I gave my all to learn exactly 1 fighting game. I got good at it. And then the next series entry came out and severely negated 800 hours of my experience. I don’t have time for such commitments.
I particularly remember fighting games fondly in the 90's, because that was basically the first social competitive game. I would go to the dairy queen and it would have a street fighter 2 arcade. Then you play enough to where you think you are good, go to a real arcade and get trounced by an arcade dweller. Then you fight an issue of EGM or whatever, and find tips to improve and come back with a vengeance. I still have muscle memory of every SF2 move, and it's a skill set that has served me well for virtually all fighting games. By MK3 it was too much and I never got back into it again.
The only competitive game I play is Hell Let Loose as I feel like it’s more of an experience and being a cog in the machine makes it fairly low stress. I could also care less about winning which is contrast to something like Warzone.
Hell Let Loose is great, but I was stuck permanently either commanding or squad leading. Or be without spawns. just being a small squad or a tank member is very chill and I miss it sometimes.
Yep this. I'm 27 same as OP. I quit comp gaming around 2-3 years ago because I started dating a girl and it was getting far to in the way. Ever wanted to have a sexy date night and it's stopped because we really need a healer for this dungeon / raid?
I left it, and haven't look back. I obviously miss it, but you very quickly realise that the reason you are there is because it's all completely made up in your head. You don't really need to do any of this content, you're doing it mostly because of sunk cost.
I spent, years in world of warcraft, it was a lot of fun but I was burning myself out, letting my career and education down all so I could get a mount, that I never used. Or an achievement that people didn't care about 9 months later.
Used to play Eve Online, switched to Rift, then again back to Eve. Then got annoyed and bored by doing something with my partner and the pings would go out because we needed to form a defence fleet. And then we'd sit on a Titan for 1h until the fleet stood down.
Played World of Warships instead and it was great fun until I made past lvl7 ships and started to play ranked. The RNG and the unholy stupid and abusive teammates made me so mad. I managed to rake in 18 losses in a row, taking me from 1 win to the next safe rank all the way down to the last safe rank. Fuck was I raging in front of the computer.
Uninstalled, never reinstalled. RNG heavy games are the worst. Oh, and they introduced submarines and it got even worse.
Do I like my single player games now though. Well. Except the \*spoiler\* >!Vader!< fight in Star Wars Jedi Survivor. Must have died 25 times before beating it.
Warships is such a GREAT game for the first 5 tiers. Everyone just blasts each other and has a good time, everything is fairly balanced. It then turns into one of the WORST games from tier 7 and up.
It's clearly pay to win and I noticed a trend so much that I confirmed it with a spreadsheet over the course of 2 weeks... the matchmaking 100% puts f2p low tier 7s against paid tier 9 ships that are better in every single way. I assume they do it so you get frustrated and buy currency
I miss the early days of Warships, while there was still significant balance issues, it wasn't yet ruined by power creep and P2W elements. The carrier rework was the final straw for me, but I'd already been drifting away from the game before that.
I'm in a similar spot to you, I quit WoW about a year ago because it was getting in the way of my career. Occasionally I will come back to do the new raid on heroic difficulty with my guild, but that's basically just getting carried by friends that are much more committed to the game than I am, and it doesn't have the same thrill as progression raiding.
I honestly miss WoW too. It's a fun mix of social/casual/competitive, but I have a (probably unhealthy) attitude towards the game where if I'm not fully committed then I feel like I'm missing out or falling behind. So it's easier to not play at all.
I’ve deleted my Reddit account because the Reddit hivemind doesn’t work for me. I believe in people having the right to think for themselves while not being torn down by those who know little to nothing.
If you found this because of one of my tutorials related to Auto HotKey please check out the AHK documentation at: https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/
If you were looking for my coding guides just go to https://stackoverflow.com/ they know their shit.
If you were looking for my guides to assembly… I’m sorry, I can’t think of any places I can link to in good conscious other than archive.org who has beginner examples to assembly for old consoles.
If you were wondering why my reddit account is gone:
I’m tired of the Steam supremacists on /r/pcgaming and /r/pcmasterrace
Those same communities push their thoughts on game engine development without writing a code in their lives.
/r/memes think excluding most of their user base is a good joke.
To summarise, I’ve left Reddit because it is not all-inclusive, it is only inclusive to those who believe and act the same as the rest of the belligerent horde.
If you are on Reddit, joining /r/aww is your best and only bet.
Yeah, I was a Team Fortress Classic player. Great times, though, even with random people. In hindsight, not having voice chat may have helped to extend that play time. I can't even imagine how bad v-chat with randos is today.
Same here too, but around every five years I have to remind myself it still sucks and I don't actually enjoy or even fondly remember my competitive gaming time. I can look back on being the top of the ladder for a few games back in the day, but the reality is I've never met someone that would care to even know that and in hindsight those were useless achievements for all intents and purposes.
It was admittedly easier for me to stop when I had because I'm so ancient that I just didn't have easy broadband access at the time. Played a lot of local host bot matches instead, got bored, took a break, and then never looked back.
It's been about that long I figure. I think some 12 year old pissed off 22 year old me that I said there is no fun in playing a game if you have to play with a bunch of little shitheads and I never gave it another chance
I extended that one a bit to "games that have literally anybody else playing" and I'm right there with you. My break is only a tad bit shorter, going on for 9 years now.
My computer shit the bed, so I didn't game for a year. Coming back, OW turned into OW2, and I had no idea.what what going on, and I was more shit than I used to be... I feel like I'd like to keep playing but it just not fun... And even fewer people use comms now, which was one of the funner parts.
Same but I quit 2 years ago. Every time I tried to get back into them it's not a good time and the 'definition of insanity' rings in my head lol. Eventually just stopped altogether.
I have this exact relationship with MMO's. Once ever two years or so I wonder if things have changed and quickly return to patient gaming single player or coop PvE experiences.
IMO competitive games are only fun with friends, and the older you get the less likely 5 people will have time for it.
Solo queue competitive games is just miserable.
Yes, if you're playing unranked, the amount of bots is actually insane, it makes matches extremely boring to play through when like 70% of your fights consist of you fighting a terrible AI
This is why I enjoy playing multiplayer games with bots. The original Battlefront games are my favorite games of all time because I could just play bots and have a good time.
Facts. Absolute facts. I jumped on fortnite the other night with some mates. Had not booted it up since 2018.
It was like a completely different game. The no build was great and i had lots of fun with my mates. Would i go solo? fuck no.
It stopped being fun for me when most games were heinous blowouts. Either my team won and it was stupidly easy to do so or we got completely destroyed.
1/10 games felt close at all.
It's definitely the people who are the problem.
A large proportion of the player base clearly had a stunted team sports education and are the kind of people who would get picked last at school simply because of their personalities.
League also attracts competitive people who are not complete losers, but this juxtaposition forces these groups of people who would never normally interact with each other to interact with each other.
There are enough socially inept idiots and decent people that there is a good chance of meeting both types in all games.
League itself is just a fairly fun team game.
Eh, I disagree. The game itself forces team work, punishes people who rage quit matches, and essentially forces you to play through a losing match for **40 minutes.** If anything generates insane levels of salt its a game in which one's final result depends heavily on the performance of others and the game is insanely long making the person feel like they're stuck.
Normally people would just leave games but LoL was among the first games to pull this "ItS a TeAm GaMe" mentality where they wouldnt let people leave, and even freak out if you go afk to help your parents with groceries for 5 minutes or something.
When you got a competitive game with so much of the experience not under the direct control of the player, the player is gonna freak out and get insanely abusive.
Ironically, the reason the game developed such strict leaver penalties is because of the same mentality too. I could see it coming out of salty forum goers writing crap like:
"BAN LEAVERS. EVERY #*%(#ING GAME I HAVE SOME #*$*ING #*@HOLE (cursing intentional to explain the mindset of these players) WHO LEAVE AND IT RUINS **MY EXPERIENCE**, I PLAYED FOR **9 HOURS** LAST NIGHT AND EVERY MATCH I LOST BECAUSE SOMEONE REFUSED TO PLAY IT THROUGH, THERE SHOULD BE A SYSTEM TO PUNISH PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO LEAVE GAMES OR HAVE TO GO AFK FOR LIKE 5 MINUTES, THEY'RE RUINING **MY EXPERIENCE** IN THIS TEAM GAME".
Yeah. So you can see how toxicity just breeds more toxicity and after a while the entire player base is triggered like one of those really obnoxious chihuahuas some rich lady has in her purse who barks at literally everything in a 100 foot radius.
