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My girlfriend is a special education teacher and we were talking about how attention deficit might affect someone's ability to play Starcraft (or any similar RTS). The game is a composite of a bunch of different tasks involving attention, working memory, and of course a lot more, so it's not straightforward to decide how someone with ADD, for example, might perform.
So here's my question: If you have ADD or ADHD and play Starcraft, do you feel your ability to attend to the game affects your gameplay? Do you find there are certain areas where you are weak? (i.e. getting supply blocked, forgetting upgrades or expanding, microing important units, whatever) Or do you think that ADD isn't really an issue in your gameplay?
I'm sure I can't convince her to get her students playing the game (probably because she actually has to do her job ^_^), but it would be interesting to see whether RTS games could be used as a training tool in special ed settings. (Yes I know there are computer games specifically tuned to these purposes, but there's something to be said for making a tool so fun/mainstream you'd want to do it on your own.)
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I've been diagnosed with ADHD and it has no bearing on my skill at starcraft. I think ADD and ADHD is bullshit, its a technical term for lazy and very lazy.
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I suppose that your attention would constantly shift between stuff, so it would either be EASY AS HELL, or your attention would shift to stuff outside the game, and you'd lose.
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I'm ADHD and I'm 2200 master league. The only times I think it matters are in the late late game vs a turtling player. I get so tired of focusing, I just attack even if its a bad idea. Also, if I want to play a bunch of games, I need to take my medicine or I'll get tired of gaming after 2-3 1v1s
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On February 13 2011 11:07 Dance. wrote:
I've been diagnosed with ADHD and it has no bearing on my skill at starcraft. I think ADD and ADHD is bullshit, its a technical term for lazy and very lazy.
TOO TRUE
im a 2300 diamond zerg who has ADHD/ADD and it doesnt affect my play at all, except for late game i just get so frustrated when i can't 1a and steamroll em xD but to be honest it depends if i feel like 'trying' in late game or not.
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Isn't tunnel vision a major issue in most beginner starcraft players? Like people get obsessed with microing their army and thus stop making units entirely and then proceed to lose the game...
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United States12 Posts
I have ADHD and ive always had the same experience with it: when im focused on something, i focus on it to the extent of ignoring everything else. When i play SC2 i focus solely on SC2 to the detriment of everything else, so i suppose it actually helps me play rather than hurt. Though i'm fucking terrible so maybe i should blame my ADHD.
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But yeah, like Alekh47 said. You have to constantly change your focus between a ton of different and really fun things, so it's not like ADHD is a big deal.
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I have been diagnosed with severe ADD which I find doesn't affect me negatively at all. There are times when Ill be waiting on mins to drop a building etc but then go someplace else real fast, so sometimes it might actually help me to multitask
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sorry what is ADD and ADHD?
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On February 13 2011 11:08 Alekh47 wrote:
I suppose that your attention would constantly shift between stuff, so it would either be EASY AS HELL, or your attention would shift to stuff outside the game, and you'd lose.
ehhh I kind of disagree. I'm ADHD and I work way harder than most of my friends. Right now, it's saturday night, and I'm writing an English paper (when I'm not on a TL break  )
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One has to take the ADD and ADHD in context, if the conditions are by themselves often times the child was just raised poorly (often times) or an extreme red cordial kid. The conditions are more likely to be ''real'' when in conjunction with other conditions so it would be extremely difficult to test.
I'd guess that if you could get them to concentrate on the game and on the important part of the game and to do the right thing they would be pretty good, ADD and ADHD kids often have a lot of energy to burn. But I have the feeling they would just start making a marine dance in circles, or wonder why no body goes back into the barracks depending on severity if it's mild I guess you would just get frustrated but so does everybody.
Just talking about children here not taking it any further.
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On February 13 2011 11:10 Beef Noodles wrote:
I'm ADHD and I'm 2200 master league. The only times I think it matters are in the late late game vs a turtling player. I get so tired of focusing, I just attack even if its a bad idea. Also, if I want to play a bunch of games, I need to take my medicine or I'll get tired of gaming after 2-3 1v1s
You can't attribute trying to end a very long game to ADHD. It's mental exhaustion, and everyone feels it. The problem is, majority of games don't last that long, so it's kind of hard to train your brain to focus that intensly for such a long time.
EDIT:
On February 13 2011 11:13 ShaSKiRa wrote:
sorry what is ADD and ADHD?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder
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On February 13 2011 11:15 Dance. wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2011 11:10 Beef Noodles wrote:
I'm ADHD and I'm 2200 master league. The only times I think it matters are in the late late game vs a turtling player. I get so tired of focusing, I just attack even if its a bad idea. Also, if I want to play a bunch of games, I need to take my medicine or I'll get tired of gaming after 2-3 1v1s You can't attribute trying to end a very long game to ADHD. It's mental exhaustion, and everyone feels it. The problem is, majority of games don't last that long, so it's kind of hard to train your brain to focus that intensly for such a long time. EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder
You may be right, but as someone who has been "diagnosed" with ADD, I was trying to find something it "might" be affected to try and answer the OP's question. I too think it's more mental exhaustion, but who knows? A study to see if ADD players end games more often than non-ADD players might be interesting.
