Breaking Down My Dislike of Strategy Games | Semi-Ramblomatic
Added 2024-11-07 16:07:05 +0000 UTCThis week's episode of Semi-Ramblomatic is now available!
Comments
In regards to the dating thing; I know it was a joke, but TBH, I think there's a lot of value in having some distinct tastes for couples. Yes, even when it comes to video game genres. Distinct taste and perspectives sparks conversation, and I mean real conversation; not the kind where you go on Reddit / Discord and yell at another user for not liking the thing you like lol ;) Great video
David C
2024-11-20 17:55:16 +0000 UTCWhat sounds like exactly up your alley is Frostpunk 1 - city builder that is extremely story-heavy, and funnily enough, with a strong personality cult very similar to the one for the Commander in XCOM.
JoCo
2024-11-12 20:39:19 +0000 UTCWasn’t the commander revealed to be ethereal-possessed at some point or am I remembering Bureau?
JoCo
2024-11-12 20:34:03 +0000 UTCAin't it the truth? Put down your daggers, everyone, we can talk openly here.
Dr. Judge, Private Eye
2024-11-12 16:55:10 +0000 UTCWe are all looking out for each other. This is great. I would rather have this problem than the alternative. If only every community on the internet had this problem.
Jadedrakerider
2024-11-12 04:35:07 +0000 UTCBoys! Boys! Stop fighting! You can ALL marry me! Oh and I have an actual diagnosis, so I'm not a "Tiktok armchair diagnoser." These illnesses can manifest in a lot of different ways, and assuming "mine doesn't express like this, ergo no one's does" is just a different flavor of ignorant.
Dr. Judge, Private Eye
2024-11-12 02:58:37 +0000 UTC@Mark It's true. I yield to your correction. I am sorry. TBH, I am glad to have been wrong. Popular perception is problematic. I really felt for what Dr. Judge wrote, though. I have things that I like, but with ADHD/Major Depression combination I cannot stay entertained by things I enjoy. It sucks, especially when I'm pretty sure I could be gaming on a competitive level, write a novel, or reach any of my goals if I could just care about the thing I enjoy enough to stick with it. It infects everything.
Jadedrakerider
2024-11-11 16:29:07 +0000 UTCPutting aside the difference between strategy and tactics, I don't like strategy games for the same reason I don't like action rougelikes like Hades or Cult of the Lamb. It is not the real-time function in itself, but the gap between what my mind wants to do and what my twitch reflexes can do is great enough that it proves distracting from the effect of getting better at button pressing. This also, I think, reconciles the Lemmings quandary. The information flow in Lemmings is highly bounded: 2D, left to right, all things do the same thing until you make a change.
J.S. Majer
2024-11-10 20:47:07 +0000 UTCI speak from personal experience as well, and what I'm trying to combat is the pop-culture "oh I have ADHD because I can't sit through a boring lecture" self-diagnosis that's popular on Tiktok. It's like those people who say "I'm so OCD my apartment is so tidy" and not "I'm so OCD that I bailed on all my friends multiple times in a row because I'm ashamed of that one thing I said that and I think everyone hates me now." And while it's true that you can have ADHD and not like wasting your time with pointless stuff, but it doesn't become a pathology until it applies to things that are actually important as well. The situation as described by OP is an anti-symptom. Like, you're not wrong that you can't armchair diagnose people, but there's a lot of harm in people using the term casually without a diagnosis, and making it harder for people like you and me to explain ourselves and get workplace affordances.
Mark
2024-11-09 03:06:14 +0000 UTCSimCity on the SNES, yes! I loved that game and rented it time and again until I finally found a copy to buy.
Zomboni
2024-11-08 13:44:15 +0000 UTCNow I also hate the second to second stress of dealing with an RTS until I discovered the magical powers of… the pause button. Pause, give your orders, unpause and see what happens, pause when you need to and turn any game that allows it into a turn-based strategy! Doesn’t work for multiplayer but I couldn’t care less about it so…
Tim Wilson
2024-11-08 13:27:16 +0000 UTCJust play a story campaign on C&C (remastered) or StarCraft and leave those on online multiplayer to it…
Pete3.141
2024-11-08 11:10:02 +0000 UTCAren't the XCOM games also constantly making a big deal about what a badass the Commander is? The start of XCOM 2 is about your team having to rescue you, because without them the entire resistance is doomed, kind of thing. Makes the glory-hog argument still apply, I would say.
Erik
2024-11-08 07:51:53 +0000 UTCDoesn't help that a lot of visual novels and walking sims are very poorly paced compared to a book that you can read as fast as you want. Disco Elysium actually has a good mix of quick and reactive visual pacing, lots of little touches and variants that mean the decisions you make have obvious effects, and also has good writing and story on top of that.