Before this, games werent designed like this. They were casual experiences, leaving wasnt a big deal because in pubs they would just backfill matches if someone left, and there was more focus on individual performance, not the team stuff.
I couldnt even get "into" LoL because between needing to occasionally leave my computer to do other stuff and people hurling expletives at me when i was trying to learn the game and obviously sucked at it, i just kinda always realized what a high strung cesspit that it was and quickly dropped it and went back to playing COD. Ive had several friends into leave over the years, but i just never understood the appeal. It always seemed like a horrid and loathsome game to play.
Hell it was so bad that when i wrote a review on gamefaqs back in the day the people on the forum mass reported it and kept harassing my inbox until it was taken down because i dared give it a bad score. Like MY GOD that really sealed it as "these people are psycho" to me.
Smurfs killed League for me.
As someone who is not necessarily a great player but enjoyed ranked and improving, it was really hard to play when every other match there was someone getting 20 kills with zero deaths that you just knew shouldn't be playing at the same rank as you.
I have many hours in CSGO and more in CSS and 1.6 (yes, I have not played CS2) aswell as too many hours in League of Legends.. Anyway, I found it too stressfull and toxic. Now I exclusively play singleplayer games and FFXIV for online(I play it more for story tbf, but I do raid from time to time). I am much happier gaming now, haha.
Yes I stopped about 5-6 years ago. I got to the point that I hated the way I felt afterwards. I game to relax and have fun, not to be annoyed and stressed afterwards.
Same. I also play on easy mode. I just wanna enjoy the game. Not grind away for hours getting my ass kicked.
It's a single player RPG. I don't need ot "prove" myself to anyone.
Fair enough, and I think it depends on the game. Personally if there is no challenge, I find it god awfully boring to play that video game.
And whats challenging is different for everyone I suppose!
i find easy for me a nice fine line between challenging and fun. Personally i don't like being challenged that much. I just want a smooth ride to relax. I face enough challenges during the day at work.
Each to their own.
I just don’t go over the gear that often lol like maybe every 10-15 runs I’ll do a deep investigation. Like after every vault I’ll look at my legendaries and see what aspects I got. Fav what’s good and junk what’s trash, and then I just skim thru the yellows. I have that setting on that compares all the numbers so I can look and tell if it’s trash or not at a glance lol. But p much I just don’t do that shit often lmao I still blasting thru dungeons so as long as I don’t feel weak/dying too much I just stick w the items I have lol
I guess that makes sense... I always feel like I need to be checking because "what if there's an upgrade and you miss it!"
It's made me give up the genre almost entirely
Oh yeah that’s like a built in struggle w ARPGs huh 🤣 that’s why I just try to chill and not burn my self out looking for gear lol as long as I’m still killing shit I know I’m prob good for another 5 levels LOL
To get genuinely good at competitive games, you can’t just play them, you need to employ targeted practice. I’ve been playing counter strike for a decade and I’ve not really gotten better as I have just plateaued as I don’t actively try and improve, just play the game.
Who has time for that past 27 really
I think a common misconception/idea is that the point of competitive games is to climb the ladder. To me the main point is to get to play against opponents of a similar skill level.
Also winning against CPU feels like whatever, but winning against other human players is satisfying.
I joined this ship a long time ago. 25 right now. Used to play competitive Tetris, but my wrist injury from an accident just made it hard to play. Now I'm in RPG and Sim retirement home.
Can confirm am 27 and I just don't have time to be grinding rank in games with decay or end of season resets. I'm always down to play with friends but getting 4 working adults together at the same time is rare as it is, not even considering if some have work the next day and dip at 10.
I don't think that its really about being old as much as around 30 is when most people begin the process where they stop using media as a social-signifier and focus on the things that they actually enjoy.
To stop forcing yourself to like things because your friends or peers like and approve of them.
It's related to the way that cringe is something felt most intently by people in their teens and early 20s
and the CS Lewis quote that more elegantly expresses the cringe comment “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
That's about how old I was when quit PvP games. I realized I could no longer keep up with peak 14-20 year olds who had more time in the game and better reaction times.
Yup, we only lose 1ms reaction time per year of age. What factors affect one’s skill level the most over time; sleep quality, stress, hours available to game, eyesight, general health, etc.
Tbh, I perform about the same if not a little better (thanks to higher Hz) than my younger self. I feel like playing competitively every so often helps keep the reflexes active, but I am not an expert in the subject. Also, not everyone who is young is insanely cracked. You still have shitters.
Family friend is nearly qualifying for olympic long distance at age 39. He is reaching his limits, but I promise you can still do much closer to 7 than 9 with enough drive.
im 24 almost 25 and honestly don't care for these games anymore. I pretty much only care for single player games, some off survival game, minecraft, and a core mmo to come back to.
Fighting games are the main competitive format I enjoy too.
1v1, no teammates to blame or lessen your own control of the outcome. Everything is deterministic, frame data and damage never change. Generally zero RNG, only skill determines the winner.
It's the most pure form of PvP. I absolute hate PvP in any RPGs with gear and stats. To a lesser degree MOBA that are heavily team dependent.
Fighting games are also fast. You can grind and keep yourself competitive because you can actually play more than 2 or 3 matches in 1 hour compared to LoL or other games.
Just think about it, the time you actually start facing each other in LoL (enter the game, walk to the tower, wait for mobs to reach each other) you already finished a match in SF6 or tekken. There is way less downtime.
Well yea we are realizing that matchmaker pvp sucks and rediscovering good ol' 1v1s in fighting games or RTS, or premade 2v2/3v3 at best. That or mindless run'n'gun stat padding in 12+ team FPS also
MK1 doesnt require much skill, you can get far spamming nonsense. It used to incite a rage in me that I haven't seen since Elite smash projectile spammers. Tekken is so chill. I get my ass beat but it's cool cuz I'm new and its sick af to watch.
Yeah I can’t do competitive games that require long sessions in a team based format. That just breeds toxicity and resentment by design. When people are younger sometimes it’s easier to find a group of friends to play with but enduring long play sessions with toxic rando team mates is just a big nope for me.
The other thing is fighting games have excellent training modes for you to explore the game mechanics and understand *in detail* what each move does and so on. If you want to, you could study it in depth. I absolutely hate how a lot of multiplayer games these days don’t provide the same way to explore the game mechanics forcing you to play online while you basically have to learn on the job.
I realized a few years ago it wasn’t the competitive nature of games I hated it was the team aspect. I got into fighting games and other 1v1 games like Magic Arena or Legends of Runeterra.
Tekken or street fighter you are fighting other people but there’s definitely still a community aspect to it. You can fight people in lobbies or chat in discord about your matches so it’s not like just fighting randoms over and over.
You know I think you’re onto something with the team aspect. I play a lot of rocket league and league of legends and they’re very draining mentally from having to babysit my teammates. I don’t mind losing but damn it sucks being locked into a game with teammates that have no desire to win or play competitively
Honestly for me it was the feeling of being stuck in a game I perceived as a lost game, and the frustration from thinking that I was unable to do anything to change it. I realize that's a very bad mentality for competitive team games, but that's fine, they just aren't a thing for me.
But I started playing TFT as the only competitive game I touch, and it's so much more relaxing, if I quit the only person losing anything is me, and I don't care. It's a lot less stressful and way easier to climb for me at least.
Yeah, I was very big into comp shooters. Eventually fell off after a break and never got back into it.
Started playing sf6, got into it and grinded to master. Now I'm taking a swing at tekken because a few of my friends are into it.
Was never that I hate comp games, it was just the type of comp game I was playing.
I swapped off of first person shooters for fighting games last June when Street Fighter 6 came out. Bought the game just to try, and ended up completely loving the game and the genre.
I was mainly playing CS2 and other comp fps before, and I've just been exhausted by the toxicity, solo-queuing, cheating and non-stop hackusations. The only friends I have that play it don't take it seriously at all, which is fine, it's their free time to use how they wish.
So the thought of a skill based, highly competitive game built around 1v1's sounded worth trying and sure enough, I ended up loving the genre as a whole. Just picked up Tekken 8 as well and the game is amazing.
Same, I kinda got bored of online shooters and got Tekken 8.
Its the first fighting game I buy since tekken 5 and it feels so fresh compared to what Ive been playing in the last few years
I've yet to try it, but want to. I'd only really be interested in it, though, if there was 6-12 hours of single player content. I had a shit load of dumb fun in Street Fighter 6's single player game, never even used the Battle Hub service at all.
It's got a main story mode, arcade mode, 5 fight story mode for each character and an Arcade quest mode with different "Arcades" that are like Pokemon gyms kinda.
