Am I the only one who can still have fun while dialing it back a bit? Just “fumble” a few times, fall behind intentionally, and then use your skill to catch back up. If you can’t catch up, your friends win and have fun. If you do catch back up, your friends think it was a close game. Either way you get to flex and nobody thinks you’re a sweaty tryhard and we all get to have fun.
This is part of why super smash bros is so good. Playing against friends who are decent but not as good as you? Play one of your secondaries. Friends are bad but learning? Play a low tier/a character you don’t ever play. Friends are casual gamers/don’t know how to play smash? Spam b moves as a low tier. No matter how good you are you can sandbag pretty hard without your opponent feeling like you aren’t trying/not having fun.
This is how we used to do it with SF2 on SNES.
One of us is constantly beating the crap out of everyone else with a particular character? Switch it up.
Or learn to counter whatever they’re doing to win.
Dhalsim’s endless string of “Tiger!Tiger!Tiger!Tiger!Tiger!Tiger!TigerUppercut! You! Win!” was eventually conquerable with the right combination of moves and that wasn’t even player skill, it was a shortcoming in the game’s internal timing (that was bad enough that it overwrote the existing playing sound effect while you were doing it).
This is exactly what I’ve had to end up doing in a few games. Some games I don’t mind. Like Battlefront 2. I used to play, and win, tournaments in it so when friends call me in to help them with a game or something it’s great because you get a ton of praise and hype. Your friends going “FUCK THEM UP DUDE! YEAH! GO FOR IT!” Or the thanks for helping a friend. But that same prowess meant that (even if there was easily accessible invite pvp) I can’t fight any of my friends. There are ways you kind of can and everytime I’ve suggested it it’s always a resounding and hard no. I’ve had similar levels of skill in other games that I actively tone down around my friends because I want to be able to play against them and not just play with them. I don’t give a shit if I win or lose. I give a shit that I’m hanging out with people who I like and playing games I enjoy.
I have this problem with the board game Go.
It has a perfect handicap system, and the game sucks if you don’t use the correct handicap, but I simply can’t get people to play me with a handicap because they think it’s shameful. They want to play me without a handicap, then I mop the floor with them.
But we can have a really good game that’s really engaging if we use a handicap.
Hi, fellow go player here!
You are not alone. I’m the strongest regular at my go club, and when I ask if people want to pay even or with handicap, they 90% of the time choose even. I love the handicap system because it makes both sides have a close game, which is inherently more fun for everyone. And skill progress can be seen when their handicap decreases. The most common complaint I’ve heard against handicaps is that it changes the game too much. It does in terms of joseki and openings, but the important stuff which actually decides games—direction of play, fighting, evaluation of the board—still very much applies.
I travelled to Japan recently and played three games at a go parlour. There was no asking for an even game. The stronger players said the handicap the game would be played with and that was that.
In my country, that probably would be seen as rude because we don’t have that honour system. But maybe the solution is to just be more assertive and declare the handicap anyway. As a stronger player, people respect what I have to say, but I have never felt superior to anyone so I’ve always still asked. But if I say a handicap straight away, that respect means that people would probably just agree and play. And if they say that they’d rather play an even game instead, then we can! Maybe the solution is to make it opt-out instead of opt-in.
I’m not big on fighting games, don’t they usually have a handicap setting? How do they work? I’m guessing good ones do stuff like break guard easier and do more damage, right?
Generally it’ll do something like make one person do more damage and take less, but if the skill gap is too big it really won’t make a difference if they can never land a hit. Personally I’m a fan of “I can’t use X” or “I will only use Y.” It allows everyone to still have a challenging and fair feeling time, instead of pounding away at a punching bag that one hits you which just doesn’t feel great for anyone.
I would do this when I was still playing Elden Ring. Signal a fair fight, trade blows a bit, make a few “mistakes” that made it seem like I was playing bad. Then score a “lucky hit” that’d finish them off. That way, they hopefully come out of it feeling like it was a fair fight. If I actually mess up and die, that’s fine too. It’s all in good fun. My goal was just to draw the fight out into something amusing and satisfying for both of us, compared to the 10 second hack and slash, Rivers of Blood/magic spam tryhards you’d get all the time. Those I didn’t hesitate to flex on.
God, I miss that game…
I mean, if they get mad that you’re not using your full power then they deserve to get styled on. They asked for it, lol.
I used to school the locals at SF2 and MK back like 20 years ago. This was in the quarters on the ridge, winner sticks, GenX days. I still get recognized in the surrounding towns.
This was all fine and dandy in the rural town I grew up in, but then I did a trip to a major city, out to Vancouver, and I got demolished by the big city kids. It was a disaster. I was getting laid out left and right. Just dummied. Sickened. Was humbled.
Whatever. I still clean up locally on the rare occasion it comes up. One of those guys from the town over ended up working at the same place I did for a while and he was going on about his SF2 prowess, so one day I brought in a Switch with some decent controllers and we went at it. We went 9 games to 1 in my favour in a 10 game series.
It’s also like this for many hobbies. I can run further and cycle faster than almost everyone I know, but would probably barely even be mid-pack in a local race for either.
Just set your own goals.
I relate with this one. I cycle further and faster than my friends, so it feels like I have to slow down when I cycle with them, however I’m nowhere near professional level.
This was FPS games back in the day for me.
Having to carry every BLOPS game between two people while everyone else was average or worse. Every night for like 2 years lol.
There’s a VR version of Quake 3 Arena and I played that against a friend recently. We never played against each other on flatscreen, but each of us played the game a fair bit back in the day. I absolutely demolished him. Then some more people joined the server and wiped the floor with both of us. I managed to score a few frags but I was still totally outclassed. There’s always a bigger fish.
I was once the highest ranked player of Shootmania in California.
Nevermind that I was also the only player in California at the time.
For me, it’s pinball. None of my friends will play me because I crush them, but I know if I played in a tournament, I would be the crushed instead.
Actually, you can do multi-player games. On real machines you pay for credits, and then you have to use one credit per player. But, the first player plays their first ball, and after the first player drains (loses) their ball, the second player plays their first ball until they drain it, then the third player, etc. Once everyone has played their first balls, then Player One returns with their second ball, and play continues like that through all three balls.
The amount of trash talking during play varies depending on who you’re playing, but as with most things, trash talking your buddies while they’re playing is one of the more enjoyable aspects of the game.
Don’t think I have just one. But, you know what they say, you always remember your first one fondly, and my first was Black Knight. How about you?
Black Knight is really good, a top 5 for me. Attack From Mars is my favorite. Other notables: Medieval Madness, Champion Pub, and of course the ubiquitous Addams Family and Twilight Zone.