Swift Justice
2024-11-08 07:05:59 +0000 UTCEven the larger-squad original XCOM definitely benefits from relative simplicity in its design. (Once you realise that most of the massive buttons on the screen are situational) There's only so many things you really need to actually pay attention to at a time. Quite a lot of strategy games I do gel with have that, come to think of it, Civilization V in particular with its almost Fischer-Price simplicity and clarity in UI I've sunk hundreds of hours in despite bouncing off most of those kinds of games. On the other hand a lot of action games I've burnt out on or struggle through because there's too many things to learn.
Swift Justice
2024-11-08 07:03:59 +0000 UTCI spent lots of hours in SimCity as a kid, both on the SNES and PC, and always found I enjoy the creative side of it and only relatively recently even started to get to grips with the strategy. While I was always frustrated with RTS because I enjoy the building and development more than the actual strategy; I'd spend far more time messing around in the scenario editor than playing the actual game, most of the time.
Swift Justice
2024-11-08 07:00:35 +0000 UTCADHD manifests in many different ways. Dr. Judge is describing a behavior pattern consistent with ADHD. I have periods of hyper focus where "gitting gud" at one skill through repetition is very satisfying. I also have periods of rapid fire "bored now". RTS can scratch both of those itches very well. These are the three manifestations of ADHD. Inattention ["Bored now!"] : getting distracted, having poor concentration and organizational skills Hyperactivity [Hyper fixation on something that isn't what you need to focus on]: never seeming to slow down, talking and fidgeting, difficulties staying on task Impulsivity [don't caring about anything except scratching the itch]: interrupting, taking risks I don't think you meant to be malicious, but you really shouldn't diagnose without complete information. The public perception of mental illness is very often wrong. I am sure you mean well. However, this kind of thing is what kept me from getting psychiatric help until my 30's. It very much has an impact on the well being of others.
Jadedrakerider
2024-11-08 00:07:34 +0000 UTCYahtzee, you might like Infested Planet on GOG. Although there is some big-picture strategy, you control a platoon of soldiers (managing their classes, building support) who have to take control of Xerg-like enemy bases one at a time. It very much focuses on the "solve the immediate problem", but the big picture stuff is about finding a playstyle that works. Kind of like deciding to research laser weapons asap in XCOM. Also, you can beat the game on normal difficulty just by managing the soldier classes. Everything else, I discovered when I hiked up the difficulty and got stuck so I went exploring the menus. It has a very elegant learning curve.
Jadedrakerider
2024-11-08 00:04:00 +0000 UTCWhat you're describing isn't ADHD. It's basically the opposite of ADHD. The ability to limit your focus on one thing when it's no longer useful is an indicator of high executive function. ADHD is the inability to focus on something even when it's valuable, or to stop focusing on something after it's no longer valuable.
Mark
2024-11-07 20:56:34 +0000 UTCIf not for my hatred of competition, I think I would have been incredible at RTSes. I have a mind for the big picture, but the ADHD to never focus too long on any one thing. Sadly I lack the "giving a shit" for competitive games any more complicated than card games or 1v1 fighters.
Dr. Judge, Private Eye
2024-11-07 19:43:35 +0000 UTCFor me it's visual novels and walking sims. I like to read, so every time a game has too much reading/dialogue and not enough player interaction I think about how much I would rather just read a book instead. My equivalent of Yahtzee's Xcom Xception is Disco Elysium, probably due to the art, voice acting and sound design elevating it to a whole different experience.
Creede Caldwell
2024-11-07 17:16:37 +0000 UTCCities: Skylines is more art, less gaming. And using transit to avoid traffic jams. That's my jam.
Zomboni
2024-11-07 16:36:38 +0000 UTCI'm exactly the same (love Xcom, hate real time strategy) and I think one of the factors contributing to my dislike of RTS is how much information is on screen at once. You touched on having to make tactical decisions under time pressure and this is compounded by how much shit there is on screen at any one time. Any clips from the RTS games in this video just looks like two or more groups of units throwing spears / lasers / missiles at each other and I never know where to look or how to parse who is winning or what is going on. Xcom may be turn based but it's also relatively small in the size of its skirmishes, you only have a squad of six units.
Chris Tarrant
2024-11-07 16:33:33 +0000 UTCMaybe it's time to try Xcom... sidenote brought Civil VI for about $5 on steam, I say that's a steal.
Blindman
2024-11-07 16:25:15 +0000 UTC
