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Whether you are playing games online or delving into a retro game from 30 years ago, there are some universal truths that come with video gaming that we should all remember, whatever genre we are playing. Strategies are things that we may not necessarily think about consciously, but over time, the more we get frustrated with a game, we have to try different tactics. There are many strategies depending on the type of game you are playing, but there are a number of universal ones that can significantly improve your gameplay. Let’s dive in:

Understanding the Game Mechanics

If you are serious about your games, whether it’s Sudoku or Sonic the Hedgehog, understanding the mechanics properly gives you a far better insight into the controls, objectives, and your abilities. This is critical, and part of the fun is about learning from your mistakes, but there can be that sweet spot where we get very frustrated to the point that it hinders our enjoyment. This is why tutorials or a handy little cheat can be very useful at unlocking your potential.

Even something as simple as Word Connect can be frustrating if you’ve got a mental block on. The Word Connect answers website can give you insight into unscrambling words to help you see what works best. Sometimes, if we find ourselves struggling with a game, it can be almost down to not understanding those very basic things. We’re all growing in life, and sometimes we have to learn to crawl before we can walk.

Focus Fire

Focus fire involves concentrating attacks on a single target that reduces threats more efficiently than spreading damage across multiple enemies. For those people who want to work smart rather than hard, this is the Pareto principle in full swing, where 80% of the outcomes come from 20% of the effort. This is particularly useful in team-based games or strategy titles where eliminating one enemy quickly can give you a tactical advantage.

You can practice focus fire in team-based games like League of Legends or Overwatch by prioritizing enemy carries or support. It’s very logical; if you just address the most vulnerable or high-damage target, it’s going to make life a lot easier for you.

Managing Your Resources Efficiently

Resources like health, ammunition, or special abilities should be used in a judicious manner, like saving powerful abilities for the most critical moments can turn the tide in your favor.

In strategy games, balancing economic growth with military spending is critical for long-term success, but you can also use this to great advantage in games that allow valuable downtime. For example, looting in Fortnite. Learning when to conserve those resources instead of forcing engagements can help you in the long run.

Learning From Your Mistakes

A lot of the time, we can very well continue to just press on and not learn a thing until the 200th attempt. In gaming, trial and error is a powerful tool to help us learn. Analyzing failures helps refine strategies and build better mental models of the game.

For example, a game like Super Mario encourages us to focus on progress rather than the penalties for failure, which is excellent for our persistence.

Protecting Valuable Units

Understanding our own vulnerabilities, much like our enemies’, helps us stay alive during critical moments. It takes a long time to understand what our weaknesses can be in life because, as people, we can invariably look outward and not necessarily consider our own inherent vulnerabilities.

Defensive playing, for example, shields or healing spells, can keep us alive during those critical moments.

Anticipate Your Opponent’s Actions

Predicting an opponent’s next move, also known as Yomi, is crucial in both fighting and competitive games. When you analyze patterns and tendencies, you can counter their strategies effectively.

As critically panned as the movie Pixels was, the very handy lesson Adam Sandler’s character taught everyone is that we have to look for the patterns and identify opponents’ actions so we can work more effectively and trap our opponents into making poor decisions.

Practice and Persistence

If there’s anything we can learn from e-gamers, it’s something we should practice. It’s going to hone our reflexes, but it also improves our familiarity with the game mechanics and gives us the time to experiment with different approaches during repeated attempts. Doing this can help us identify what works best for specific scenarios.

Dedicating regular time to practicing specific skills like resource management, aiming, or dodging will help us in the long run, but it also provides many valuable life lessons. When we set small goals for improvement, for example, landing more headshots in a shooter game, and challenge ourselves by gradually increasing our difficulty levels, we will invariably benefit.

Applying these strategies can be very effective across video games and not just improve your overall performance, but your enjoyment as well.

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This chair has revolutionized the gaming chair industry. The build quality and durability is unmatched in any chair that I have ever seen. It was extremely easy to put together, eight screws and you’re off to the races. Vertagear has patented “Slide-in” assembly hardware that offers less time following directions and more time sitting in the apex of comfort.

The number one thing that I look for in a gaming chair is the quality of the padding in the seat. Most chairs, up until the SL5000 that is, will compress into a thin wafer of foam after about a month of regular use. Not the case here. I have been using this chair for about three months with no signs of deflation. This is made possible by the Ultra Premium High Resilience foam that offers 62% more weight per cubic foot. This high density foam does come with a bit of a downside if you are a wider person (like myself) – the raised edges of the chair are quite unforgiving. On each side of the bottom seat there are raised edges that force my legs to sit together instead of the widened stance I am more accustomed to; however, this is easy for me to overlook given the overall comfort level the chair provides.

With complete 4D adjustable armrests, and 140º adjustable backrest you can fully design and customize your comfort. Whether you want to lay back and play a relaxing RTS or need to be up straight clutching an S&D match, the SL5000 has your back.

The locking mechanisms on a lot of gaming chairs I see wear out after a while, however, with Vertagear’s locking system and weight adaptable tilt tension you never feel out of control. There is a distinct feel to locking and unlocking the backrest that gives you peace of mind that you are not going to fly back from a weak lock.

The color options provided by Vertagear are amazing. All possessing a black base, there are six accent colors available: White, Red, Blue, Green, Black, and Blue with gold stitching. There are also several special editions to choose from as well. The SL5000 also has an RGB upgrade kit (sold separately) available that is the world’s first wirelessly controlled RGB/LED kit available on a gaming chair.

