How do you become good at video games?

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I'm very skeptical whenever I hear someone say "practice makes perfect" I think that's total BS. I want to get better at video games (a indie simulation game in this case), but could it be perhaps that I need to spend even more time with the game. I had games for years and never gotten past the beginner stages and never got adjusted to them.

Please help me.

You need to learn the game, play it often, and have some semblance of motor skills.

This game doesn't involve any more than sitting at a world map and making decisions.

I am horrible at video games. I always get killed by something completely trivial.

just because you die a lot doesn't make you bad. what makes you bad is giving up.

you have to want to win.

There are some games that benefit from practice, where others you're better off reading up on strategies, and getting a good understanding of the game's systems.

You practice to get muscle memory. It's like in The Karate Kid, where Mr Miyagi has Daniel painting his fence, sanding his wooden decking, and waxing his collection of cars, and for each task he comes along and shows Daniel how to do it because he started out doing it the wrong way. Of course none of this is about teaching him how to paint/sand/wax, it's to ensure that his muscles have gone through hundreds of repetitions of a motion, so that Daniel can now replicate them without having to consciously think about it, while he's doing karate.

The same works for games. I have a very good aim in shooter games for someone of my age (nearly 40), not because I grew up playing a ton of PvP shooters, but because I played through the whole of Half-Life 2, along with Episode 1 and 2, about 3 times over, with invulnerability turned on, infinite ammunition, and using only the .357 magnum. That gun only has 6 shots, and takes a long time to reload, so you have to make hits count. Killing hundreds of enemies with headshots only, through that many runs of 3 games, gave me all the practice I needed to learn exactly how much I'd have to move the mouse to get the crosshairs over a target's head, from anywhere on screen.

And once I'd learned how to shoot in an environment with no distractions or interruptions (like from constantly dying), I could turn off the invulnerability and infinite ammo, and work through the game learning how to use cover effectively.

Another thing that practice is good for is adapting your controls. In a lot of games I work out that remapping certain buttons would benefit me, because it might do things like freeing up other fingers to keep me moving, or making button combos more intuitive.

In most games I play left hand is WASD, space, ctrl and shift ONLY. If I had to swap weapons or reload with that hand, I'd have to stop moving to do it, and even a fraction of a second out of cover, or not dodging can get you killed, but I'm not aiming or shooting while performing those actions, so they are fine bound to mouse buttons. Also in World of warcraft, all my abilities are on the mouse for similar reasons (can't move out of the fire if the hand you use to move is pressing your 1-0 buttons to activate abilities). I also regularly remap which buttons abilities are bound to as I learn new abilities, so that I can perform a simple action like pressing 3 buttons in a row in order, rather than having to do something like 1-3-2. Remapping controls is another way to improve your response times, in adition to practice, but every time you change something, you'll have to retrain your muscle memory. In a shooter game, that would be going on a rampage in easy difficulty, and in an MMO it would be farming some relatively easy mobs for some resource.


In addition to all that I read guides (especially beginners guides, because you can go a lot further with a good understanding of the basics), and try to get a good understanding of how the game works, like what stats will actually benefit my class, which items are best used against certain enemies (or in an RTS, which units counter other unit types). When you have a good grasp of these things, you can build upon them through your own experience, while those who just muddle their way through learning as they go will be at a huge disadvantage, because they'll never have thought of some ways to do things.

Practice. Definitely practice. That sort of thing often SOUNDS like BS, but in all honesty, if it sounds to you like that... it probably means you're a bit frustrated with some aspect of this.

I play alot of *extremely* difficult games myself. Some of the hardest ones there are, including THE hardest one there is. My skill level is high, BUT, alot of that is because Iv'e spent so much time with them. I've had tons of practice with games of most genres, and that leads to a higher skill level. Even games of strategy and such... you still have to learn things, you still have to try out different tactics, you still have to learn what works, what doesnt, and what types of things can help you advance. Even a turn-based game can still take practice.

But if you're just starting out... dont expect to be good right away. It takes awhile, like most things. Many games have much to learn, much to do, it depends on the game.

