if the game is too hard that way. It's harder but still OK – sometimes better. Ganyu is stupidly OP against a lot of stuff. Diluc is strong but doesn't trivialize stuff like her. He just feels like a regular character with maybe 20% bigger numbers. A lot of stuff is a joke to Ganyu, e.g. she often 1-shots hilichurls with frostflake arrow headshots (the arrow damage + the bloom damage together kills it – over 20k is pretty common and that's with a crit rate helm not crit dmg helm which will increase dmg peaks a lot).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxMc2GoP33c this guy is really good at WoW. has a lot of vids soloing hard stuff with mages. in this one he does open world solo aoe farming to level 60 with zero deaths in 72h of gameplay. 72h is condensed to a 1.5h video with a bunch of tips displayed throughout the vid using text with icons.