One thing I keep noticing whenever I'm learning a game, teaching someone a game, or observing someone learn a game, is that there is definitely a phase somewhere in the learning curve which is both very important and something I really don't see people talking about.
Think of the learning curve like this:
Learning what tools are available (i.e. what are the things that you can do, what are the actions you can take, what resources you have)
Learning to mechanically / physically use those tools
(the kicker) Learning why you want to use those tools
Learning to mechanically / physically put everything together
I first noticed this when I was learning to play a fighting game (specifically Guilty Gear -Strive-) but I realised that this applies more widely when I tried learning to play Overwatch, and now I keep seeing it everywhere (Chess, Go, sports, etc).
Almost always this third step is just kinda forgotten or ignored, and steps 2/4 are assumed to be the same thing. I've found that this leads to a much more frustrating learning experience and some very deceptive difficulties.
To clarify on what I mean by step 3:
Really early on when learning a game you'll learn what the end goal of the game is (e.g. "reduce opponent's health to 0"). Also really early on you learn what you can do, what moves you have, etc. And this is treated as enough information to start playing the game, but it's not.
You now have a long term goal (reducing opponent's life) and a set of tools, but you have no clue how to use those tools to get there. In other words: you have no short-term goals.
You can split this even further into multiple questions:
What situations are favourable to me?
How do I produce a favourable situation?
How do I make use of a favourable situation?
How do I minimise the damage from being in an unfavourable situation?
So you always end up with two types of beginners: someone who knows the "rules" of the game, and someone who understands the game but is still bad at it. There's a very large gap between those two! It is very easy to become the first type but very hard to get to the second. And it creates a lot of frustration when those two are conflated.
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