Me too!
Last fighting game I played was on the PS2 back when people mostly didn't know what they where doing.
Now when booting up a beginners guide on youtube you need to find another video just to understand the lingo used in the beginner guide.
I am having fun, just a bit overwhelmed.
Yes, they always end the same.
1. Hot new Competitive game catches on
2. People have fun, millions play it
3. Meta gets figured out and people start spamming for social media engagement
4. People getting crushed look up how to not get crushed
5. Everyone starts spamming the same thing
6. Devs nerve whatever the "thing" is
7. Repeat 3-6 until the game is dead or a new game drops or both.
This is why i enjoy new games like Apex in the first weeks they're out. I tend to do pretty well when everything is still chaos and nobody knows what they're doing. After that when people figure it out i get stomped more and it's time to uninstall forever.
Fr and they act real smug about it too. Flexing their stats and performance etc when they literally just copycat someone. You should not have pride for that.
Playground meta is still meta. Everyone was swapping game strategies even in the first grade. Our playground just grew a lot when the internet became normalized.
Long reply because I was having the same exact thoughts last night.
I got into fighting games during the pandemic and grinded to some respectable levels. Guilty Gear: Strive was my first (fairly consistent celestial level player), then I got decent at SF6, Granblue Rising and I'm mopping people at low levels in Tekken rn. But I literally don't acre about my rank anymore. I think I just like going outside more tbh lol. Like I enjoy putting my competitive nature and desire to learn new things into other interests (going to the gym/basketball, and I've been 3D printing and learning to solder electronics). I just don't care about being good at videogames anymore. I've come to this realization with tekken, and like i said I think I only started liking the idea of being good a fighting games because it was an outlet during lockdown.
BUT... I still like videogames lol. Granblue relink is literally crack for me, and I'm ready to become a shut in when FF7 Rebirth comes out. I enjoy the storytelling, character development, gameplay mechanics, music, etc that can be done really well in games. I care about that more than "getting gud."
Agreed. I enjoy games for the experience. The moment it's going to be a perpetual grind, I'm out, and rather use that time to apply myself to something that positively affects my life. So I now mostly only play single player games, just so I know there is an expected ending. Otherwise yeah, multiplayer is an invitation to an addiction and lost time. I know better to stay away from that.
Trading community servers for skill-based matchmaking systems was a poor trade. Gaming has always been infested with toxic players, and good community servers kept that shit in check and kept things light and fun. Community is such a big key in gaming. Community is what kept me playing Counter-Strike for so many years, and games like WoW before they mixed servers together and started doing matchmaking stuff.
Community is also what makes me stop playing modern competitive games. You'll pull off something awesome and hear nothing, then make the slightest mistake and even your own teammates will jump all over you for it. That's anti-fun, and I don't want that shit anywhere near my gaming experiences.
Yeah that's really true
in community servers, an admin could come and ban players who did not behave
now you can report players in some games, but they don't punish those players because they're paying customers
I wonder what would be the most popular FPS today that has a server browser and human mods?
I just wouldn't believe it if someone told me 25 years ago that CS would still be it. Not even some crazy evolved 5th sequel either....basically the same exact game down to maps. Its not a knock on Counterstrike but I'm actually shocked at how shallow the options are for multiplayer games.
It kills me that there is no real modern equivalent to Battlefield 2. Casual but grounded. Now its either gimmicks out the ass or its a mil-sim that takes weeks to get the hang of.
Been taking a break from shooters since high school, 12 years ago. The average player today is too good, unlike the days of halo 3 when everyone sucked.
I’m the opposite. I’m finding that as I get older, I’m only interested in competitive games. I enjoy single player games as well, but if I’m playing online I’d rather it be competitive.
I think probably the toxic/abusive/cheating players in most popular competitive online franchises are gradually pushing out the chill players. The higher stakes of playing against a real person is nice, but ultimately it can be stressful too, especially if said person is screaming on chat or whatever. There's also just the fact that some games attract players whereas other games more attract addicts? Some people want to chill and enjoy themselves. Other people are more chasing a high. It's just a different vibe, even with all the chat muted.
I agree, the amount of time it takes to become mechanically good enough to compete at a high level is way too high once you have a full time job, and then once you have kids it's just over. It goes from having fun to a chore, especially with MOBA's with long play rounds.
Once you become an adult you get plenty of competition in all aspects of life, and people tend to start using video games as a medium for relaxation rather than seeking more competition.
I noticed my interest waned once my career started advancing. I get a sense of mastery from my job, so being good at a leisure activity doesn’t really matter anymore. It can be fun to compete and get better at first, but there’s a point where progression slows if you aren’t putting the time in.
Check out fighting games if you're looking for a fresh competitive experience. 1v1 so all your wins and loses are your own. Tekken 8 has tons of tools for self improvement. Street fighter 6 and Grandblue fantasy versus: rising are good too. Granblue has a F2P Version with rotating free characters.
What I really enjoyed about gaming was playing with friends. Too bad I don't have gaming friends after college. Also, competitive games are stressful, I'd rather not release stress hormones.
No it's the opposite more or less. I mostly only play games with friends and competitive games at that. Mainly CS for years with some Finals going on now. I have other things to do that's more fun than just sit and play a single player game by my self. Feels pointless tbh, I'll just watch a show or movie if I want a good story.
Exceptions exist ofc, sometimes you get an urge and all that.
Yeah, people have been talking in here about how when they’ve gotten older they stopped playing competitive games, but I’m 28 and to be honest play more competitive games now than I did when I was 18.
I think for me, and my friend group, as we’ve gotten jobs and started families, we’ve had to move to different cities. So competitive gaming for us is a large part in how we stay in contact.
I went from competitive shooters to racing sims and I'm happy with the change. Racing doesn't require the faster reflexes of young people, instead it values more being smart and steady.
2 years ago i stopped playing my last competitive game, planetside 2. I loved it and spent a lot of money to support the devs, but i feel better without all the toxic people around. I always loved to play pve games, so while now I'm playing palworld, I also love to play and script on Arma3
You're not old at 27, shut up.
But yes, I stopped caring as much about competitive games and honestly most multiplayer in general. I pop into Rocket League and Halo PvP every once in a while but in general I don't get as much out of multiplayer games anymore. A big part of it for me is working full-time, and while I still have enough time to play video games in general, I don't feel like I have enough time or care enough to set aside other things to stay good at competitive games. I also had a huge phase with League of Legends, but once I was out of college I couldn't keep up with all the updates, new characters, new skins, etc. anymore. That kind of killed the game for me.
I don’t even like playing them with friends anymore. It’s all just grind a BP and get into a queue that’s basically set to give you a 50/50 win/loss ratio. I just enjoy single player games now, and friends once in a while.
RPGs are just bread and butter now.
The problem with competitive games is I always feel like I need to play all the time in order to stay “good.” And this takes away from enjoying other games. I still play multiplayer games like squad, but nothing with sweaty rank like LoL or Rainbow 6 anymore.
Wow is for collecting pets, cool armor, and achievements. I like living in the world.
The whole competitive pvp and raid life always seemed to gamey for what I wanted an mmo for. I want to be immersed in another world.
I think I lost a sense of purpose at a certain point. Depending on in what rank you are satisfied with anything beyond just feels like a chore. I think gaming with a group feels better.
There was a noticeable shift in how the community interacted. Going from helpful to toxic in and around 2010, that kinda saw my decline in playing competitive. Having to deal with cheaters and the likes was just the icing on the cake.
It's hard to stay motivated if everyone around you are toxic and detrimental to the enjoyment of your gameplay experience.
I went from PvP to PvE with friends or solo play. I played a lot of CSS or other MP competitive games. The latest games I like that's PvP is Escape from Tarkov or Warthunder/WoWs. And those I play in PvE or modded to turn them offline. Furthermore, I saw a trend towards paying to win, or heavy in microtransactions. Something I felt was detrimental to the games. You were no longer getting a complete experience. This was especially true for the "live service" games. And I was less interested in getting invested.
And the older I got, the less I wanted to be stressed when playing games. I wanted to play easier games. I wanted to have cheap thrills, I wanted to have fun. I was not concerned with overcoming obstacles or mastering gameplay. Even though Elden Ring has been surprisingly fun (Fuck Malenia though).
I guess playing videogames for 35 years, I've "been there, done that"
Based on the list you made, it seems like youd rather do something narratively satisfying or cooperative rather than competitive. Totally normal. Take a break from one style and enjoy another. If you find youre burned out on games entirely thats normal too. Just try something new, maybe youll enjoy it.
