---
title: 'Once you see this, You’ll see Competitive Games Differently | Xaryu Reacts'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=PMXvnMvtJy4'
video_id: 'PMXvnMvtJy4'
date: 2026-06-13
duration_sec: 1697
---

# Once you see this, You’ll see Competitive Games Differently | Xaryu Reacts

> Source: [Once you see this, You’ll see Competitive Games Differently | Xaryu Reacts](https://youtube.com/watch?v=PMXvnMvtJy4)

## Summary

This video analyzes competitive games through a framework of three dimensions: micro (execution), mezzo (mind games/probability), and macro (systems/strategy). The speaker, Xaryu, reacts to a video by Cernex that uses the 'cheat test'—imagining what cheat would break a game—to classify games and understand player preferences.

### Key Points

- **Three Dimensions of Games** [02:01] — Every game has something that separates good players from bad: pure skill (micro), information (mezzo), or mental/adaptability (macro).
- **The Cheat Test** [03:23] — The clearest way to understand what a game tests is to think about how you'd cheat to make it trivially easy. The cheat reveals the game's core dimension.
- **Micro Defined** [04:40] — Micro is execution: aim, timing, movement, muscle memory. Examples: OSU, Geometry Dash, Tetris. A micro cheat is an aimbot or perfect inputs.
- **Mezzo Defined** [05:16] — Mezzo is the probability layer: mind games, reading opponents, managing randomness. Examples: Rock Paper Scissors, Among Us. A mezzo cheat is stream sniping or insider trading.
- **Macro Defined** [06:53] — Macro is the systems layer: routing, resource management, optimal strategy. Examples: Factorio, Chess. A macro cheat is a chess engine or perfect coach.
- **Games Combine Dimensions** [07:28] — Most games are combinations. Micro+Macro: single-player precision games (speedrunning). Micro+Mezzo: fighting games. Mezzo+Macro: card games (Hearthstone). All three: major competitive games (League, CS2, Overwatch).
- **CS2 Cheat Test** [12:44] — In CS2, aimbot (micro cheat) almost guarantees wins, making micro extremely high. X-ray (mezzo) helps but not as much. Macro is relatively lowest.
- **Overwatch Role Differences** [14:01] — In Overwatch, DPS is micro-heavy (aimbot best cheat), tank is mezzo-heavy (see cooldowns), support is macro-heavy (perfect coach).
- **Apex Balanced Across All Three** [19:02] — Apex is remarkably balanced: aimbot, wall hacks, and perfect ring knowledge all give a good chance of winning.
- **Rocket League Micro Dominant** [21:09] — Rocket League is heavily micro dominant; perfect mechanics beat smarts. AI bots beat semi-pro players.
- **Player Natural Leans** [24:33] — Every player has a natural lean: micro players grind mechanics, mezzo players thrive on mind games, macro players love efficiency. Games that frustrate you demand what your brain doesn't naturally give.

### Conclusion

The micro-mezzo-macro framework, revealed by the cheat test, helps classify games and understand personal strengths. Genre labels are insufficient; knowing which dimension a game emphasizes can explain why some games click and others don't.

## Transcript

Once you see this, you'll see
competitive games differently from
Cernex on YouTube. I don't know what
this video is really about. The title
seems really good. And I quickly uh
scrolled through the comments and people
are saying this is a gold mine
explaining video game design by thinking
what would cheat. Uh what cheat would
break the game such Instagram viewing
it. The perfect coach. This is like like
like people seem to really like this
video and then someone in my Discord
says to watch it. So anyway, let's take
a look and see what this is about. Once
you see this, you'll see competitive
games differently.
>> Weird. When someone asks, "What kind of
games do you like?" Most people struggle
to answer. You say, "Tact,
>> no, I don't. I've played World of World
of Warcraft."