The quality and craftsmanship does come with a price though, with the base model coming in at $459.99. If you want to add the flashy RGB kit, expect to fork out a couple hundred dollars more. That said, there’s no denying that the SL5000 will provide one of the best gaming chairs money can buy. Your purchase also includes up to a 10-year warranty on the metal frame and a 2-year warranty on most other parts, so you can game knowing your comfort is secured.

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Endless Delve 12/3 – 12/13 – Love Path of Exile but hate all that mapping and main story nonsense? Well GGG has something for you! Dive deep into the mines with 24/7 Delve mode! Players will experience a whole new leveling system all while keeping the darkness at bay.

Zizaran’s Gauntlet 12/10 – 12/20 – Streamer Zizaran will once again be hosting his Gauntlet featuring increased monster health and damage. Players can expect to earn points by slaying powerful bosses and monsters found around Wraeclast. 

Endless Heist 12/17 – 12/27 – This brand new mode from GGG features players skipping the whole campaign and dropping straight into Heist content. Hire rogues, destroy the guards and escape with the loot! Be careful though – if you die you lose the loot! 

Atlas Invasion 12/24 – 1/3 – Have you ever thought that campaign bosses are just too easy? Why not take on map bosses throughout the campaign! These formidable monsters will reward players greatly if you dare to cross them. 

Delirium Everywhere 12/31 – 1/16 – Get caught in the mist and defeat powerful enemies in this new mode! Every corner of Wraeclast will be covered in the dense fog of the Delirium, making every area much harder for even seasoned players. Expect to see me running cyclone through hundreds of Delirium filled areas. 

Path of Exile: Royale feat. Brutus 12/9, 12/23, 12/30 – Battle Royale returns to Wraeclast in an ever-shrinking circle of mayhem! Except this time with a twist – Brutus will be in the center of the circle waiting carefully to dominate anyone who gets near. 

All events will allow players to be eligible for an Atlantas Mystery Box for reaching level 50, and you are entered to win other microtransactions based on additional level progression. This event’s Top Ascendancy Class reward is the elusive Demigod’s Authority. Be on the look out for Twitch Drops on the first day of each event as well! This promises to be an event filled with something for everyone, whether you are speeding through the mist of the Delirium or carefully scheming in Endless Heist. New and seasoned players will find excitement and adventure as we close out 2021! 

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The latest Path of Exile expansion, Scourge, is everything I have ever wanted from Grinding Gear Games (GGG): fast-paced and exciting content. This league introduces the Scourge, a rag-tag group of demons seeking to bring disruption to Wraeclast, but not the Wraeclast that you or I know. They come from a dark timeline where they have infiltrated every corner of our once (relatively) tranquil island.

Path of Exile’s passive tree is certainly daunting to say the least. With over 500 passive skills available, the possibilities are endless. Scourge Leagues brings a refresh of the game’s passive tree allowing players to further customize their mob-smashing to extreme levels.

With Scourge League, you can now allocate an extra passive node on clusters with Notable passives. From simple “You can Cast 2 additional Brands” to “Corrupted Blood cannot be Afflicted on you” the customizability and power available is endless. I personally took several QoL nobles for my build to reduce (or in some cases eliminate) the need for some flask mods and movement speed mods.

If you are a seasoned player, you may have noticed some of your favorite passives have been moved or changed. For example, the famous Rectangle Of Health found between the Duelist and Marauder starting points has been updated to a circle and features one less health node but adds a notable upgrade.

GGG has done a fabulous job with this League, from new base items and uniques, to a clan revamp and end-game rework. Notable changes include Clan Hideouts and a new Energy Blade base item that pairs with several active skill gems. New players will find a simplified, streamlined leveling process and seasoned adventurers will see a complete passive tree rework alongside a smooth end-game Sirius grind.

One change I find very appealing is to the Clan system. Clan Leaders can now create a Clan Hideout, a full-sized hideout for your clan to gather, trade, and map together. This new lounge features the same Stash and Clan Stash boxes you know, along with a map device that can be used by all clan members! No more do you have to jump from hideout to hideout to run maps. You can now rotate seamlessly between Clan members for full up-time, monster-mashing fun!

The League mechanic allows players to fight hundreds of demons and resurrected monsters in an alternate Wraeclast after meeting The Last To Die, Scourge League’s newest NPC. After escaping the clutches of the demon hordes he travelled to our timeline where he warns us of the dangers coming to our little slice of the world.

Our new friend also opens our eyes to a new way of crafting through the Crucible. Place an item into the Crucible and syphon corruption from slain demons to charge your item, changing it unpredictably into a new corrupted item. Worried about bricking your hard crafted item? Worry not adventurer! There are now corrupted versions of your favorite crafting currencies. Chos, Jewelers, Fusings, and more allow you to alter your corrupted items without the need of a crafting bench or Vaal Orbs. This is a welcome change alongside a League that features only the best corrupted items. This is also the first League that allows players to turn the League mechanic off and on at will.

After slaying a certain number of monsters you can turn on the Scourge and fight a plethora of monsters to gain corruption and level up your Crucible. This is huge for lower-level players that previously were scared to turn up the heat on their map crafting in a (again, relatively) safe way to effectively double the number of monsters available for that all-elusive Exalted Orb.

With the long list of new items, features, and mechanics found in this League I can say confidently that if there was ever a time to start playing Path of Exile, this is the League! New players and battle-hardened veterans will find a refreshed game that feels much smoother and more current than recent Leagues have been. Stay sane, Exile! 

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