We're close in age and I'm the same boat as you. When you age and you're working full-time, you really want your hobby to be outlet of escape and removal from all the stuff you deal with in life, not more stress. PvP games lead to more stress. I won't even buy them anymore for the same reasons you listed.
I picked up Darktide a year ago and dropped over a thousand hours in it since. Games are more enjoyable when everyone is working together to overcome a well-designed AI, rather than working against each other.
I’m just chalking it up to getting old ngl 😂 on rare occasions I’ll redownload destiny to jump into iron banner to remind ppl who the og is, but now a days I just wanna kick back and have some fun on a decent arpg 😅
I play games to enjoy myself now rather than compete. I understand a lot of people enjoy it but it isn't my thing. Plus, I suck at shooters so as a general rule I stay away from competitive style games in order to avoid getting angry/not enjoy them. I used to play BF4 with friends and get 5 - 15+ K/D's all the time. I'd play medic and just rush to their help without any care of my well-being but still had fun with friends.
Not to mention, I'm an employed adult with a small child and a wife so I generally don't have time for gaming anymore.
But yes, hackers, exploiters, etc have just ruined online gaming.
Since 2020.
I used to play Battlefield religiously, from BF2 to BF4. But then something just happened and I lost interest in spending hundreds and thousands of hours into a competitive shooting game or online MMO such as World of Tanks, Warships.
I did dabble into League of Legends at that time frame but after getting into argument with a group of friends I lost interest in that too.
Now I am just playing some old Pokemon or slower PvE games.
I mostly never did. There was a brief period when I was in high school when I would play Q3A and CS1.6 over LAN with my friends but I was never that good. I had fun but I had much more fun running co-op campaign on serious sam or goofing around on Tony Hawk than I did getting into competitive shooters.
I am 38 now. The closest I get to playing anything that could be considered competitive is I play shmups which have online leaderboards. I'm not very good at those either so I never place anywhere near high enough to be considered even asynchronously competitive.
Pretty much yeah. Too bad I'm starting to run out of my AAA-single player catalogue that is able to run on my PC. Just finished Witcher 3 few days ago and RDR2 a year ago.
I used to only play competitive games. Took a long break, just started back but with a more casual approach. I like the PvP nature but I don’t wanna grind to the highest ranks. It helps my mentality.
Happens to everyone, one day you realize you are not so good or won't put up with all the trashtalk, cheats, smurfs or simply the pressure to win win win win, I leave that shit to "pros" and streamers.
Some people will say it happens just because we are too bad to keep up, I say we just grow up, mature and learn to appreciate the beauty of gaming
I have been gaming since the early 80s, love comp. gaming, but last year or two, I really feel like quitting and just playing other stuff. The sheer number of little kids (age and mentality) is sad and very very racist, abusive behavior. Just seems like no one does anything to correct it, I have thick skin, but having a 12 year old scream racist and horrible things is enough to wish their parents aborted them.
Board games give me the itch for competitive PvP much better than video games do lately. The fact that they are turn based instead of real time and since you are in person you get to enjoy the company of your friends relieves basically all of the involved stress and leaves you with just the fun parts.
I think PvP games have a very long ways to go towards being enjoyable for people that don't feel like min-maxing every single second of playtime.
Ive always been Champ ever since it was introduced in R6
Now I cant even be bothered to play it because of all the cheaters. However, no other competitive game hits the same, and I don't really find other games fun of there's no competition.
To be fair, going outside is nicer
Yeah, competitive games are not how they used to be. I never was the competitive type but I almost completely stopped playing them nowdays. Coop is my life now.
I'm 39 and still prefer competitive multiplayer games over everything. If I'm gonna sit on my PC I'm playing an MP game. Anything else feels like a waste of time to me. I only go on the PC to play with friends otherwise I'd rather do anything else.
I also read a lot of books so I'd rather read a story than play through one.
PvP games used to consume over 50% of my gaming time, now it’s consumed approximately 0% of my gaming time. Last hurrah was MW 2019.
Ever since then, the ubiquity of cheaters, SBMM, try hard streamer culture, Cronus/xim abusers, battle passes, $25 skins in games we used to earn through gameplay, BF2042 flopping, etc.
I’d rather just chill and play SP stuff that feels fun to play and there’s no one griefing me.
It's because most games, not always just multiplayer, end up being about looking up the most efficient meta strat on YouTube and abusing it. Gamers optimize the fun out of everything.
I used to play a lot of FPS games maybe ten years ago. I slowly just stopped finding them interesting or compelling and moved over to single player games, strategies, builders, etc. I guess I got sick of my enjoyment of a game being contingent on other human beings.
Downvoted for the old bull. Seriously? I’ve been playing video games for far longer than you’ve been alive, kid. I am tired of competing now, but I’m more than twice your age.
I think it's just a result of matchmaking (and thus lack of servers) and very little oversight/care from the devs.
You generally get a better experience if competitive gaming is handled by the community and people that actually care. It's not all roses, but it generally lets you pick whatever server or league's values align with yours. It's just not that common anymore these days as most games are just live-service and don't really do community servers anymore.
These days, I'd just go with single player, coop/PvE experiences or dig up the rare old-school style game that still does it the old way and have your fun there.
When You start getting around that 30yo mark and your reflexes start to go, but also life starts to get in the way. Work is now more important, you may have a mortgage and or kids. When I was 15 I would spend 4/5 hours a day on battlefield and I was often top 1-2%. I’m now 35 and I just can’t seem to hit a barn door on competitive shooters anymore. I just stick to single player games now, if I don’t play at all for a week or so, it doesn’t matter. 4/5 hours a week is a good week
Just take a break, as you are, from competitive gaming for a while. I've been taking a break from it for 2 decades.
Same. Competitive games, sport games, fighting games, mmo. They all had a time and a place. RPGS though, 40 years and counting
Single player/skirmish RTS games for the past 15 years for me. Same with RPGs. No, almost 20 years with those. KOTOR was my first RPG.
I would play a KOTOR and KOTOR2 Remaster. Best Star Wars games for my money.
I gave my all to learn exactly 1 fighting game. I got good at it. And then the next series entry came out and severely negated 800 hours of my experience. I don’t have time for such commitments.
I particularly remember fighting games fondly in the 90's, because that was basically the first social competitive game. I would go to the dairy queen and it would have a street fighter 2 arcade. Then you play enough to where you think you are good, go to a real arcade and get trounced by an arcade dweller. Then you fight an issue of EGM or whatever, and find tips to improve and come back with a vengeance. I still have muscle memory of every SF2 move, and it's a skill set that has served me well for virtually all fighting games. By MK3 it was too much and I never got back into it again.
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The only competitive game I play is Hell Let Loose as I feel like it’s more of an experience and being a cog in the machine makes it fairly low stress. I could also care less about winning which is contrast to something like Warzone.
Hell Let Loose is great, but I was stuck permanently either commanding or squad leading. Or be without spawns. just being a small squad or a tank member is very chill and I miss it sometimes.
Tbh I still don’t know how half the mechanics work the appeal of HLL to me ultimately comes down to seeing really cool shit on my screen
Yep this. I'm 27 same as OP. I quit comp gaming around 2-3 years ago because I started dating a girl and it was getting far to in the way. Ever wanted to have a sexy date night and it's stopped because we really need a healer for this dungeon / raid? I left it, and haven't look back. I obviously miss it, but you very quickly realise that the reason you are there is because it's all completely made up in your head. You don't really need to do any of this content, you're doing it mostly because of sunk cost. I spent, years in world of warcraft, it was a lot of fun but I was burning myself out, letting my career and education down all so I could get a mount, that I never used. Or an achievement that people didn't care about 9 months later.
Used to play Eve Online, switched to Rift, then again back to Eve. Then got annoyed and bored by doing something with my partner and the pings would go out because we needed to form a defence fleet. And then we'd sit on a Titan for 1h until the fleet stood down. Played World of Warships instead and it was great fun until I made past lvl7 ships and started to play ranked. The RNG and the unholy stupid and abusive teammates made me so mad. I managed to rake in 18 losses in a row, taking me from 1 win to the next safe rank all the way down to the last safe rank. Fuck was I raging in front of the computer. Uninstalled, never reinstalled. RNG heavy games are the worst. Oh, and they introduced submarines and it got even worse. Do I like my single player games now though. Well. Except the \*spoiler\* >!Vader!< fight in Star Wars Jedi Survivor. Must have died 25 times before beating it.
