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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 26, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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My intuition is that no would play League of Legends or chess if you only played only against bots, even bots designed as a perfect challenge, and if there were no rankings.

I played Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard's League equivalent, for a few years and I actually played entirely against bots: I really enjoyed the mechanics of MOBA games and the minute-to-minute gameplay, but I didn't want to deal with the toxicity that seems an inevitable part of those games and I didn't want to be in the endless "gotta get better" spiral that comes with skill-based matchmaking.

On the broader point, there are loads of games that are made entirely for single-player experiences, and while sometimes you get into a community discussing it there's no need to do that. I actually quit the Factorio subreddit around the time the expansion came out because I didn't want the game solved for me, and now only dip back when I'm in the mood to collect a set of random tips, I certainly don't post there for my own social validation. And while I do have friends that play Factorio now, that wasn't the case for many years.