Lately, the more time I spend in online games I’ve been (more frequently than before) coming across players that essentially don’t play games to their fullest extent. I’m not talking about grinding meta builds, sweating off in ranked game modes or combing through online forums for the best way to play. I am talking about ,for example, playing R6S and never participating in the drone phase, never using your operator’s abilities and never creating rotation holes. I don’t mind players not knowing what these things are or not playing the game optimally. I do mind simply turning your brain off and just run around to try and farm kills. This is a player not wanting to play R6 as they refuse to interact with what sets it apart and I can only wonder if this is because they are forcing themselves to play/like the game either because it has the “tactical” tag to it or because a popular streamer played it recently. Said players would be happier just playing another faster paced game. I am using R6 as the main example but there are multiple games when that also applies, like tanks in MMOs not marking enemies, people in BFs not spotting hostiles and drivers in racing sims refusing to let go of the gas pedal to take a corner. That’s it though from me I just wanted to blow off some steam and get my words out. GG
Edit: Peole are misunderstanding my post. I don’t care if people don’t sweat their balls off in a game. I’m not that good in most online games that I play either and I almost exclusively play single player RPGs. My point is that people that DO play a game in ranked for example, a pretty difficult co-op game or a survival hardcore sim and don’t interact with the game mechanics is an ongoing pandemic in gaming. If you play a game like HD2 and ignore your team and just treat it like COD zombies you are not going to win. Your team is going to lose and you won’t get any points for upgrading your gear or buying new stuff. You have to meet the game itself halfway. You have to interact with its mechanics that set it apart. You don’t need to play in the hardest difficulty, when you play games like R6S you don’t need to climb the ranked ladder- hop on quick play or unranked (once upon a time we used to have Terrorist Hunt). I mean to say that a lot of people buy into those games and they decide instead of playing the game the way they want to they play it the way need to. “I like to play the game casually” then play it casually- don’t hop on the most competitive modes of the game because YOU aren’t going to have fun. If you like chiller more arcade-y games then play chiller more arcade-y games there is no need to buy a game that by design is not for your tastes.
Edit (2): This is fun I like talking to you guys about this stuff!
This mindset from people is what makes online multiplayer games unplayable for me.
I don’t get a lot of time to play games as an adult. When I do, I don’t particularly want people telling me how I should be having fun. There is this weird competition that happens where you need to know everything about a game before you are allowed to partake in the game. It sucks to have missed out on so many experiences, but i guess my not playing sub-optimally made someone else’s experience better, so it’s all good.
No man, by all means you bought the game enjoy it however you want. But be real, if you play Ranked in a competitive online game then are expected to at least understand the games mechanics. If not, why not stick to standard? That’s what irritates me.
If you want to figure out how good you are and enjoy a challenge you play ranked. If the ranked system is good you should rarely or never play with teammates less knowledgeable and less skilled than you.
I don’t think we need a higher barrier of entry for ranked. Just accept that the skill variance happens on both sides and focus on your own game. If you can mentor that is nice and helpful if done right.
I get it man, you’re playing competitive online games and not want to be stuck with randoms, but that’s just the way it is.
But I don’t suppose I have to tell you that you really shouldn’t feel obligued to tell people what should and shouldn’t be fun for them in games that they spent their hard earned money on?
School and job is exhaustive my man, add it to it how stressful and hard to learn online games are and it should be easy to understand that most people may not be willing to put extra effort into being competitive in them, but they still want and deserve to have fun in them on their own rules.
Like I’ve said it the post it’s not the “playing bad” that makes irritates me, everyone has a different skill level. What I’m trying to say is that people that run head first into the safe room in L4D and abandon their team, or people that play games like HD2 on the hardest difficulty and just run off from their team and spam stratagems. Clearly these types of players don’t want to engage in cooperating with other players yet choose co-op games. They end up not having fun as solo diving enemies ends up in death while the rest of the team has to cover for a +1 .
Every example you just mentioned is a demonstration of “playing bad” in my book. What would you descibe as “playing bad”? Just aiming issues? Or reaction times? Surely that would be to reductive.