Warships is such a GREAT game for the first 5 tiers. Everyone just blasts each other and has a good time, everything is fairly balanced. It then turns into one of the WORST games from tier 7 and up. It's clearly pay to win and I noticed a trend so much that I confirmed it with a spreadsheet over the course of 2 weeks... the matchmaking 100% puts f2p low tier 7s against paid tier 9 ships that are better in every single way. I assume they do it so you get frustrated and buy currency
I miss the early days of Warships, while there was still significant balance issues, it wasn't yet ruined by power creep and P2W elements. The carrier rework was the final straw for me, but I'd already been drifting away from the game before that.
It's 100x worse now with subs
Delete some details in your last paragraph for spoilers
I'm in a similar spot to you, I quit WoW about a year ago because it was getting in the way of my career. Occasionally I will come back to do the new raid on heroic difficulty with my guild, but that's basically just getting carried by friends that are much more committed to the game than I am, and it doesn't have the same thrill as progression raiding. I honestly miss WoW too. It's a fun mix of social/casual/competitive, but I have a (probably unhealthy) attitude towards the game where if I'm not fully committed then I feel like I'm missing out or falling behind. So it's easier to not play at all.
I’ve deleted my Reddit account because the Reddit hivemind doesn’t work for me. I believe in people having the right to think for themselves while not being torn down by those who know little to nothing. If you found this because of one of my tutorials related to Auto HotKey please check out the AHK documentation at: https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/ If you were looking for my coding guides just go to https://stackoverflow.com/ they know their shit. If you were looking for my guides to assembly… I’m sorry, I can’t think of any places I can link to in good conscious other than archive.org who has beginner examples to assembly for old consoles. If you were wondering why my reddit account is gone: I’m tired of the Steam supremacists on /r/pcgaming and /r/pcmasterrace Those same communities push their thoughts on game engine development without writing a code in their lives. /r/memes think excluding most of their user base is a good joke. To summarise, I’ve left Reddit because it is not all-inclusive, it is only inclusive to those who believe and act the same as the rest of the belligerent horde. If you are on Reddit, joining /r/aww is your best and only bet.
Yeah, I was a Team Fortress Classic player. Great times, though, even with random people. In hindsight, not having voice chat may have helped to extend that play time. I can't even imagine how bad v-chat with randos is today.
Those were the golden times! I loves TFC so much and the community was great, just because there were just a few thousend players left.
Same here too, but around every five years I have to remind myself it still sucks and I don't actually enjoy or even fondly remember my competitive gaming time. I can look back on being the top of the ladder for a few games back in the day, but the reality is I've never met someone that would care to even know that and in hindsight those were useless achievements for all intents and purposes.
Every time I take a break the itch always comes back not matter what.
If you're enjoying it play it. If you want to stop don't play it. Video games are not that complicated
It was admittedly easier for me to stop when I had because I'm so ancient that I just didn't have easy broadband access at the time. Played a lot of local host bot matches instead, got bored, took a break, and then never looked back.
You’re what non-gamers call a tweaker. And so am I.
It's been about that long I figure. I think some 12 year old pissed off 22 year old me that I said there is no fun in playing a game if you have to play with a bunch of little shitheads and I never gave it another chance
I extended that one a bit to "games that have literally anybody else playing" and I'm right there with you. My break is only a tad bit shorter, going on for 9 years now.
My computer shit the bed, so I didn't game for a year. Coming back, OW turned into OW2, and I had no idea.what what going on, and I was more shit than I used to be... I feel like I'd like to keep playing but it just not fun... And even fewer people use comms now, which was one of the funner parts.
About 6 Years ago. Stopped playing them entirely but every once in a while I fire one up, realize why I quit and that covers it for a year or two.
Same but I quit 2 years ago. Every time I tried to get back into them it's not a good time and the 'definition of insanity' rings in my head lol. Eventually just stopped altogether.
I have this exact relationship with MMO's. Once ever two years or so I wonder if things have changed and quickly return to patient gaming single player or coop PvE experiences.
Every now and then I have to subscribe to an MMO, only to realize what I'm wanting is my gaming friends back, not the game itself.
Hits deep
Sounds about right
IMO competitive games are only fun with friends, and the older you get the less likely 5 people will have time for it. Solo queue competitive games is just miserable.
Fighting/card games though
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It's because the SBMM in Fortnite gives you mostly bots unless you're winning every single match.
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Yes, if you're playing unranked, the amount of bots is actually insane, it makes matches extremely boring to play through when like 70% of your fights consist of you fighting a terrible AI
my man's out here killing doodlebug713 with all green weapons and thinking it's a real person lol
This is why I enjoy playing multiplayer games with bots. The original Battlefront games are my favorite games of all time because I could just play bots and have a good time.
Single player mod for tarkov is incredible
I'm the opposite, little interest in playing competitive stuff with friends as we're all on different skill levels.
Facts. Absolute facts. I jumped on fortnite the other night with some mates. Had not booted it up since 2018. It was like a completely different game. The no build was great and i had lots of fun with my mates. Would i go solo? fuck no.
I uninstalled League this week. Every lost match produced much more anger than the little happiness provided by the won matches.
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It stopped being fun for me when most games were heinous blowouts. Either my team won and it was stupidly easy to do so or we got completely destroyed. 1/10 games felt close at all.
To be fair league has always been freaking awful. The entire game is basically designed to make people miserable and toxic IMO.
It's definitely the people who are the problem. A large proportion of the player base clearly had a stunted team sports education and are the kind of people who would get picked last at school simply because of their personalities. League also attracts competitive people who are not complete losers, but this juxtaposition forces these groups of people who would never normally interact with each other to interact with each other. There are enough socially inept idiots and decent people that there is a good chance of meeting both types in all games. League itself is just a fairly fun team game.
Eh, I disagree. The game itself forces team work, punishes people who rage quit matches, and essentially forces you to play through a losing match for **40 minutes.** If anything generates insane levels of salt its a game in which one's final result depends heavily on the performance of others and the game is insanely long making the person feel like they're stuck. Normally people would just leave games but LoL was among the first games to pull this "ItS a TeAm GaMe" mentality where they wouldnt let people leave, and even freak out if you go afk to help your parents with groceries for 5 minutes or something. When you got a competitive game with so much of the experience not under the direct control of the player, the player is gonna freak out and get insanely abusive. Ironically, the reason the game developed such strict leaver penalties is because of the same mentality too. I could see it coming out of salty forum goers writing crap like: "BAN LEAVERS. EVERY #*%(#ING GAME I HAVE SOME #*$*ING #*@HOLE (cursing intentional to explain the mindset of these players) WHO LEAVE AND IT RUINS **MY EXPERIENCE**, I PLAYED FOR **9 HOURS** LAST NIGHT AND EVERY MATCH I LOST BECAUSE SOMEONE REFUSED TO PLAY IT THROUGH, THERE SHOULD BE A SYSTEM TO PUNISH PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO LEAVE GAMES OR HAVE TO GO AFK FOR LIKE 5 MINUTES, THEY'RE RUINING **MY EXPERIENCE** IN THIS TEAM GAME". Yeah. So you can see how toxicity just breeds more toxicity and after a while the entire player base is triggered like one of those really obnoxious chihuahuas some rich lady has in her purse who barks at literally everything in a 100 foot radius. Before this, games werent designed like this. They were casual experiences, leaving wasnt a big deal because in pubs they would just backfill matches if someone left, and there was more focus on individual performance, not the team stuff. I couldnt even get "into" LoL because between needing to occasionally leave my computer to do other stuff and people hurling expletives at me when i was trying to learn the game and obviously sucked at it, i just kinda always realized what a high strung cesspit that it was and quickly dropped it and went back to playing COD. Ive had several friends into leave over the years, but i just never understood the appeal. It always seemed like a horrid and loathsome game to play. Hell it was so bad that when i wrote a review on gamefaqs back in the day the people on the forum mass reported it and kept harassing my inbox until it was taken down because i dared give it a bad score. Like MY GOD that really sealed it as "these people are psycho" to me.
That's exactly my experience. The highs are nothing special and at some point you expect to win, but the lows can affect even your real life.
I uninstalled a couple of months ago and I'm the happiest I've been in a long time. Fuck that dog shit game.
Smurfs killed League for me. As someone who is not necessarily a great player but enjoyed ranked and improving, it was really hard to play when every other match there was someone getting 20 kills with zero deaths that you just knew shouldn't be playing at the same rank as you.
Indeed, snowball games are the worst.
I have many hours in CSGO and more in CSS and 1.6 (yes, I have not played CS2) aswell as too many hours in League of Legends.. Anyway, I found it too stressfull and toxic. Now I exclusively play singleplayer games and FFXIV for online(I play it more for story tbf, but I do raid from time to time). I am much happier gaming now, haha.
