Genres you were bad in but grew better

Basically, these are genres that you were originally poor in, but over time, you got a lot better in.

For example, I was pretty bad in RTS games. I could only win against the lowest-level AI (barring Rise Of Legends), and for some, like Age Of Mythology, I had to use cheats to break even with my opponent.

I was just not good at prioritizing, building up an economy, and micro/macro. However, I kept at it, because I found the genre fun. I suppose the real change in skill came around the time I got the Dawn Of War series. I had to get better at Micromanagment because of how micro-oriented the game is. Once I got to Dark Crusade, I tried out Standard level AI. While I have problems beating them with every faction, I can still hold my own against them.

I really noticed my change in skill when I was playing Starcraft II yesterday. I had beaten a mission I couldn't beat without losing one of my escort vehicles, this time not only without losing one escort vehicle, but with at least 30 units pumped out (I usually don't get beyond 15 or so) and with the bonus objective completed, as well as minimal casualties.

So yeah, any such instances for you guys?

Despite being one of my favorite genres, I was really bad at adventure games. I could never finish a game without looking at a guide at least once. I'm still not too good at them, but I'm getting better. Perhaps I took the advice of "use everything on everything" more to heart. Perhas I'm more patient with solutions. Perhaps I get a better job at understanding warped senses of logic...

I'm not that good at FPS games even though I play them a lot, but I still got good enough to be average among in Halo's Xbox live community

FPS, mostly thanks to Resistance and TF2.

Ehhh, I think I'm just average at most games in general, so this doesn't apply to me. I enjoy all the basic genres while never quite doing all that great at them. I did start with Age Of Empires 2 when I was much younger though, and I can recall I sucked much worse at RT Ses.

I would never call myself an ace FPS player, but a lot of time spent teaming with a group of friends across TF 2 and L 4 D taught me a lot about how to play in a team.

I still wouldn't call myself a pro FPS player yet, but I arguably got a lot better since I started playing TF2.

Fighting games. Still often take more than 50 battles in Street Fighter II to get through all the opponents, but at least I'm not completely hopeless. I was surprised at how good I could do in Soul Calibur II.

edited 17th Jan '11 6:41:01 PM by Cliche

I'm a fairly mediocre FPS player but Valve's games are helping me improve.

Alright, show of hands, how many Tropers here improved in FPS games thanks to Valve shooters?

With the exception of TF 2, none really. Half-Life, in particular, didn't have much to learn from aside from the puzzles and platforming - the combat against the AI was never very difficult, except against the striders.

I've been honing my FPS skills for a long time now, ever since MOHAA.

I'm much weaker in just about every other game. RTS especially since I'm not a fast builder.

If it's possible to be "bad" at an RPG, then I'll take that one for 400, Alex.

I recently stumbled across some old saves for RP Gs I played ten or more years ago. Hoo-Boy, was it just awful. You're talking mediocre stats, hardly any attempt at grinding, piss poor inventory management, very few sidequests done...it was just a mess. In my earlier days, I was more overwhelmed by the plot of the RPG rather than the gameplay, so I typically just steamrolled from one plot point to the next without really stopping to grind or explore unless I got my ass kicked or an opportunity literally dropped into my lap.

Multiplayer FPS. Would only get 1/50 in a kill/death ratio. Now it's more 3/10. >_>

I blame Call of Duty and HL 1 mods.

Another in the FPS pile, but that's mostly because I don't want to play any FPS that isn't made by Valve, so I never did. I still fondly remember god-moding my way through Duke Nukem 3D though; I never did go back and beat it properly.

I'm not too bad with Survival Horror as a whole; I was able to play through the Siren games, Obscure, Eternal Darkness, etc. without too much trouble. But I really, really, really suck at any Resident Evil before 4, and the Silent Hill series in general. But I love them so much! I think it's the puzzles and the wandering about aimlessly that get to me. I can understand why a lot of people enjoy the feeling of wandering around for two hours before finally finding the right key to open the right door, but it's just not my thing. It makes me feel stupid.

