### Hi again everyone!
Today, I'll be explaining a cycle I find myself in whenever I play any sort of frustrating games. For the purpose of this blog, I'll use League of Legends as an example.

I first played League in season 1, having been recommended the game by my brother. It was pretty fun at first, as I'd never seen a game like that before. Eventually though, I realised that I had no idea what I was doing, and couldn't play at all well, so I gave up on it.

A few months later, I was talked into playing again, and my brother offered to teach me how to be at least vaguely okayish at it. That worked, and I got pretty good at the game eventually, playing it regularly for another year or two. I kept playing on and off for a few more years, but eventually gave up and uninstalled it. Some time later, I was _again_ talked into playing it, and convinced that the new updates didn't change it _too_ much, so I reinstalled it.

This time, things were different. It was fun for a while, but I was struggling to adjust to all the changes that had been made. I remember one game I played- I was playing as a character who had been reworked, and I had no idea what to be doing. People in the chat were complaining, my score was lacking, it wasn't going well, and I had a revelation- I wasn't having fun. I hadn't been having fun for days, since all the game was at this point was a fight to not have the whole team hate me. I uninstalled the game again, and vowed that I wouldn't play it again. 

As a side note- I later learned that somebody had bought my account, presumably from somebody who had somehow gotten my login information. Nothing really came of it... I've been told it would be worth a fair bit, considering I had some rare skins, but I tried a few times to reset my password and didn't get an email, so I gave up. My passwords have been changed since, so it's not really my problem any more.

Now, the story may seem like a fairly normal story, but I realised there's a certain cycle to it, which I get with a lot of games- pretty much any that are at all difficult, rather than sandbox games and the like.
- I'll start playing [again], and things go really well [and I'll think "why did I ever stop?"]
- I'll play for a while, and have a lot of fun
- Eventually, I'll start to get a bit frustrated with things that I was previously able to overlook
- It starts to feel like RNG is biased against me (for example- matchmaking in TF2, item drops in Isaac, etc.)
- I decide I'd be better off taking a day or two off
- A few weeks pass without playing, and eventually I'll think "I should play that game again some time"

This cycle can go on for years, like it did with League, and in some cases it's ongoing- like TF2 and Isaac. Currently, I'm in the break from TF2, and just starting a break from Isaac. It is worth saying though- the cycle doesn't really apply in TF2 when I'm playing with friends, it's only when I play alone. If I have people to play with, it never takes more than a day to recover from a series of bad games, but if not, I don't have the motivation to get back into it.

Anyways, hopefully you enjoyed today's blog! Let me know if you've had a similar experience with games like this, or even with other things