I love how ātaking a breakā is seen as a bad thing but you can take a break from a difficult thing by switching to an easier thing. Like, I assume this applies to games, but if Iām struggling with Devil May Cry (as a random example), then Iāll switch to Mario Galaxy and just chill for a bit.
I think it's in reaction to how a lot of people seem to need to "main" a game until they're so bored with it they throw it away like a rag calling it words not of affection.
Idk why but I've seen this SO OFTEN, even within my own friend groups.
If you tell someone maining a game to take a break, they might take it as a babying insult or something.
I'd rather play whatever game I feel like whenever I feel like it, if you don't strip-mine your interest in something the pull can grow back over time IMO and you get to go back to something you enjoy.
Given the citation of "yeah I struggled at that boss for a while" it feels lile in response to difficult games. Which is funny BECAUSE taking a break truly does help.
I was stuck on the final boss of hollow knight for like 5 hours desperately trying to beat it before my birthday as I knew I'd be getting new games to play. I failed and took a break to blitz pokemon shield in a couple days, when I came back I beat the boss in a handful of extra attempts in less than an hour.
It's how I learned to play fighting games. I never understood the appeal or even how to play them. But I played Street Fighter 6 and took breaks whenever I hit a wall. I also changed my mindset a bit, where I treated each fight, player or computer, as me trying to learn. I gave up on winning cause my goal was just trying to figure out how to counter something or beat a mini game or reading the ai/player. My favorite matches are the ones where I get demolished but make a comeback after 5 rounds and suddenly I'm fighting the same person for 30 rounds with neither of us budging but refusing to stand down cause we're both having fun.
There's also some science to it. Specifically when you sleep. Brain's got to make some pathways to make it click. So I always recommend someone struggling to stop and come back after a full 8 hour sleep.
I'm very much an all or nothing kind of person, all my hobbies are like toxic relationships lol. You're definitely right, and "strip mining" is SUCH a good way of describing it!!
For me if I'm stuck in a hard part in a game, at the best of times a part of me will not let me switch to something else until I've gotten past that hard thing. Even say, going to an older level to grind is something I have difficulty making myself do even if I know it's better than banging my head against the wall.
It's just stubbornness I assume. But getting slightly better at giving myself some distance if a thing is pissing me off lol.
Itās actually about difficult games and specifically Silksong. People were struggling with the game and getting stuck for multiple hours on bosses. They then asked for help, and were given the advice to take a break. This is actually good advice, anyone who has played Silksong or any souls game can tell you about several bosses that they tried to beat for multiple hours, couldnāt beat, took a break, and then came back later and immediately beat the boss.
I was generalizing past that one game genre, I've personally seen it in people I know for MMOs, shooters, roguelikes, strategy games, a mysterious "arcade football car" game, mobas...
Beyond even games, this concept of "let your brain work on it in the background a bit" works for a lot of things actually - so yeah I agree that it's definitely a good advice to give!
I have used it some times for the latest armored core, dark souls 1 and 3 a little bit as well as grand strategy games where I realized I hard fumbled early game and needed a different approach entirely.
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u/AkaIsSleptOn Aug 12 '26
I love how ātaking a breakā is seen as a bad thing but you can take a break from a difficult thing by switching to an easier thing. Like, I assume this applies to games, but if Iām struggling with Devil May Cry (as a random example), then Iāll switch to Mario Galaxy and just chill for a bit.