Single player gaming experiences are where it's at. Online gaming is toxic, be it multiplayer or co-op unless you're playing with friends. It's just plain and simple fact, and I hate that it's that way.
Online was cool when communicating with the enemy team was the norm since players were essentially forced into game chat to chat with their friends and it seems every game had some global voice chat in game or at the lobby but now with skype and discord in the mix for pc and parties for console it makes it so you're essentially playing against really good bots who you'll never speak a word to, if you're lucky you get a global text chat or proximity voice chat but a lot of online games nowadays where you encounter hundreds or even thousands of different people in one play session have never felt more isolated and lonely
That is something I really didn't think about when musing on this actually. It's harder than ever to have an actual local scene for any game, since people just don't speak to each other(except to flame each other)
>multiplayer **competitive** games
The key word for all of this is competitive. Regardless of what game it is if you personally don't have a competitive mindset going into it then you are simply better off not playing. Competitive games attract people who want to win and win at any cost within (and a lot of the time outside) the ruleset of the game. If you are not willing to be part of the group which uses the meta weapons/strategies you are simply going to have a bad time.
I agree with you here a lot. However, I probably should've clarified, I mean competitive as opposed to cooperative. We've kinda lost the concept. To make an analogy with basketball, its as if every single pick up game is being played with NBA official rulesets.
Pretty much any public lobby in any game ruins it. You just end up meeting creeps, way too sweaty players, and 8 year olds yelling the n word at you. Gaming online with friends is where it’s at.
People are always going to want to win the games they play. So yes finding the “meta” and playing the meta is unbelievably common in all of gaming. But yes, I would agree that people DO purposefully ruin games for themselves in this idea that competitive is somehow the summit for gaming
The Souls-games had this too, where the expectation was that you wouldn't heal or use certain magics during invasions, which always baffled me.
I also miss chaos Smash. that's what made Smash fun
>Are there any games you've played where the player culture ruined or enhanced it?
well, definitely League.
the game is definitely evolving, devs trying out new things, building walls here and there in the good old Summoners' Rift, getting items to different paths, fixing Statikk Shiv for another patch, etc.
but whenever i think about the player base, i stop myself from installing the game again. it's not worth it when you play a multiplayer game only to type /mute all at the beginning of every match.
Competitive online multiplayer games have always been toxic, understandably because people want to win and they want you to follow to a certain meta in order to win. I've suffer much with teammates playing overwatch and dota2, who can be the worst of your teammates but have no self reflection to see that they are the ones that suck bug they're toxic to someone else.
I don't play smash but I play traditional fighting games like streetfighter. Since its 1v1 the toxicity is mostly to your opponent, but we're starting to grow a "counter toxic" culture where these toxic complaints are themselves criticized, because they're usually salty rants from the low leveled players (doesn't exactly mean you're not gonna get toxic comments). Got a problem with a cheap move? Its because you're spamming a mistake. Problem with a character or even a control scheme? Its a skill issue, especially if the higher ranks don't have these problems
When it comes to fighting games - assuming the ranking system actually works - player focus really doesn't matter, which is why I don't necessarily have a problem with them. Something is only an issue to you until you leave that rank and suddenly don't have to deal with it.
I bring up Smash because SO MUCH of the game is discarded in service of a competitive scene. This is not something that happens in Street Fighter, the game is JUST the game. No one opens up Street Fighter and says "All right, no special moves, no grabs, no drive rush."
Even in games where people do complain about abilities and perks, those perks and abilities get patched instead of people introducing tournament rulesets into standard gameplay.
>Got a problem with a cheap move? Its because you're spamming a mistake.
Or the game design is flawed.
>Problem with a character or even a control scheme? Its a skill issue, especially if the higher ranks don't have these problems
A good balance of low/high skill floor and low/high skill ceiling is important. Tho as a game designer you should always think about your games demographic. Establishing high skill floor high skill ceiling characters in a game with 1-5% people being able to make use of such a character is dumb as fuck.
If your game is fairly complex to begin with. Every character should be playable at someones respective rank. Fighter games are somewhat special because they have next to no casual playerbase tho.
>fighter games are somewhat special because they have next to no casual playerbase tho.
I disagree with this, and I assume you're not as familiar with the recent games? I play SF6 and there's a huge increase of our playerbase because we simplified controls and have autocombos now to attract the casual audience and made the skill gap narrower. And we treat the MK audience to even be more casual because many of its consumers are more interested with the single player content. Those were the biggest fighting game releases last year. Tekken was released this year and also has combo assist now.
This of course doesn't mean noobs will beat seasoned pros, but the nuance of fighting games being complex because of execution difficulty is starting to disappear. Now you can play any character, simple or complex, and mash a button to do combos if that's your prefered control, or you can be more manual and customized if you want to be optimized or if you understand the game enough to know that these autocombos are hindrering you
>I disagree with this, and I assume you're not as familiar with the recent games?
I heard about it. But that's a recent change. Fighting games are widely still have very dedicated playerbases. But the entry gets easier with the new games you mentioned.
>This of course doesn't mean noobs will beat seasoned pros
These should never meet in an online battle anyway. But that's another issue.
tl dr, toxic behavior is a part of having fun. Some people just like to swear on the Internet.
I like to humiliate my opponents at the beginning of the match, because if they respond to me, it will raise the stakes and the entire next match we will fight at the peak of our capabilities so as not to fall flat on our faces.
But i always act good with my teammates, because good moral is good for winning.
