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Comment by rublev | Hacker News Reader

>If you cannot play games just for fun, then I definitely see how it can feel like a stressful affair and an unhealthy addiction.

The stress is in the losing.

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Hell, it's in the winning too. MOBAs are a great example of a game i hate to win or lose, but (not currently) play purely for the rush, teamfights, depth in meta, etc.

No game has made me hate winning more than DoTA. It's quite astounding, really. I can fully not-enjoy a match and turn right around and want to play another to hopefully get a good match. Not one i win, specifically, but one that is enjoyable, even if a loss - which entirely depends on the players.

I quit playing DoTA (currently) not because of the feelings, but because of the time investment. Long games mean long iteration cycles on my above "just one more game, i want a good game". At 40m chunks, suddenly you're entire night was gone and all i wanted was one game that didn't make me feel like hell.

Yes, this is all very addiction sounding, and it's likely not wrong.

Have you looked at Battlerite before? I was in the same place as you, except with League of Legends. Loved playing teamfights, tolerated a 15 minute lane phase. But with queue times getting beyond 5 minutes and dodges becoming more common a game could take upwards of an hour from start to finish.

Battlerite fixes these issues (and adds a few of course), but the biggest win for me is that the iteration cycle is extremely short - games only last at max 15 minutes. Queue times are fast with no pick/ban phase. You just get in game and get fighting.

As someone who was finding traditional MOBAs hard to find time for, I recommend at least looking at it. The percentage of good games in my experience is much higher. One final note though: I would stay away from the subreddit. It makes r/leagueoflegends look good.

Yup, i actually own it, it's great! Granted, there is still a fair bit of meta, heroes to learn, etc - something i've been avoiding because i've been busy working on side projects.

These days with very limited time i've been focusing to co-op friendly time, so my wife and i can play together. Even though i enjoy Battlerite/Dota/etc, i need something that gives me my game enjoyment (whatever i want at the time), and also builds relationships with my wife/etc.

That was another bad thing about DoTA, she's not big into PvP games and DoTA is the king of those bad-manner gamers haha. Well, maybe Xbod + CoD holds that record... but imo, DoTA players hurt you more, hah.

Anyway, these days we stick to offline co-op games. Astroneer, Divinity Original Sin, and Pit People. All three are excellent for their respective genres (though, 2 of them are in early access and short on content).

I've found that the shorter the game (or rather the "faster" the game) the more likely I am to not find it inherently stressful for that reason. For example, when I played smash brothers it always felt way worse when you lost compared to street fighter because in smash games can take four minutes to finish. In street fighter it's not uncommon to finish a game in 45 seconds. I've also migrated to Tetris the grandmaster because I feel that Tetris helps my brain in particular more than other games. And if I'm not having a good game, or a game is stressing me out too much, I can just quit. And since the games are short, at MOST ten minutes (depending on how fast you are) I can still will myself to go to bed reasonably after "just one good one"

Agreed, and this tends to be mostly an aspect of competitive multiplayer gaming. As my spare time for video gaming has diminished, I've been sticking to cooperative online games where all players are on the same team (like Diablo 3), or just playing offline.

Replaying the classics is also fun. Will Super Mario Bros 3 ever cease to be enjoyable? Doesn't seem so.

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