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On February 13 2011 11:07 Dance. wrote:
I've been diagnosed with ADHD and it has no bearing on my skill at starcraft. I think ADD and ADHD is bullshit, its a technical term for lazy and very lazy.
Don't say that, REALLY.
My older brother was diagnosed with both ADD and ADHD. My family is known for having intelligent members: my father is known all over Brazil as the CEO of one of the best Radio companies and Motorola reseller; My mother was a professor, used to be the CEO of the Mail company("Correios") of my city, and now is the financial director of the said company; I, myself, always had excellent grades considering that I slept at least 40% of all my classes, and was first in an exam to enter university.
My older brother, however, never had anything like that. He isn't stupid, he isn't lazy or anything like that. In fact, he is the one that does the most of my family, but nothing related to "SCHOOL". He has excellent drawing skills(doing a particular university for architeture atm), incredible creativity and everything he has passion for, like cars and planes, he HAS passion, knowing EVERYTHING about these.
When he was younger, my mother would help him study for straight 6 hours a day just so he wouldn't repeat the year - which failed by his 5th year of school(about 11 years). He would NOT understand what he was studying - maybe during the first five minutes, but a fly that pass by would completly erase everything he would learn at that moment.
By his 11 years, he was diagnosed with it, something to do with his brain connections even, and had to take Ritalin - a "black-tie", or high danger, medicine - and suddenly he would be able to study. However, his base was already destroyed, so he wouldn't catchup for anything else. Had he been diagnosed earlier - although people didnt even knew about the existance of that at that time - he would be a "genius", since he puts so much effort into anything he does.
ADD and ADHD are REAL and SERIOUS. I see that every single day by my side. I've seen that in many other friends of mine.
Relating to SC2, no, there shouldn't be any problem at all.
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IdrA has ADD (or at least he said he did) and he's one of the best Zergs. Maybe having ADD even helps.
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I have really bad ADHD, and if it indeed is bullshit, then there's something else wrong with me.
When I was younger Starcraft was very therapeutic for me. It was the one thing that I could focus on for extended periods of time-and I would love being able to focus for that long. I spent about four to six hours a day, every day, for about two years straight playing Starcraft. I think it strengthened my focus, I was able to do math problems that I had done years before my ADHD got worse. It actually helped my social skills. I could respond with answers that I picked up in game (mind it was basically low jargon XD).
I was going to say something else, but I got distracted by facebook chat and forgot.
Edit: Looking at some other posts, it seems some people think ADHD isn't real. For me, I'm well know for absolutely destroying advanced math problems at a PhD level, followed an hour later by me not knowing how to spell my name correctly.
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On February 13 2011 11:22 Zephirdd wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2011 11:07 Dance. wrote:
I've been diagnosed with ADHD and it has no bearing on my skill at starcraft. I think ADD and ADHD is bullshit, its a technical term for lazy and very lazy. Don't say that, REALLY. My older brother was diagnosed with both ADD and ADHD. My family is known for having intelligent members: my father is known all over Brazil as the CEO of one of the best Radio companies and Motorola reseller; My mother was a professor, used to be the CEO of the Mail company("Correios") of my city, and now is the financial director of the said company; I, myself, always had excellent grades considering that I slept at least 40% of all my classes, and was first in an exam to enter university. My older brother, however, never had anything like that. He isn't stupid, he isn't lazy or anything like that. In fact, he is the one that does the most of my family, but nothing related to "SCHOOL". He has excellent drawing skills(doing a particular university for architeture atm), incredible creativity and everything he has passion for, like cars and planes, he HAS passion, knowing EVERYTHING about these. When he was younger, my mother would help him study for straight 6 hours a day just so he wouldn't repeat the year - which failed by his 5th year of school(about 11 years). He would NOT understand what he was studying - maybe during the first five minutes, but a fly that pass by would completly erase everything he would learn at that moment. By his 11 years, he was diagnosed with it, something to do with his brain connections even, and had to take Ritalin - a "black-tie", or high danger, medicine - and suddenly he would be able to study. However, his base was already destroyed, so he wouldn't catchup for anything else. Had he been diagnosed earlier - although people didnt even knew about the existance of that at that time - he would be a "genius", since he puts so much effort into anything he does. ADD and ADHD are REAL and SERIOUS. I see that every single day by my side. I've seen that in many other friends of mine. Relating to SC2, no, there shouldn't be any problem at all.
The poster you quoted may have been a bit too broad, but it is arguable that ADD and ADHD now is being over diagnosed to the point of simply being an excuse for children being children, and less intelligent children being not quite as smart as others.
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EPT
