> There is one thing I've noticed about RTS: every player seems to think they are awful at the game.
Dota 2 is another game where I've noticed this trend.
> This actually keeps a lot of players from even trying online play.
True with Dota 2 as well, lots of people that only play locally with bots, or resort to just watching streamers and others play it, because they're tired of the feeling of "not being good enough" while playing.
The common factor, I think, is that in both cases there are a hundred things going on in parallel every second, a hundred ways you could be optimizing things, and crucially, you could list those things yourself if you were given time - but you never are, so every moment you're aware that you're doing something somewhere suboptimally. Mistakes don't feel like "Ah, interesting, I've learnt not to do that", instead it's "Of course I should have done this instead, it's obvious, I must be an idiot to not have done this" - even though in the moment you were getting a dozen other things right, and just didn't have the mental capacity to stretch to this additional thing.
So any skill growth in the game happens slowly by your mind learning to make many of the optimal decisions subconsciously, thus making things slowly more manageable. But that's not an easily visible, tangible change. And it still leaves you with twenty things you could be doing better, that are "obvious" in retrospect.
I noticed that in real life, most people think they are sub-optimal. I've wondered what caused the pessimistic attitude and if it has always been this way.
(Of course, it could just be the people I hang out with, but I suspect it is pretty common for people to be harsh on themselves)
Your theory explains it. Life is always throwing us a lot of stuff at once (especially if 65% of our mental capacity is taken up by a smartphone). It is a game where we usually only have a general idea of what to do, lots of reasons not to do it, and not enough time to decide about everything.
If you stop and think, you are probably doing much more right than not. But overall, in the game of Life, you are also blowing lots of opportunities that you are aware of and simply don't have the time and resources to get right.
> skill growth in the game happens slowly by your mind learning to make many of the optimal decisions subconsciously, thus making things slowly more manageable. But that's not an easily visible, tangible change. And it still leaves you with twenty things you could be doing better, that are "obvious" in retrospect.
Maybe we should focus more on our slow advances. Players that consider themselves good, enjoy the game more and probably do better at it (in RTS and in Life).
Dota 2 is another game where I've noticed this trend.
> This actually keeps a lot of players from even trying online play.
True with Dota 2 as well, lots of people that only play locally with bots, or resort to just watching streamers and others play it, because they're tired of the feeling of "not being good enough" while playing.
The common factor, I think, is that in both cases there are a hundred things going on in parallel every second, a hundred ways you could be optimizing things, and crucially, you could list those things yourself if you were given time - but you never are, so every moment you're aware that you're doing something somewhere suboptimally. Mistakes don't feel like "Ah, interesting, I've learnt not to do that", instead it's "Of course I should have done this instead, it's obvious, I must be an idiot to not have done this" - even though in the moment you were getting a dozen other things right, and just didn't have the mental capacity to stretch to this additional thing.
So any skill growth in the game happens slowly by your mind learning to make many of the optimal decisions subconsciously, thus making things slowly more manageable. But that's not an easily visible, tangible change. And it still leaves you with twenty things you could be doing better, that are "obvious" in retrospect.