{"id":170425,"date":"2023-06-16T08:00:47","date_gmt":"2023-06-16T13:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/?p=170425"},"modified":"2023-06-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-06-16T05:00:00","slug":"muscle-memory-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/2023\/06\/16\/muscle-memory-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"When does your gaming muscle memory trip you up?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the things that happens as you progress in playing a new game is that you grow accustomed to the control scheme and no longer have to think very hard about it. You know which keys do what — without conscious thought, you know that you can cast Retaliation in\u00a0WoW<\/em><\/a> by hitting your 5 key because that’s where you bound it. And this is a great thing — that moment when you just know what to do in a situation (not just gaming) and no longer need to devote thought to it.<\/p>\n

And then you start playing a different game and oops, all that muscle memory is suddenly messing you up. I have over a decade of\u00a0Diablo 3<\/em><\/a> in my head. As a result, when I try and play\u00a0Diablo 4<\/em>,<\/a> I have had a heck of a time trying to unlearn all of the things that were once second nature. Yes, the skill tree in\u00a0Diablo 4<\/em> is far more complex than talents were in\u00a0Diablo 3<\/em>, but the in-game manifestations are often the same. Upheaval and Seismic Slam don’t exactly play very differently. Leap is Leap is Leap, it even causes me to have\u00a0Diablo 2<\/em><\/a> flashbacks sometimes.<\/p>\n

I have died several times just because my muscle memory overrode my conscious knowledge that I was playing\u00a0D4<\/em> and tried to use moves from its predecessors. And it’s not just\u00a0Diablo<\/em> — when I was playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition<\/a><\/em>, going from\u00a0ME1\u00a0<\/em>to the later\u00a0ME2<\/em> caused all sorts of problems. And I got a positive hangover going from\u00a0Cyberpunk 2077<\/em><\/a> to\u00a0Fallout 4<\/em> earlier this year because their control schemes don’t mesh at all and I get stuck hitting the attack button only to realize that it isn’t the attack button this time around.<\/p>\n

So, gentle readers all, I ask you — do you ever find yourself trying to play\u00a0World of Warcraft<\/em> while you’re playing a different MMO? Maybe you’re playing\u00a0Jedi Survivor<\/em> and you try and use some\u00a0Elden Ring<\/em> moves? When does our faithful friend and helper muscle memory suddenly betray you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the things that happens as you progress in playing a new game is that you grow accustomed to the control scheme and no longer have to think very hard about it. You know which keys do what — without conscious thought, you know that you can cast Retaliation in\u00a0WoW by hitting your 5…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":170217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,75927,75925,75928,24,66854,3],"tags":[77425,1497,77426,449],"yst_prominent_words":[9935,9384,12504,8180,8293,24303,16237,15255,36707,8263,9695],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170425"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170492,"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170425\/revisions\/170492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170425"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blizzardwatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=170425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}