>> Bullshooters. And they respond, "Oh, so
you must like Counter-Strike, Valerant,
and Rainbow Six Siege." And you say, "H,
actually only Counterstrike." You say
strategy games and someone recommends
you civilization when you wanted
something more like Hearthstone. Game
genres are kind of broken, but I think
there's a better way to think about this
and it's a much simpler.
>> I feel like for WoW players, it's pretty
simple. Like you like MMOs and WoW
happens to be the best MMO, so it's like
pretty pretty simple. I do remember
though when I was in high school and I
used to tell people like, "Oh, I like to
play games." And they would be like
they would just start listing off a
bunch of like normie games. Or maybe I
was the normie the whole time and didn't
know it. But I was like, nah, I came
World of Warcraft. This is different.
Like I'm I'm I'm in this world. I'm
living in this world. I've been living
in this world. It's it's an experience,
you know? It's completely different.
>> A way to look at games. And once you see
>> Yeah. Yeah. Like FIFA or like Madden or
like I mean Halo isn't like that normie,
but like Yeah. the sports games. It's
like, dude, no, no, no. I'm playing
World of Warcraft.
>> You'll see games much more differently.
But let's start somewhere everyone can
agree. Every game has something that
separates the good players from the bad
ones. [music] Sometimes it's pure skill,
your reflexes, your aim, your timing.
Sometimes it's information, knowing
things the other person doesn't.
Sometimes it's something harder to name.
the mental side. Reading people,
managing randomness, and [music]
adapting on the fly.
>> These aren't just different skills. They
are fundamentally different kinds of
gameplay. And most games mix them
together in different amounts.
So, let me give you three words. Micro,
meo, macro. Interesting. So, like World
of Warcraft is very
knowledgeoriented. I've said this in the
past. If you want to be a good WoW
player, it doesn't actually take crazy
good reaction time. Crazy like micro
like the movement is I mean, you know,
you want a base level, but like what it
really takes is knowledge. Do you know
what buttons to press? Do you know what
things are about to happen so you can
react to them? Do you know what you're
supposed to be doing in the game or not?
It's just a knowledge gap most of the
time. Of course, there's a baseline
level of mechanics you need, but it's
not that crazy. In other games though,
it requires just much much much level
higher levels of mechanics. And the game
knowledge is still really good. In any
game, it's really good. But if you don't
have those mechanics, you're just going
to get owned, you know.
Now, here's where it gets interesting
and a little uncomfortable. What if I
told you the clearest way to understand
what a game is actually testing is to
think about how you'd cheat in it? If
you wanted to completely break a game to
make it trivially easy, what cheat would
you use? The answer to that question
tells you more about a game than any
genre.
>> Oh, I never thought about that. Okay,
hold on. If we're going to cheat in WoW
arenas, how are we going to cheat?
I haven't really thought about this.
like the best possible bots.
I mean, they would just they would they
would anytime a cooldown is popped on
the enemy team, they would instantly
have the perfect response to it. So that
just a stupid amount of knowledge win
trading. No, no, not like cheating your
arena rating. Cheating like a a cheat to
make you impossible to like lose an
arena match. Um, you would have kickbots
and scripts, but it would like react
perfectly to every situation. Not just
like a guess or an approximation, but
like a perfect response, a perfect
defensive response to every offensive
the opponent used. Right? So, let's put
this to the test. What is micro?
>> Micro is the execution layer. It's your
aim, your timing, your movement, your
muscle memory. Yeah,
>> an example of a microche looks like an
aimbot. Perfect inputs every single
time.
>> Is that an aimbot? Oh my gosh.
>> The game can [laughter] be broken by
perfect execution. That's a micro game.
OSU, Geometry Dash, Aim Trainers, and
Tetris are a few examples. You can cheat
in osu with perfect cursor tracking. You
can cheat in Geometry Dash with perfect
jumps.
>> Gosh,
>> these are execution cheats and you can
feel them microness when you play them.
Okay.
>> Mezzo is the probability layer, the
place where mind games exist. You're
reacting to the unpredictable nature of
people.
