5 ways to improve your gaming skills

Some people are perfectly happy to stumble through a few video games, not completing quests or progressing beyond the easiest levels. For most of us, however, we want to be good at the games we’re playing. Here are five ways to improve your gaming skills.

Practice

Practice makes perfect is a classic saying because it’s true. The more you practice the better you’ll get at most things. The same is true for video games. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should just keep grinding the same level as the same character all the time or only use the same weapons. Practice can mean playing the same game as each of the various classes or characters in order to get a more complete understanding of how it works.

Try different formats

We’ve already emphasized how important practicing is but sometimes just playing the same level or fighting the same boss over and over again until you’ve got it nailed gets a little boring. Mixing it up can help you improve your skills. When a game is offered in more than one format, it can help you conceptualize it in a new way.

For example, when you’re playing Magic the Gathering Arena you might eventually hit a wall with a deck build and strategy that you can’t get past simply by playing more. However, if you switch to playing in person, it can improve your virtual playing. This is because you’re interacting with the cards in a new way and playing against new players.

The same can work in the reverse too. If you have a trip to Las Vegas or Atlantic City coming up, playing at ethereum casinos online is great practice. Casinos are full of distractions and each game has its own betting conventions and rules.

If you’re playing slots or table games for the first time at an in-person casino, it can be very easy to get overwhelmed and distracted and then bet more than you intend to or place the wrong types of wagers. Playing at online casinos teaches you how to play the games and improve your gambling skills before you arrive, so that it’s easier to focus and have more fun.

Watch streamers

Sometimes seeing someone else working through the same level you’re struggling with can give you ideas of how to improve. It can even help solve tricky puzzles that you’ve been stuck on. Watching elite gamers can be a little disheartening, especially if they’re speed running games that are taking you hours and hours to play through.

Streamers such as Dan Gheesling, someone who’s a talented gamer but not pro level, are great to watch to improve your skills. Watching his Twitch playthrough of Elden Ring can improve how you play. He might have had to fight Malenia 3,000 times to beat her, but if you watch his first few attempts and his final 10-20 attempts, you can see all the major missteps to avoid and what types of move combos she uses and how to combat them. You still probably won’t win on your first few tries, but you can certainly cut down the number of tries it takes.

Read guides

Reading guides can be considered cheating, especially for puzzle games. If that’s how you feel about them, that’s understandable. However, getting stuck on the same puzzle until you’re miserable and ready to throw your controller though the TV just isn’t worth it for most people. It kills the fun of the whole game and that’s really sad.

Not all guides simply give you the answers to puzzles or exact walkthroughs of levels. Those are of course available and can be used to avoid getting frustrated or to speed through a boring level. There are also guides that provide hints and general suggestions. These still force you to do the hard work while easing the burden a bit.

Play similar games

There are times when the problems you’re having with a game are due to certain game mechanics or that you’ve peaked due to repetitive game play or other factors. Playing a game in the same genre can open your eyes to what elements of the game are skill-related and which ones are due to the game mechanics. For example, if you can’t improve your lap times on Gran Tourismo, try playing Forza Motorsport 7 or F1 2019 for a bit and then go back to Gran Tourismo with your new skills.

As you gain more experience with a variety of games, you can transfer those skills to the other games you play and become a better player overall.