I'm getting a little better now. I just finished the original Silent Hill and I'm playing through R Emake as well.

JRP Gs. I always liked them because they were slow paced things that I could get reasonably far in without too much frustration. I grinded far too much for pointless reasons, wasted precious resources whether magic or item, and never did much thorough searching. Over the years I learned obsessively search every nook and cranny, stock pile healing items for the end game and emergencies, buy warp items, and not spend so much time grinding when quite honestly you don't need to in most any JRPG. I've since become much more efficient and less prone to any sort of problem I typically suffered as a little one (the most common was lacking MP for boss fights).

This happened largely in part because the first JRPG that I set a very solid effort at beating and in fact did beat was Lunar 2 which isn't a very friendly game at all. You never really feel a need to grind because the normal enemies are scaled nicely and appear on the map (I find this reduces my tendency to grind). The bosses however can be quite brutal and require more than simple mashing of the x button. Items that recovered MP were expensive in stores and recovered very little of your MP. The better sort were rare and elusive. Because you never felt a need to grind you often had slight money troubles. You could generally fully upgrade your party members by exchanging their old goodies for new ones, but this left little fundage for all the MP recovery items and resurrection items one wanted to buy. Then there was Zophar who is one of the cruelest boss battles I have ever come across in an RPG. He's just mean...

Edit for clarification on how I could grind more than needed and still suffer defeat: I never ground so much that I could break the game by sheer numbers of levels. I also did not use any sort of stat increase item. I was very fond of using spells during every battle. I just felt that I had to use those fire spells on those poor slimes and that I had to try and sleep everything and that I had to heal my heroes if they so much as stubbed their pinky toe. This made boss battles and return journeys quite the death match since it was more or less just me hoping to god I could manage to kill the thing fast enough. I wasted items like nobody's business and never bought them. I still don't buy them, but back then I went through the things just because I did.

edited 19th Jan '11 11:54:09 PM by Aondeug

RP Gs. I used to play them like FPS or Fighting Games, just spamming attack and picking the things that looked coolest. Now I know how to juggle stats and build good characters, either focused on one area or all-round strong guys.

Action games. In fact, I specifically got into the Devil May Cry series just so I could get better at the genre and branch out a bit.

First-Person Shooters all thanks to Marathon and Doom.

Vertical Scrolling Shooters thanks to Touhou

Platformers. There was a day that I could never even hope to beat one robot master in a Megaman game let alone the whole game. Since I have improved because I kept playing the damn things. Now I question as to why Order of Ecclessia is considered so hard...I even got some medals without setting out specifically to get them...I mean yeah it takes a bit to learn how to dodge attacks but they tend to be very easy to dodge once you learn that. Unless you have broken shoulder buttons.

Shumps. I can now beat Touhou games! With more than one credit and only on normal (unless it's the ninth game which was unusually easy) but hey I can now!

RPGs for me. As for FPSes, I started out spectacularly bad (godmoding my way through Doom and Duke Nukem 3 D after epically failing, NOT godmoding but still blundering my way through the easiest difficulty of Hexen), got better with Quake, and particularly Quake 2 in multiplayer, then started getting bad again as fewer and fewer FPSes (especially of the non-Valve variety) interested me.

EDIT: Oh yeah, for specific games, Devil May Cry 3 (the original version, not the Updated Re-release that dials back the difficulty) comes to mind.

edited 20th Jan '11 11:25:45 AM by Reflextion

Platformers. Before, I couldn't even get past King Bob-Omb, had to use guides, and usually drowned in any sea levels. Today, I specialize in any kind of platforming, and even on the tougher ones I seldom die.

I used to suck royally at every fighting game that wasn't Mortal Kombat, but I've gotten a lot better recently. Couldn't say why, except maybe the recent slew of great fighting games motivated me.