>> So, this is mainly what WoW arenas are,
and it's mainly why I've liked them so
much. It's just it's a it's a mind game,
bro. What am I going to do? Am I going
to trinket? Am I going to hold my
trinket? Am I going to pop the cool
downs or not? Am I? And you just kind of
wait for each other. You just stare each
other down. If someone makes a move,
boom, punish them, right? And it's like
that's what's fun about arenas, you
know,
>> not mechanics. A messo cheat looks like
stream sniping, knowing someone's habits
before they show them. Reading cool
downs, seeing things you shouldn't see
yet. The best example for the purest meo
game is rock paper scissors. There's
zero. Still, it's [music] entirely
mental and probability. Among Us also
runs on meo. So does Liars Bar. [music]
Even the stock market is built around
this layer. If you wanted to cheat in
Among Us, you'd [music] stream snipe to
know who the impostor is. If you wanted
to cheat in stocks, you'd insider trade.
Notice how none of these cheats involve
executing anything better. They involve
knowing something you shouldn't.
Interesting. So, like in WoW Arenas, one
of the best cheats could be like if you
had AI in the other team's Discord call,
and you could hear AI basically saying,
"Hey, let's smoke bomb kidney the rogue
in 15 seconds." And you then had the AI
tell you, "Hey, they're going to smoke
bomb your rogue in 15 seconds." So then
the rogue would know they're about to be
targeted and move back. So you would
never be able to do anything.
>> Macro is the systems layer. It's your
routing, your resource management, and
your win condition. You can think of it
like the mathematically correct way of
winning the game. A macro cheat looks
like a chess engine, economy automation,
or you can imagine like a perfect coach
telling you exactly what to do.
>> Ping it. Ping it. Ping it. We need to
let our team know what's up.
>> Games are almost mathematical puzzles.
Think Factorio, Polybridge, Connect 4,
tic-tac-toe. Once you find the optimal
solution, the game is solved.
>> But here's where it gets really
interesting.
>> So, wow arenas are a lot of games aren't
just one of these. They're combinations
of them in the combinations.
>> So, like WoW arena, very little micro,
pretty heavy messo, very heavy macro,
right? So, that's why when you try to
swap games as a WoW arena player, often
times it's hard cuz your micro is just
not up to par because it doesn't take
much to be great at WoW Arena. So you
can have like a rank one player who's
just like very average. Like you just
never really use this skill too much cuz
it's all just over here, right?
>> Tells you everything about what kind of
game it is. So let's look at micro plus
macro.
These tend to be single player precision
games. You need to know the optimal
solution and execute it fast. Think
Rubik's Cube speedrunning, Mario 64,
Jump King, and Getting Over It. If you
were to have a perfect micro cheat in
Elder Ring, you'd have perfect dodges.
But if you were to have a perfect macro
cheat, you'd use the mathematically
optimal build. [music] But there's one
weird multiplayer outlier here. Eight
ball pool. There's a mathematically
optimal shot and then there's the skill
of actually hitting it. So even though
it is player versus player, the room for
mind games doesn't really exist. And I
think it's a really
>> I know you can play pool online. What
the heck? Next, let's look at micro plus
mezo. This is PvP skill expression
games. These tend to be your fighting
games. Street Fighter, Tekken, Smash
Bros, Brawhalla. Your skill matters and
reading your opponents matters. But
also, you have some other examples like
Mario Kart like the micro of driving and
the mezzo of random items and
unpredictable opponents. We even see
some.
>> So, the reason World of Warcraft has
such low micro is because the targeting
um cast base system. There is no aiming.
You have a target and your spell hits
your target. So, like in terms of uh the
World of Warcraft target and focus
system, there's just very little micro.
You literally just press fire blast and
it hits the guy, right? Of course,
there's still movement and line of
sight. Like there's still an element,
but it's just so low compared to like
most games.