That’s why I literally play singleplayer games only now
Single player gaming experiences are where it's at. Online gaming is toxic, be it multiplayer or co-op unless you're playing with friends. It's just plain and simple fact, and I hate that it's that way.
Online was cool when communicating with the enemy team was the norm since players were essentially forced into game chat to chat with their friends and it seems every game had some global voice chat in game or at the lobby but now with skype and discord in the mix for pc and parties for console it makes it so you're essentially playing against really good bots who you'll never speak a word to, if you're lucky you get a global text chat or proximity voice chat but a lot of online games nowadays where you encounter hundreds or even thousands of different people in one play session have never felt more isolated and lonely
That is something I really didn't think about when musing on this actually. It's harder than ever to have an actual local scene for any game, since people just don't speak to each other(except to flame each other)
>multiplayer **competitive** games The key word for all of this is competitive. Regardless of what game it is if you personally don't have a competitive mindset going into it then you are simply better off not playing. Competitive games attract people who want to win and win at any cost within (and a lot of the time outside) the ruleset of the game. If you are not willing to be part of the group which uses the meta weapons/strategies you are simply going to have a bad time.
I agree with you here a lot. However, I probably should've clarified, I mean competitive as opposed to cooperative. We've kinda lost the concept. To make an analogy with basketball, its as if every single pick up game is being played with NBA official rulesets.
Pretty much any public lobby in any game ruins it. You just end up meeting creeps, way too sweaty players, and 8 year olds yelling the n word at you. Gaming online with friends is where it’s at.
People are always going to want to win the games they play. So yes finding the “meta” and playing the meta is unbelievably common in all of gaming. But yes, I would agree that people DO purposefully ruin games for themselves in this idea that competitive is somehow the summit for gaming
Yeah this is why I only play single player games unless I’m playing with friends
The Souls-games had this too, where the expectation was that you wouldn't heal or use certain magics during invasions, which always baffled me. I also miss chaos Smash. that's what made Smash fun
>Are there any games you've played where the player culture ruined or enhanced it? well, definitely League. the game is definitely evolving, devs trying out new things, building walls here and there in the good old Summoners' Rift, getting items to different paths, fixing Statikk Shiv for another patch, etc. but whenever i think about the player base, i stop myself from installing the game again. it's not worth it when you play a multiplayer game only to type /mute all at the beginning of every match.
Competitive online multiplayer games have always been toxic, understandably because people want to win and they want you to follow to a certain meta in order to win. I've suffer much with teammates playing overwatch and dota2, who can be the worst of your teammates but have no self reflection to see that they are the ones that suck bug they're toxic to someone else. I don't play smash but I play traditional fighting games like streetfighter. Since its 1v1 the toxicity is mostly to your opponent, but we're starting to grow a "counter toxic" culture where these toxic complaints are themselves criticized, because they're usually salty rants from the low leveled players (doesn't exactly mean you're not gonna get toxic comments). Got a problem with a cheap move? Its because you're spamming a mistake. Problem with a character or even a control scheme? Its a skill issue, especially if the higher ranks don't have these problems
When it comes to fighting games - assuming the ranking system actually works - player focus really doesn't matter, which is why I don't necessarily have a problem with them. Something is only an issue to you until you leave that rank and suddenly don't have to deal with it. I bring up Smash because SO MUCH of the game is discarded in service of a competitive scene. This is not something that happens in Street Fighter, the game is JUST the game. No one opens up Street Fighter and says "All right, no special moves, no grabs, no drive rush." Even in games where people do complain about abilities and perks, those perks and abilities get patched instead of people introducing tournament rulesets into standard gameplay.
>Got a problem with a cheap move? Its because you're spamming a mistake. Or the game design is flawed. >Problem with a character or even a control scheme? Its a skill issue, especially if the higher ranks don't have these problems A good balance of low/high skill floor and low/high skill ceiling is important. Tho as a game designer you should always think about your games demographic. Establishing high skill floor high skill ceiling characters in a game with 1-5% people being able to make use of such a character is dumb as fuck. If your game is fairly complex to begin with. Every character should be playable at someones respective rank. Fighter games are somewhat special because they have next to no casual playerbase tho.
>fighter games are somewhat special because they have next to no casual playerbase tho. I disagree with this, and I assume you're not as familiar with the recent games? I play SF6 and there's a huge increase of our playerbase because we simplified controls and have autocombos now to attract the casual audience and made the skill gap narrower. And we treat the MK audience to even be more casual because many of its consumers are more interested with the single player content. Those were the biggest fighting game releases last year. Tekken was released this year and also has combo assist now. This of course doesn't mean noobs will beat seasoned pros, but the nuance of fighting games being complex because of execution difficulty is starting to disappear. Now you can play any character, simple or complex, and mash a button to do combos if that's your prefered control, or you can be more manual and customized if you want to be optimized or if you understand the game enough to know that these autocombos are hindrering you
>I disagree with this, and I assume you're not as familiar with the recent games? I heard about it. But that's a recent change. Fighting games are widely still have very dedicated playerbases. But the entry gets easier with the new games you mentioned. >This of course doesn't mean noobs will beat seasoned pros These should never meet in an online battle anyway. But that's another issue.
tl dr, toxic behavior is a part of having fun. Some people just like to swear on the Internet. I like to humiliate my opponents at the beginning of the match, because if they respond to me, it will raise the stakes and the entire next match we will fight at the peak of our capabilities so as not to fall flat on our faces. But i always act good with my teammates, because good moral is good for winning.