If one game is being frustrating though.... consider stepping away from it for awhile, and playing something else. Getting burned out on a given game will SERIOUSLY affect your performance in it.

Also, if you want tips on specific games, this is the place to ask. Just depends on who you're asking. I dont really do the big AAA games myself, I mostly stick to indie games, so I know alot about those. Some of the others on here are very familiar with AAA games however.

But regardless of what it is, if you have questions or just want a few tips to get you started... just ask!

I am good at shooting but suck at racing typesgenre.

It took me forever to learn how to play Call of Duty. I couldn't even get past tutorial stage without making an idiot out of myself.

Years later I'm getting to the point where I can play it and be confidant.

I'm not a flawless gamer. I die, lose, get a game over screen and even get so annoyed that I stop playing for months (Don't get me started on Disgaea 4), but guess what?

Even if I have to try 5 or more times, I keep going because I can keep getting better. Like PaRappa the Rapper, I gotta believe.

Maybe it's a gift. You either have it or you don't. As a kid I never thought I would ever be good at video games until I started playing them on the NES, when most games started to have actual plots and endings and stuff. I had some competition with my brother if we had a game that we both liked because he would nearly always beat them before me and I'd have to beat them just to show I was just as capable in spite of my younger age and gender difference.

I find nowadays most games I don't care that much if I beat them or not, although failing to do so causes me too much frustration when I do play, like Sonic Colors or a traditional Mario game where I just keep dying over and over because the timing of my jumps was off by one-trillionth of a second. I'll start bouncing around in my seat and freaking out and yelling acting crazy, and that is stress I really do not need.

I just can't focus on more than maybe two games at a time now, and they're usually "casual" games. I bought Super Mario 3D land and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and haven't made a dent in either of them because I'm too busy playing Animal Crossing or The Sims Freeplay. But I might get started on them eventually, if and when I get tired of the games I'm currently playing.

Since I'm a "compulsive" collector it seems games that hold my interest for long these days are the ones where nearly the whole game involves collecting things. Animal Crossing is this in a nutshell, The Sims is a close second, and although I lost a lot of interest in Super Smash after unlocking all the characters I'd keep playing because I wanted to get all the trophies and other things.

Add another vote to 'practice'. I used to work as a game tester in my late teens and early 20s, we'd pull 12 hour days on games and then go home and play more games, and after a while, picking up new games gets pretty easy, as there are only so many ways to control them. I'm a good FPS player now, but I can pick up a platformer quickly enough, and be at least decent at any fighting game handed to me; sports games not so much, but only because I don't like them and often don't know the rules of the real games.

This is gonna seem more polarizing than practice but I've got to say math - Boolean inference & non-Euclidian geometry make me pretty tough to beat provided I understand the control scheme, furthermore they help explain that in itself.

_________________
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I think you should choose which style of games you like. Weather that's First-person shooters, Role Playing Games, Strategy, racing, keep playing your style and learn from your mistakes. If you keep dying in a First Person Shooter or Role Playing Game, learn strategies on Youtube or lower the difficulty and keep practicing until you're on a level you're comfortable with.

Is it a strategy game? If so, I think I know what your problem may be, as I feel I too am guilty of doing the exact same thing. I believe you're constantly approaching issues in the same fashion. It's tempting to do so, trust me, but try to deviate. I feel that this especially rings true on an Aspie site, where we are commonly going to approach these obstacles in ways we find most comfortable and familiar.

I'm making a lot of assumptions, I know. I just hope that, if I am correct in what I say, I'm at least partially accurate in what the problem is here and sincerely wish that it does help you forward.


Good luck.

It is difficult to know how because you did not specify the genre of the game you play, it depends on the genre.

If you are looking for a multiplayer experience, you could get into the eSports scene. League of Legends, Dota 2 and Counterstrike: GO have large communities and they will always be challenging.

If you enjoy single player challenge, you should try The Witcher, STALKER or Dark Souls series.

If you enjoy turn based and strategic games, Civilization V on Deity mode should provide a challenge.