>> Neat games like Tetris 99. The original
Tetris is pure micro, but Tetris 999
also involves Mezo because now you're
managing who to send the garbage to. You
also have physics- based PVP like Fall
Guys and Game Beasts, which also fits
into Micro Plus Mezo. The next one is
Mezo plus Macro. These are the mind and
math games. Think Hearthstone, TFT,
Pokemon VGC, and Battleship. Now, chess
is theoretically a pure macro game, but
at the human level, there's a massive
messo component. You're optimizing for
your specific opponent's habits.
>> Even chess has a micro component. I've
thought about this before. Um, if you
watch chess, sometimes they drop the
piece when moving it or sometimes they
bump a piece or like like technically in
Hearthstone, I've thought about this
too, it's very simple. You just like
click the card, but sometimes you can
misclick the card or click end turn on
accident or misclick and you actually
just ruin your whole turn. So, there's a
tiny micro component even to a Hearstone
or a chest. Tiny, but it's there. That's
why studying opponent matters in
highlevel chess. And then there are some
weird outliers. Balatro is a
singleplayer game, but it's also mezo
macro because the RNG of the card
combines with the math of maximizing
your hand. You're not executing anything
difficult, but you have to pick and
choose your cards wisely and play to
their biggest strength. Phasmophobia is
also a weird game that fits into Meso
Macro. It's a co-op game, but it fits
here because you're deducing a ghost
using evidence, which is macro, while
the ghost behavior has RNG, me.
>> Oh my gosh, that's scary.
>> Expect non PVP Mezo macro games slowly
converge towards pure macro over time.
Once players fully map the RNG, it stops
feeling uncertain and becomes a speedrun
problem. And then there's the middle,
all three overlapping. This is where the
biggest competitive games [music] live.
League of Legends, Dota 2, CS2,
Valerant, [music] Overwatch, Marvel
Rivals, Rocket League, Apex, Rainbow 6.
>> Well, I Okay, so I would argue that all
like is there any game that isn't all
three? Like I would argue that every
game is in all three, but
some are so low in certain areas that it
like barely counts. Like chess in the
micro section for example, but like it's
still present technically.
>> World of Warcraft.
>> Here's the thing.
>> We got mentioned. Let's go. I WAS LIKE,
IS HE GOING TO MENTION WoW in this
video? We got mentioned as all three. I
will say WoW does have all three. It's
just a little lower on the micro than
maybe a counter strike, right? And much
higher on maybe like a a macro or
something like that. But here's the
thing, they're not all the same balance.
>> Exactly. And the cheat test tells you
how exactly they differ.
>> So, let's use Counter-Strike as an
example. Can aimbot win a game of CS
completely alone? [music]
>> Almost certainly, yes. If you never
miss, most duels are over before they
start. [music]
That makes micro extremely high in CS2.
But what about X-ray seeing through
walls? Pros have done experiments with
one player with X-ray versus five
without X-ray. The five still usually
win, but the X-ray player takes rounds
they have no business taking. This makes
me very high in CS2, which means macro,
the strategic layer, is relatively the
lowest. That's interesting because like
if you play Counterstrike, I mean I I
haven't really I played a tiny bit. Like
a lot of people will be like, "Well,
yeah, there's a lot of strategy
involved." But when you compare it to
this, no way. And as a WoW player, it's
it's like completely the opposite. Like
micro and the WoW is like much lower.
It's so much macro. It's so macroheavy.
Um and that's why when you see a WoW
player trying to play like
Counter-Strike, I mean, sometimes
players are good at both, but like often
it's just like no, bro. Like [laughter]
there's no crossover here at all, you
know.
>> CS isn't about long-term economy
optimization the way MOBAs are. The
rounds are short and the execution is
everything.
But let's try this test with Overwatch.
And right away, we see a unique case
because the answer actually depends on
your role. But since it varies so
heavily by character and roles, I
decided to ask someone who knows about
Overwatch way better than I do.
So, if you compare all three like maxed
out versions of the perfect version of
it, like a cheat version of it,
>> which one would have like the highest
win rate, and how would the distribution
be?
>> I would just say support is more
macroheavy,
>> DPS is more microheavy, and then tank is
more messy.