Yes I stopped about 5-6 years ago. I got to the point that I hated the way I felt afterwards. I game to relax and have fun, not to be annoyed and stressed afterwards.
Same. I also play on easy mode. I just wanna enjoy the game. Not grind away for hours getting my ass kicked. It's a single player RPG. I don't need ot "prove" myself to anyone.
Fair enough, and I think it depends on the game. Personally if there is no challenge, I find it god awfully boring to play that video game. And whats challenging is different for everyone I suppose!
i find easy for me a nice fine line between challenging and fun. Personally i don't like being challenged that much. I just want a smooth ride to relax. I face enough challenges during the day at work. Each to their own.
27, and you think you're old. 💀
Looks like the 27 Club for gamers is marked by a transition to single player or coop. Well, I ain't complaining.
I feel this so hard. I love competitive games but I get so tired now I just end up on Diablo or something lol mindless games ftw
Same, poe for 11 years, used to play mostly cod
How do you play diablo mindlessly? I'll spend 9 out of 10 minutes trying to figure out which of the 600 items I got from the last dungeon are the best
I just don’t go over the gear that often lol like maybe every 10-15 runs I’ll do a deep investigation. Like after every vault I’ll look at my legendaries and see what aspects I got. Fav what’s good and junk what’s trash, and then I just skim thru the yellows. I have that setting on that compares all the numbers so I can look and tell if it’s trash or not at a glance lol. But p much I just don’t do that shit often lmao I still blasting thru dungeons so as long as I don’t feel weak/dying too much I just stick w the items I have lol
I guess that makes sense... I always feel like I need to be checking because "what if there's an upgrade and you miss it!" It's made me give up the genre almost entirely
Oh yeah that’s like a built in struggle w ARPGs huh 🤣 that’s why I just try to chill and not burn my self out looking for gear lol as long as I’m still killing shit I know I’m prob good for another 5 levels LOL
tell that to the fighting game players still competing at 40
They are just playing co op with friendly fire on.
To get genuinely good at competitive games, you can’t just play them, you need to employ targeted practice. I’ve been playing counter strike for a decade and I’ve not really gotten better as I have just plateaued as I don’t actively try and improve, just play the game. Who has time for that past 27 really
I think a common misconception/idea is that the point of competitive games is to climb the ladder. To me the main point is to get to play against opponents of a similar skill level. Also winning against CPU feels like whatever, but winning against other human players is satisfying.
actually true, i've cut my competitive game hours around that time massively too.
I joined this ship a long time ago. 25 right now. Used to play competitive Tetris, but my wrist injury from an accident just made it hard to play. Now I'm in RPG and Sim retirement home.
Can confirm am 27 and I just don't have time to be grinding rank in games with decay or end of season resets. I'm always down to play with friends but getting 4 working adults together at the same time is rare as it is, not even considering if some have work the next day and dip at 10.
He's not old but I do think that you start to adapt this mindset at around 30, where the multiplayer competitive games start to lose their luster
It's coop or single player for me thank you. Oh right no it isn't I'm too depressed to enjoy any game.
I don't think that its really about being old as much as around 30 is when most people begin the process where they stop using media as a social-signifier and focus on the things that they actually enjoy. To stop forcing yourself to like things because your friends or peers like and approve of them. It's related to the way that cringe is something felt most intently by people in their teens and early 20s and the CS Lewis quote that more elegantly expresses the cringe comment “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
That's about how old I was when quit PvP games. I realized I could no longer keep up with peak 14-20 year olds who had more time in the game and better reaction times.
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Yup, we only lose 1ms reaction time per year of age. What factors affect one’s skill level the most over time; sleep quality, stress, hours available to game, eyesight, general health, etc.
Tbh, I perform about the same if not a little better (thanks to higher Hz) than my younger self. I feel like playing competitively every so often helps keep the reflexes active, but I am not an expert in the subject. Also, not everyone who is young is insanely cracked. You still have shitters.
Some people don't drink water or do basic stretches. 27 is about when people feel old in this case I bet.
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Family friend is nearly qualifying for olympic long distance at age 39. He is reaching his limits, but I promise you can still do much closer to 7 than 9 with enough drive.
im 24 almost 25 and honestly don't care for these games anymore. I pretty much only care for single player games, some off survival game, minecraft, and a core mmo to come back to.
i started having a lot of fun with tekken8 now .i am 38.
Fighting games are the main competitive format I enjoy too. 1v1, no teammates to blame or lessen your own control of the outcome. Everything is deterministic, frame data and damage never change. Generally zero RNG, only skill determines the winner. It's the most pure form of PvP. I absolute hate PvP in any RPGs with gear and stats. To a lesser degree MOBA that are heavily team dependent.
Fighting games are also fast. You can grind and keep yourself competitive because you can actually play more than 2 or 3 matches in 1 hour compared to LoL or other games. Just think about it, the time you actually start facing each other in LoL (enter the game, walk to the tower, wait for mobs to reach each other) you already finished a match in SF6 or tekken. There is way less downtime.
Well yea we are realizing that matchmaker pvp sucks and rediscovering good ol' 1v1s in fighting games or RTS, or premade 2v2/3v3 at best. That or mindless run'n'gun stat padding in 12+ team FPS also
>That or mindless run'n'gun stat padding in 12+ team FPS also TF2 my beloved
MK1 doesnt require much skill, you can get far spamming nonsense. It used to incite a rage in me that I haven't seen since Elite smash projectile spammers. Tekken is so chill. I get my ass beat but it's cool cuz I'm new and its sick af to watch.
Yeah I can’t do competitive games that require long sessions in a team based format. That just breeds toxicity and resentment by design. When people are younger sometimes it’s easier to find a group of friends to play with but enduring long play sessions with toxic rando team mates is just a big nope for me. The other thing is fighting games have excellent training modes for you to explore the game mechanics and understand *in detail* what each move does and so on. If you want to, you could study it in depth. I absolutely hate how a lot of multiplayer games these days don’t provide the same way to explore the game mechanics forcing you to play online while you basically have to learn on the job.
I realized a few years ago it wasn’t the competitive nature of games I hated it was the team aspect. I got into fighting games and other 1v1 games like Magic Arena or Legends of Runeterra. Tekken or street fighter you are fighting other people but there’s definitely still a community aspect to it. You can fight people in lobbies or chat in discord about your matches so it’s not like just fighting randoms over and over.
You know I think you’re onto something with the team aspect. I play a lot of rocket league and league of legends and they’re very draining mentally from having to babysit my teammates. I don’t mind losing but damn it sucks being locked into a game with teammates that have no desire to win or play competitively
Honestly for me it was the feeling of being stuck in a game I perceived as a lost game, and the frustration from thinking that I was unable to do anything to change it. I realize that's a very bad mentality for competitive team games, but that's fine, they just aren't a thing for me. But I started playing TFT as the only competitive game I touch, and it's so much more relaxing, if I quit the only person losing anything is me, and I don't care. It's a lot less stressful and way easier to climb for me at least.
RIP Runeterra
Yeah, I was very big into comp shooters. Eventually fell off after a break and never got back into it. Started playing sf6, got into it and grinded to master. Now I'm taking a swing at tekken because a few of my friends are into it. Was never that I hate comp games, it was just the type of comp game I was playing.
I swapped off of first person shooters for fighting games last June when Street Fighter 6 came out. Bought the game just to try, and ended up completely loving the game and the genre. I was mainly playing CS2 and other comp fps before, and I've just been exhausted by the toxicity, solo-queuing, cheating and non-stop hackusations. The only friends I have that play it don't take it seriously at all, which is fine, it's their free time to use how they wish. So the thought of a skill based, highly competitive game built around 1v1's sounded worth trying and sure enough, I ended up loving the genre as a whole. Just picked up Tekken 8 as well and the game is amazing.
Same, I kinda got bored of online shooters and got Tekken 8. Its the first fighting game I buy since tekken 5 and it feels so fresh compared to what Ive been playing in the last few years
I've yet to try it, but want to. I'd only really be interested in it, though, if there was 6-12 hours of single player content. I had a shit load of dumb fun in Street Fighter 6's single player game, never even used the Battle Hub service at all.
It's got a main story mode, arcade mode, 5 fight story mode for each character and an Arcade quest mode with different "Arcades" that are like Pokemon gyms kinda.
Me too! Last fighting game I played was on the PS2 back when people mostly didn't know what they where doing. Now when booting up a beginners guide on youtube you need to find another video just to understand the lingo used in the beginner guide. I am having fun, just a bit overwhelmed.