Using competitive online games as an example in my post was a mistake. Think D&D. You can’t really play the game 100% how you want. You need to keep the other players (+DM) in mind. If your rolls suck or your plans don’t work out in the end doesn’t annoy me at all -its just a game after all. What I do find annoying is a player treating D&D as a single player RPG, running around on their own, trying to make the story resolve around themselves and not cooperating with the party. If that’s how a player wants to play the game maybe they should stick to living room D&D or Roll20. If said player joins a table at a local hobby shop some form of etiquette and understanding of the game is required. If they decide to play as a murderhobo that constantly ruins the experience of the other players they will be reprimanded or even kicked out. Instead they should either choose to join murderhobo games, stick to aforementioned living room D&D or start up a videogame. Play the game how you want by all means I don’t mean to take it away from anyone. Just know the when and how is my point. Just because you bought siege doesn’t mean you HAVE to play ranked. You like the game casually or play off work/college then join unranked or quick-play. Gamers today feel like they have to fit tightly in their respective communities instead of playing the games how they want to and that ends up ruining their teammates and ,most importantly, the player themselves.
Ok, thank you for clarifying, I get what you mean now. As I understand it you’re mad at players playing egotistically and treating others as NPCs. I would say that that is a more general social issue, that isn’t limited to gaming. Sadly, you’ll have to just deal with it.
Odd logical leap from the post to the title.
Maybe play solo games like fighting games instead?
Yeah I don’t post stuff on the internet so it does come off a little ramble-y not gonna lie.
To combat the ramble-y-ness of your posts you should try to add more paragraphs. That makes it easier for your readers to take a short pause while reading.
For the topic at hand, I basically don’t play any multiplayer games precisely because it is too much work to keep up with the current meta. It seems to me that often enough what the game teaches you in the tutorial is not what you have to do in the real thing to succeed.
Add to that that many people don’t even pay attention to the good things of tutorials and you get a horde of brainless people just doing the bare minimum to pass by.
As to why they play ranked, at least to me ranked play comes with the promise of match making. That you get paired up with players of a similar skill. In theory that should give you a 50% win rate. I’d play ranked exactly so that I get lumped in with players who are as bad as me.
Hmm… I read your edit, and I think you’re kinda overlooking the hard truth here: you can come up with a list of 1,000 things players “have to” do, but if the game doesn’t enforce them, they’re not gonna happen.
You can rant out of frustration all you want, but you have no control over anyone except yourself, and trying to tell people what to do will only piss them off.
You’re also making a lot of baseless assumptions. How do you know how much they enjoy the game? Maybe they choose to engage with the parts they like and leave the rest out, they’re happy this way, and the game lets them. Who are you to tell them what to do?
Again, ranting is fine, but you gotta have self-awareness, otherwise you’re gonna get nothing but negative reactions.
Probably just dumb kids who don’t understand how to play but heard friends in school talk about it. Or people like me who are caught up in life and even though I want to play I never really have the time that the games require.
I’ve been a computer gamer since 1980 and, apart from a really excellent few years playing Unreal Tournament in a clan in the early 2000s, have entirely played solo.
Like others, I have a life. People don’t get upset online if I get called away from the PC for a while. Or upset IRL if I’m focusing on a team game instead of them.
I’m not waiting around until we’ve got a group together. I’m not getting angry at a team-mate for accidentally fragging me. I’m not apologising for accidentally fragging someone else. I don’t have to put up with someone else’s childish taunting, or racist/offensive views. I don’t have an over-sugared twelve year old screaming into my ears because they found the fire button.
I would like more big open-world games that have a decent solo-first experience, but otherwise this way fits me nicely and your message only reinforces that for me.
Totally understandable, and I don’t mean to drive people away from online games or put their skill set through a purity test. My point is: Hey if you don’t like sweaty games, don’t play sweaty games (or their sweaty game modes like ranked in most games) and if you do try to meet the game halfway. If I play Outward the way I play Fallout I’m going to have a bad time. That goes double for online games.