>> Oh, okay. Okay.
>> Also, the way that it works is you have
offense, defense, and control. Um,
control refers to like map control.
Offense refers to offensive options,
defense refers to defensive options. And
if you a character's mixture or or like
kind of design links to the this concept
of uh offense, defense, and control,
tanks tend to depend on more control,
supports, more defense, DPS, more
offense. And if you if you actually like
dissect each individual hero, they will
have different like varying levels or
[music] varying focuses on defense or
control.
>> So I'm thinking about it like this,
right? If you were to give each role one
cheat,
>> you would give aimbot to DPS.
>> And for tank, you would give um the
ability to see enemy cooldowns as a
perfect cheat, right? You can literally
see the enemy cool downs with like
omniar and wow. [laughter] And
>> yeah,
>> for support you would have uh a coach or
an engine. Perfect coach.
>> That's that's perfect. That's that's
exactly perfect. And also especially in
Overwatch cuz it's it's 5v5 cuz you only
have uh one tank. Like if you can um win
every duel as a tank, that's kind of
like a free win. So, like going back to
this for a second with a cool down info,
I actually think WoW arenas are more fun
when you have no add-ons. So, for a long
time at LAN um for WoW tournaments, no
add-ons were allowed. You just couldn't
use any. Blizzcon regionals, no add-ons
were allowed. You played on their
computers,
you couldn't bring any add-ons. There
was no add-ons pre-installed. Go. So,
um, what what did players do? So, what
players did at the highest level is not
used any add-ons because they wanted to
practice how they would play at land so
they could actually win regionals or or
Blizzcon without practicing with
add-ons. So, that was the the the meta
that was like the just the what's like
the culture the culture in WoW arenas
for for a decade a decade and a half was
let's just all play with no add-ons. And
it was great. Like what what happened
was
um people made more mistakes because
add-ons make you play better since you
have cooldown info quite literally like
you you have to guess and which means
players made more mistakes but when
players make more mistakes it opens up
counterplay. It opens up this back and
forth that's really interesting to
navigate because oh this player messed
up now let me see if I can capitalize on
it or not. Um or maybe it was just
complete bait and I'm falling for it
right now. it goes into that whole messo
category that the video is talking
about. Anyway, WoW without add-ons is is
actually really fascinating in PvP. But
in 2019, 2020, COVID hit, regionals was
online, Blizzcon was online, and uh
well, there was no BlizzCon, I suppose,
but you know, the the tournaments were
online. They Blizzard decided to remove
the no add-on rule because they couldn't
enforce it. Literally, it's everyone's
at their home computer, so it's like,
"Okay, use whatever add-ons you want."
Um, and the whole no add-on thing went
out the window. All the PvPers
downloaded weak auras. They got really
strong weak orasuras, and the weak oras
got better over time. Now, what arena
looks like, and this is separate from
the the current just like metag game of
the game itself. I'm talking about like
the the information that players have
available is a full-on spaceship of
information and every player is playing
so perfect which means less mistakes,
less room for improv, less room for
counterplay which makes the game quite
boring. So, this video like perfectly
explains like almost like the downfall
of WoW PvP in a sense of like you almost
want no add-ons at all in WoW PvP or at
least very very very very minimal. Um,
for it to actually operate and behave in
a way that's like interesting to want to
take place in. Um, yeah, that's pretty
much what I want to say.
>> A coach or an engine perfect coach.
>> That's perfect. That's that's exactly
perfect. And also, especially in
Overwatch because it's it's 5v5 because
you only have uh one tank. Like if you
can um win every duel as a tank, that's
kind of like a free win for your team.
>> But what about Apex? Apex sits
remarkably balanced across all three. If
you think about which player is most
likely to win, a guy with perfect
aimbot, a guy with perfect wall hacks,
or a guy with perfect ring knowledge,
all three actually has a pretty good
chance of winning the game. If you have
aimbots, you can easily kill anyone
rotating, but any close-range fight will
tend to go either way.