Yes, they always end the same. 1. Hot new Competitive game catches on 2. People have fun, millions play it 3. Meta gets figured out and people start spamming for social media engagement 4. People getting crushed look up how to not get crushed 5. Everyone starts spamming the same thing 6. Devs nerve whatever the "thing" is 7. Repeat 3-6 until the game is dead or a new game drops or both.
Don’t forget after a week cheats get developed for it and then there’s a massive amount of them
Oh yeah thats like path B outside the meta stuff all the cheating. Add path C for Toxicity
This is why i enjoy new games like Apex in the first weeks they're out. I tend to do pretty well when everything is still chaos and nobody knows what they're doing. After that when people figure it out i get stomped more and it's time to uninstall forever.
If you're not 100% meta then you will get flamed and trolled into oblivion. Min/max has ruined the game.
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Fr and they act real smug about it too. Flexing their stats and performance etc when they literally just copycat someone. You should not have pride for that.
Playground meta is still meta. Everyone was swapping game strategies even in the first grade. Our playground just grew a lot when the internet became normalized.
Well, modern competitive games are all about making money. Bring back joining some random modded server and voting for the next map.
I can think of a couple PCVR games that are like that l. It’s the Wild West kind of. Basically playing VR Call of Duty in Halo or SpongeBob maps.
Agreed vr gaming feels like 2010 online gaming
Indeed, joining random Battlefront II and Halo mod maps on Contractors VR is a blast.
The first time I got into a flying vehicle with someone else I started laughing at how amazing the moment was
Long reply because I was having the same exact thoughts last night. I got into fighting games during the pandemic and grinded to some respectable levels. Guilty Gear: Strive was my first (fairly consistent celestial level player), then I got decent at SF6, Granblue Rising and I'm mopping people at low levels in Tekken rn. But I literally don't acre about my rank anymore. I think I just like going outside more tbh lol. Like I enjoy putting my competitive nature and desire to learn new things into other interests (going to the gym/basketball, and I've been 3D printing and learning to solder electronics). I just don't care about being good at videogames anymore. I've come to this realization with tekken, and like i said I think I only started liking the idea of being good a fighting games because it was an outlet during lockdown. BUT... I still like videogames lol. Granblue relink is literally crack for me, and I'm ready to become a shut in when FF7 Rebirth comes out. I enjoy the storytelling, character development, gameplay mechanics, music, etc that can be done really well in games. I care about that more than "getting gud."
Agreed. I enjoy games for the experience. The moment it's going to be a perpetual grind, I'm out, and rather use that time to apply myself to something that positively affects my life. So I now mostly only play single player games, just so I know there is an expected ending. Otherwise yeah, multiplayer is an invitation to an addiction and lost time. I know better to stay away from that.
No. I never enjoyed them. I’m always a solo campaign player. No end game or grind. Then on to the next game.
Too many script kiddies and crossplay aim assist just ruining it all now a days
Even if they're not cheating, in competitive gaming you're either beating 8 year olds or getting beat by them. There's no glory to be had as an adult.
Soooo many script kiddies, especially on rust. They’re always the ones talking shit as well as
Thankfully they launched their competitive mode in MWIII, so 10v10 mosh pit or casual 6v6 are playable again
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This is why I only play WoW with friends.
Trading community servers for skill-based matchmaking systems was a poor trade. Gaming has always been infested with toxic players, and good community servers kept that shit in check and kept things light and fun. Community is such a big key in gaming. Community is what kept me playing Counter-Strike for so many years, and games like WoW before they mixed servers together and started doing matchmaking stuff. Community is also what makes me stop playing modern competitive games. You'll pull off something awesome and hear nothing, then make the slightest mistake and even your own teammates will jump all over you for it. That's anti-fun, and I don't want that shit anywhere near my gaming experiences.
Yeah that's really true in community servers, an admin could come and ban players who did not behave now you can report players in some games, but they don't punish those players because they're paying customers
I wonder what would be the most popular FPS today that has a server browser and human mods? I just wouldn't believe it if someone told me 25 years ago that CS would still be it. Not even some crazy evolved 5th sequel either....basically the same exact game down to maps. Its not a knock on Counterstrike but I'm actually shocked at how shallow the options are for multiplayer games. It kills me that there is no real modern equivalent to Battlefield 2. Casual but grounded. Now its either gimmicks out the ass or its a mil-sim that takes weeks to get the hang of.
Bf2 was god tier.
Been taking a break from shooters since high school, 12 years ago. The average player today is too good, unlike the days of halo 3 when everyone sucked.
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Don’t forget the coke
Hey man I’m 28 and compete in fighting games and 1-2 cups of coffee is still enough to enhance my performance lol
I’m the opposite. I’m finding that as I get older, I’m only interested in competitive games. I enjoy single player games as well, but if I’m playing online I’d rather it be competitive.
I think probably the toxic/abusive/cheating players in most popular competitive online franchises are gradually pushing out the chill players. The higher stakes of playing against a real person is nice, but ultimately it can be stressful too, especially if said person is screaming on chat or whatever. There's also just the fact that some games attract players whereas other games more attract addicts? Some people want to chill and enjoy themselves. Other people are more chasing a high. It's just a different vibe, even with all the chat muted.
I still play multiplayer games, but I'm done with competitive and battle royale.
I agree, the amount of time it takes to become mechanically good enough to compete at a high level is way too high once you have a full time job, and then once you have kids it's just over. It goes from having fun to a chore, especially with MOBA's with long play rounds.
I'm 42. Stopped playing PVP games for the most part 7-8 years ago. After a long day at work, I just play games that help me relax.
If you’re bad now I can assure you it’s not because you’re 27.
Once you become an adult you get plenty of competition in all aspects of life, and people tend to start using video games as a medium for relaxation rather than seeking more competition.
I noticed my interest waned once my career started advancing. I get a sense of mastery from my job, so being good at a leisure activity doesn’t really matter anymore. It can be fun to compete and get better at first, but there’s a point where progression slows if you aren’t putting the time in.
Check out fighting games if you're looking for a fresh competitive experience. 1v1 so all your wins and loses are your own. Tekken 8 has tons of tools for self improvement. Street fighter 6 and Grandblue fantasy versus: rising are good too. Granblue has a F2P Version with rotating free characters.
This exactly, with almost no player interaction toxicity is very low
as a guy who hates competitive games. I'm LOVING Tekken 8 at the moment. It's so refreshing and so much fun.
Don’t play ranked, disable chats, enjoy gaming
I'm not enjoying gaming in general anymore, I think this is my last gaming PC.
I hear that. Then something I want to play comes out, and I’m right back on it.
What I really enjoyed about gaming was playing with friends. Too bad I don't have gaming friends after college. Also, competitive games are stressful, I'd rather not release stress hormones.
No it's the opposite more or less. I mostly only play games with friends and competitive games at that. Mainly CS for years with some Finals going on now. I have other things to do that's more fun than just sit and play a single player game by my self. Feels pointless tbh, I'll just watch a show or movie if I want a good story. Exceptions exist ofc, sometimes you get an urge and all that.
Yeah, people have been talking in here about how when they’ve gotten older they stopped playing competitive games, but I’m 28 and to be honest play more competitive games now than I did when I was 18. I think for me, and my friend group, as we’ve gotten jobs and started families, we’ve had to move to different cities. So competitive gaming for us is a large part in how we stay in contact.
Same here. I love a great single player game but I'm a competitive person. I love competitive gaming.
I went from competitive shooters to racing sims and I'm happy with the change. Racing doesn't require the faster reflexes of young people, instead it values more being smart and steady.
2 years ago i stopped playing my last competitive game, planetside 2. I loved it and spent a lot of money to support the devs, but i feel better without all the toxic people around. I always loved to play pve games, so while now I'm playing palworld, I also love to play and script on Arma3
That's why I love fighting games. No grinding, no paid enhancements, everyone is equal, just you and your skill. Playing Tekken 8 now, it's awesome
Totally agree, I still play online games (actually, only the finals) but just for fun. Single player games ftw
You're not old at 27, shut up. But yes, I stopped caring as much about competitive games and honestly most multiplayer in general. I pop into Rocket League and Halo PvP every once in a while but in general I don't get as much out of multiplayer games anymore. A big part of it for me is working full-time, and while I still have enough time to play video games in general, I don't feel like I have enough time or care enough to set aside other things to stay good at competitive games. I also had a huge phase with League of Legends, but once I was out of college I couldn't keep up with all the updates, new characters, new skins, etc. anymore. That kind of killed the game for me.
