Tormod's blog

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Strategy games - I suck at them

In lieu of posting my review of Pokémon X/Y, considering I still have so much more I want to do in that game before I call it 'done', I figured I should post something else in the interim.  I've been focusing pretty heavily on the new world (to me) of competitive battling in Pokémon, and now that we're up to 17 different types, it's more daunting than ever before.  I've been trying to raise a competitive team, with the help of Rioan and Lauren, to see what the scene is like.  While IV and EV training is insanely simpler in Gen 6, the question of "what do I actually do with these Pokémon now?" is still very relevant, and considering my inability to remember typings and the fundamentals of battling, I've been doing a pretty terrible job.

I don't have a memory for details, so keeping the massive type chart straight is infuriatingly frustrating, and when faced with Pokémon that not only have more than one type, but two types that are just screwy with each other, my brain is turned inside out.  The use of apps on my phone like Dexter have been helpful, but I find myself keeping that open and Google at the ready for simple things that I really should be able to recall after looking at them several times already.  My mind is stuck on "what's strong against this Pokémon?", and completely neglects "what is this Pokémon's moveset and how will it tear me apart effortlessly?".  Needless to say, I'm ridiculously frustrated and damn near threw my new 3DS across the room a few times today (and those weren't even battles with Rioan, which were depressing at best).

I don't know when the best time to swap my party around in battle is, nor do I know how to effectively set up the field so that I don't die damn near instantaneously.  The taunts and jeers that even the computer trainers leave you with after your defeat is sadly debilitating, and it just makes me want to take a hammer to the system.  Unsurprisingly, I'm also sickeningly terrible at Fire Emblem, despite somehow enjoying the pain of sucking at it.  Anything other than Easy mode pisses me right off to the point where I stop playing the game.

Needless to say, I have absolutely no patience for loss and am close to not giving a fuck, and I certainly don't seem to be improving at all.  While my "strategies" might be good in theory, they're humiliating in practice.

A while back,  006 offered to teach me Chess (yes, I'm italicizing it, damnit), but I fear that I'll ragequit even more than I have been with stupid video games.  Perhaps it's best I don't get into that so I don't say or do something I'll regret, eh?

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