>> So, let's just talk about this for WoW
PvP, too. Like, from from micro mezo and
macro, like if you were to cheat in WoW
PvP, the like say you have the like
perfect micro, so perfect movement and
perfect like kicks and interrupts, like
you never missed a kick and you always
fake casted perfectly and you were
always like in the perfect spot. Um,
that would be good in WoW, don't get me
wrong.
But you would still lose games if you
didn't know who to kill and when to kill
them and like you didn't have the macro
element or the meu element. Like you
would actually like if you had a bot in
WoW 3v3 arena and they had perfect micro
just like perfect kicks, perfect damage
rotations, like you would still just
lose against most of the top players cuz
they just like don't know the strategy.
So they'll just be like doing the wrong
thing. It like won't actually matter. Of
course it it matters a little bit once
you have the macro and the micro
element, bro. Like you're I mean that's
like trill or something, right? Like
you're in a great position, but one like
micro doesn't matter much in WoW if you
don't have if you don't have these
pieces, right? So the perfect cheat in
WoW, I think macro would be like
definitely the most heavy. You know
exactly how to respond to every sit
situation. Exactly how to respond. The
micro element like the perfect kicks and
damage like that's that helps. But this
one, this one's the big one.
>> Bot, you can easily kill anyone
rotating. But any close-range fight will
tend to go either way. But with perfect
wall hacks, you can use your nades and
abilities to take a team down. But
you'll still lose to someone with good
ring positioning. But even with perfect
ring information, you could still easily
die to someone who wants to contest that
position. But let's test this in a
really unique game, Rocket League. I
asked Pro Rocket League coach Luke on
his answer to this thought experiment,
and this was his response. Basically,
perfect micro or perfect mechanics in
Rocket League would be defined as taking
the ball from point A to point B as
quickly and as efficiently as possible.
Like how in a firstp person shooter,
aimbot moves the crosshair to the target
as quickly and as efficiently as
possible.
For Rocket League, smarts cannot make up
for the fact that a more mechanical
person can just take the ball to the
open net far more than someone with less
mechanics. [music] This makes Rocket
League heavily micro dominant. But after
micro being the most dominant, he put
macro second and meo last. This is
because even if perfect Mezo allows you
to hear enemy [music] coms or see enemy
boost, doesn't change the fact that all
information in Rocket League is able to
be known at all times. And for how
fast-paced the game is at the highest
level, listening to a perfect coach
verbatim would be better over hearing
enemy comms or seeing enemy boost. Also,
the closest thing to perfect micro in
Rocket League is the AI bots. I came
across footage of three semi-pro players
versing three of the best Rocket League
AI. What? That's interesting.
>> Oh my god. [laughter]
>> And the three AI bot were able to win
comfortably.
So, here's what this framework
>> I'm curious if you could make an AI bot
that understood macro perfectly because
we actually talked about this exact
thing a few months uh back and the
conversation was like how long would it
take to make a an AI WOW play like a WoW
arena team that would just never lose.
And the chat was like not that long at
all. Like you could make it really easy.
And in my mind, I was thinking AI can
only do micro well. And I was like that
already exists. did scripting and they
get owned by the best players. It's not
even close. I mean, don't get me wrong,
like scripts are good, but you just lose
to rank one players anyway. But if you
can make AI understand and master macro
in WoW, I mean, yeah, they they would be
per it would be perfect player. Are you
kidding me? You know, but with micro,
it's like me. You could have perfect you
could have perfect micro, you'd still
just lose, you know? actually gives you.
It helps classify games, but it also
helps understand yourself as a player. I
noticed something when I looked at which
games I genuinely enjoy. I gravitate
toward games in the middle. The full
micro meal macro cluster.
>> Where is Where's World of Warcraft?
Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?
Where is it? Where is it?
He didn't put it in there. Oh, yeah.
It's right there, guys. We're right
there. That's us. That's us. That's us.
Where's Minecraft? Cuz that's also us.
Is Minecraft on here? Probably not.