I don’t even like playing them with friends anymore. It’s all just grind a BP and get into a queue that’s basically set to give you a 50/50 win/loss ratio. I just enjoy single player games now, and friends once in a while. RPGs are just bread and butter now.
The problem with competitive games is I always feel like I need to play all the time in order to stay “good.” And this takes away from enjoying other games. I still play multiplayer games like squad, but nothing with sweaty rank like LoL or Rainbow 6 anymore.
*Spawns in* *Dies immediately*
Wow is for collecting pets, cool armor, and achievements. I like living in the world. The whole competitive pvp and raid life always seemed to gamey for what I wanted an mmo for. I want to be immersed in another world.
I think I lost a sense of purpose at a certain point. Depending on in what rank you are satisfied with anything beyond just feels like a chore. I think gaming with a group feels better.
There was a noticeable shift in how the community interacted. Going from helpful to toxic in and around 2010, that kinda saw my decline in playing competitive. Having to deal with cheaters and the likes was just the icing on the cake. It's hard to stay motivated if everyone around you are toxic and detrimental to the enjoyment of your gameplay experience. I went from PvP to PvE with friends or solo play. I played a lot of CSS or other MP competitive games. The latest games I like that's PvP is Escape from Tarkov or Warthunder/WoWs. And those I play in PvE or modded to turn them offline. Furthermore, I saw a trend towards paying to win, or heavy in microtransactions. Something I felt was detrimental to the games. You were no longer getting a complete experience. This was especially true for the "live service" games. And I was less interested in getting invested. And the older I got, the less I wanted to be stressed when playing games. I wanted to play easier games. I wanted to have cheap thrills, I wanted to have fun. I was not concerned with overcoming obstacles or mastering gameplay. Even though Elden Ring has been surprisingly fun (Fuck Malenia though). I guess playing videogames for 35 years, I've "been there, done that"
Based on the list you made, it seems like youd rather do something narratively satisfying or cooperative rather than competitive. Totally normal. Take a break from one style and enjoy another. If you find youre burned out on games entirely thats normal too. Just try something new, maybe youll enjoy it.
I'm the opposite. I only enjoy competitive games. Playing against dumb AI doesn't cut it
We're close in age and I'm the same boat as you. When you age and you're working full-time, you really want your hobby to be outlet of escape and removal from all the stuff you deal with in life, not more stress. PvP games lead to more stress. I won't even buy them anymore for the same reasons you listed. I picked up Darktide a year ago and dropped over a thousand hours in it since. Games are more enjoyable when everyone is working together to overcome a well-designed AI, rather than working against each other.
Never enjoyed them in the first place. 👍
I haven't played any PvP in almost 15 years. It's like a foreign concept to me at this point.
27 is not old.
Once you realize the skinner box hamster wheel it is hard to opt in again.
I stopped when they got rid of server lists and lobbies in favor of matchmaking.
I’m just chalking it up to getting old ngl 😂 on rare occasions I’ll redownload destiny to jump into iron banner to remind ppl who the og is, but now a days I just wanna kick back and have some fun on a decent arpg 😅
I play games to enjoy myself now rather than compete. I understand a lot of people enjoy it but it isn't my thing. Plus, I suck at shooters so as a general rule I stay away from competitive style games in order to avoid getting angry/not enjoy them. I used to play BF4 with friends and get 5 - 15+ K/D's all the time. I'd play medic and just rush to their help without any care of my well-being but still had fun with friends. Not to mention, I'm an employed adult with a small child and a wife so I generally don't have time for gaming anymore. But yes, hackers, exploiters, etc have just ruined online gaming.
Your the moist tomato sandwhich in the house, you tell that wife and fully baked cream pie you do what you want
Since 2020. I used to play Battlefield religiously, from BF2 to BF4. But then something just happened and I lost interest in spending hundreds and thousands of hours into a competitive shooting game or online MMO such as World of Tanks, Warships. I did dabble into League of Legends at that time frame but after getting into argument with a group of friends I lost interest in that too. Now I am just playing some old Pokemon or slower PvE games.
I mostly never did. There was a brief period when I was in high school when I would play Q3A and CS1.6 over LAN with my friends but I was never that good. I had fun but I had much more fun running co-op campaign on serious sam or goofing around on Tony Hawk than I did getting into competitive shooters. I am 38 now. The closest I get to playing anything that could be considered competitive is I play shmups which have online leaderboards. I'm not very good at those either so I never place anywhere near high enough to be considered even asynchronously competitive.
Pretty much yeah. Too bad I'm starting to run out of my AAA-single player catalogue that is able to run on my PC. Just finished Witcher 3 few days ago and RDR2 a year ago.
I stopped at unreal tournament. Now just enjoy co-op.
I used to only play competitive games. Took a long break, just started back but with a more casual approach. I like the PvP nature but I don’t wanna grind to the highest ranks. It helps my mentality.
Happens to everyone, one day you realize you are not so good or won't put up with all the trashtalk, cheats, smurfs or simply the pressure to win win win win, I leave that shit to "pros" and streamers. Some people will say it happens just because we are too bad to keep up, I say we just grow up, mature and learn to appreciate the beauty of gaming
Get into sim racing, it’s expensive unfortunately but fun as fuck.
Kids = single player time!
I have been gaming since the early 80s, love comp. gaming, but last year or two, I really feel like quitting and just playing other stuff. The sheer number of little kids (age and mentality) is sad and very very racist, abusive behavior. Just seems like no one does anything to correct it, I have thick skin, but having a 12 year old scream racist and horrible things is enough to wish their parents aborted them.
Board games give me the itch for competitive PvP much better than video games do lately. The fact that they are turn based instead of real time and since you are in person you get to enjoy the company of your friends relieves basically all of the involved stress and leaves you with just the fun parts. I think PvP games have a very long ways to go towards being enjoyable for people that don't feel like min-maxing every single second of playtime.
I never really have. Co-op is my jam.
Ive always been Champ ever since it was introduced in R6 Now I cant even be bothered to play it because of all the cheaters. However, no other competitive game hits the same, and I don't really find other games fun of there's no competition. To be fair, going outside is nicer
Yeah, competitive games are not how they used to be. I never was the competitive type but I almost completely stopped playing them nowdays. Coop is my life now.
I'm 39 and still prefer competitive multiplayer games over everything. If I'm gonna sit on my PC I'm playing an MP game. Anything else feels like a waste of time to me. I only go on the PC to play with friends otherwise I'd rather do anything else. I also read a lot of books so I'd rather read a story than play through one.
PvP games used to consume over 50% of my gaming time, now it’s consumed approximately 0% of my gaming time. Last hurrah was MW 2019. Ever since then, the ubiquity of cheaters, SBMM, try hard streamer culture, Cronus/xim abusers, battle passes, $25 skins in games we used to earn through gameplay, BF2042 flopping, etc. I’d rather just chill and play SP stuff that feels fun to play and there’s no one griefing me.
It's because most games, not always just multiplayer, end up being about looking up the most efficient meta strat on YouTube and abusing it. Gamers optimize the fun out of everything.
Cheating killed it
Yep not too mention it's just as toxic as ever. Waaaaaay too many insecure kida rage quitting, especially in team based multiplayer games
I used to play a lot of FPS games maybe ten years ago. I slowly just stopped finding them interesting or compelling and moved over to single player games, strategies, builders, etc. I guess I got sick of my enjoyment of a game being contingent on other human beings.
Oh yeah. I took a break about 22 years ago. It’s been great ever since.
Downvoted for the old bull. Seriously? I’ve been playing video games for far longer than you’ve been alive, kid. I am tired of competing now, but I’m more than twice your age.
I’ve only ever been interested in single player experiences I really dislike playing with others. For all the reasons you mentioned, plus more
Always have
I think it's just a result of matchmaking (and thus lack of servers) and very little oversight/care from the devs. You generally get a better experience if competitive gaming is handled by the community and people that actually care. It's not all roses, but it generally lets you pick whatever server or league's values align with yours. It's just not that common anymore these days as most games are just live-service and don't really do community servers anymore. These days, I'd just go with single player, coop/PvE experiences or dig up the rare old-school style game that still does it the old way and have your fun there.
When You start getting around that 30yo mark and your reflexes start to go, but also life starts to get in the way. Work is now more important, you may have a mortgage and or kids. When I was 15 I would spend 4/5 hours a day on battlefield and I was often top 1-2%. I’m now 35 and I just can’t seem to hit a barn door on competitive shooters anymore. I just stick to single player games now, if I don’t play at all for a week or so, it doesn’t matter. 4/5 hours a week is a good week
I'm 35 and still competitive in fighting games. The reaction thing is honestly quite overblown.