>> And toward pure micro and pure macro,
but I don't really enjoy micro macro
games. Speedrunning doesn't scratch the
right. And when I looked at why it
mapped exactly in Apex, I'd argue I aim
pretty well and have respectable
movement. I'd say I also have a solid
understanding of rotations and ring
positioning, but I tend to tunnel vision
in close quarter fights, specifically
when we're in the same building. So, I
tend to miss meo reads when the pressure
is high. And this exactly explains the
gap in my game. Because here's the real
insight. Every player has a natural
lean. Some people are micro players.
They grind mechanics obsessively and
they want the skill gap to feel fair.
Some people are messers. They love
raiding people and they thrive in the
chaos of PvP randomness. Like we even
see a common cluster of people who play
Among Us, GTA, luck based games like
gambling along with many other party
games. And then we also see that some
players are macro players. They love
efficiency. They draw routes on maps.
They think about the game between games
more than during it. [music] And most of
us are a mix. But
>> like for me, I feel like my micro is
definitely my worst by far, right?
my like like for WoW it's it's like I've
said this over and over but like it's
definitely more macro messo. So when I
play a new game like if I were to play
Counter Strike I would suck, bro. I
would get dumpstered. Like it would be
embarrassing. I've never even played on
stream cuz it would be that
embarrassing. Maybe I'll have to play on
stream one day to show you guys how
embarrassing it would be. Like oh my bro
I would just like it would be worse than
Peekaboo playing and that was pretty
bad. Like anyway, but with the with the
macro stuff, I played uh I played uh
Hearthstone on stream like 10 years ago
for the first time and we went from rank
25 to legend in a few days. Um like
that's the stuff I like like the
strategy. Although like I kind of sucked
at chess, but the thing about chess is
that there's like thousands of years of
like metag game and I wanted to go in
blind like I do for every game. I don't
like to do any lookups. So, I went in
blind on chess and like, bro, I'm
queuing up chess games blind and I'm
just getting smoked by people with the
all these different kinds of openers
that have figured out the macro for
thousands of years and I'm sitting over
here just like
trying to descri I'm like, "Oh, what if
I open up with this first and I just
doesn't work, you know?" So, anyway, not
an equal mix. The games that frustrate
you the most, they're probably demanding
something your brain doesn't naturally
give.
>> The games you keep coming back to You're
probably rewarding the part of you that
already runs at full power.
>> Yeah,
>> genre labels never told you any of this.
>> Yeah,
>> action RPG doesn't tell you whether
you'll be grinding execution, reading
opponents, or solving systems.
>> This is a good video.
>> It just tells you there's a sword and a
level bar. And maybe more importantly,
you can stop blaming yourself when a
game doesn't click, cuz maybe the games
are testing things you haven't built
yet.
>> Yeah,
>> in my case, it's the underdevelopment of
Mezo. And that's the three dimensions of
games. Michael,
>> I was like surprisingly bad at League of
Legends, though. Like I thought I would
be like I've never played League and I I
did a League series last year where I
just hopped in brand new level 30
account, didn't even level it. Um just
hopped in, instantly queued ranked. In
my mind, I'm like, well, I'm pretty good
at games. I'll be platinum.
[snorts] It took me a month to go from
iron to silver. Are you kidding me? I
thought I thought I would just go
straight platinum. Just not even because
I because I'm just like, "Yeah, I can
just move around people and this and
that." Like, "Yeah, I'll just I'll just
be different. I'll just go straight
platinum." First starting. Yeah, right.
I went I It took me a month to hit
silver.
>> As a macro, every game lives somewhere
inside them. And now that you know where
to look, you'll never see a game the
same way again.
>> Yeah, this is a great video. Um I
someone in my Discord recommended this,
guys. If you ever have video
recommendations, you can throw it in
Discord, like general chat, whatever.
I'm I'm in there. Um, this is a
[clears throat] great video. I don't
know if I ever would have seen this. So,
CernX, well done. It's a lot of stuff
I've thought about before, but like
maybe not in this exact way.