How much do you care about winning?

[The Wykydtron]

Ok, so we would all prefer to win our games, that's a given but how much does winning really matter to you? Must you always, always win or dang it there goes my good mood :/ or are you happy to just sometimes win and shrug off the few losses or somewhere inbetween? Does it vary from game to game?

Personally, I was so mad in UMVC3 for the longest time. I got to 7th Lord and there was this brick wall of teams that were clearly made for maximum synergy and fuck all else, obvious I know but I still believe in rolling with character loyalty. My team of Phoenix Wright, X-23 and Vergil/Amaterasu was getting so badly stomped I swear.

Ok, fun game of Find the Synergy. PW up front, X-23 in second and Vergil in back. I can find one point of synergy and fuck all else.

It just dawned on me one day that I was having zero fun with the game anymore, so how pointless was winning? In the space of a few days I went from 7th to 9th Lord (that's backwards for anyone not familiar with the game) then down to Fighter the next week. My win loss is now like 356 wins to 334 losses now, it was steady at 300-ish to 150-ish for the longest time. I don't care at all.

Pretty much outright dropped the Salt in one day, who knew it was possible?

Vergil is still either this ultimate 1v3 dunking machine or this flailing failure of "lol how do I Vergil?" it varies from game to game. I can't drop him though because he's so cool!

Same with BlazBlue except I am this full-time almost mediocre Noel and my Rachel is so, so bad. I don't care, Noel is fun and Rachel is just... Rachel.

LoL is a weird one, I shouldn't care about winning really but losing, or rather the process of losing is just generally unfun in that game so I do care. Not as much as some people I know but I do care!

Basically, you lose one Inhib and you lose all sense of fun, in my experience. Kinda 'tarded

 

[FalloutJack]

Winning the game is enjoying the game. Winning against living opponents is fun, but not quite as necessary.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Mm. Depends on the game. In Starcraft 2 I lived my wins and felt my losses quite keenly, to the point where I'd often have to "quit on a win" in order to have a good feeling, and a chain of losses would drive me mental. It got to the point where I had to stop playing because it was becoming too stressful.

 

[Vegosiux]

I'd rather fail while having a blast than win while doing a tedious grind.

Now when it comes to competitive multiplayer, the only thing that pisses me off is the immaturity of some people, be they allies or opponents. My usual take on PvP losses is "Well, you win some, you lose some". Having played a good game matters more, especially in team based games.

 

[Dead Seerius]

Can't say that winning MP matches online really affects me at all. For me it's all about the actual time I'm playing. If I perform well but my team loses, I feel great anyway. And if I do awful but my team wins, I'll probably feel disappointed for a moment.

 

[Ambulo]

Mm. Depends on the game. In Starcraft 2 I lived my wins and felt my losses quite keenly, to the point where I'd often have to "quit on a win" in order to have a good feeling, and a chain of losses would drive me mental. It got to the point where I had to stop playing because it was becoming too stressful.

For me, it wasn't the rinse-and-repeat formula, but this experience you're describing that made me stop playing COD, I think around the MW2 timeframe. Call of Duty just made me too tense. When friends or family would call in the middle of the game, I would get irritated and it showed in my tone of voice. I could have had a great night, winning for hours straight. Then a good party of players would join and destroy our team, and I'd be unwilling to turn the game off until I got a couple of wins under my belt. Seriously, afterwards I would need almost an hour just to get myself down for bed for the night, even if I ended on a solid streak.

Battlefield never felt like this. Maybe because it feels more team-oriented, or maybe because the pace is slower. More of my friends play this, so it would be easier to get a squad going, maybe that's the difference. I'm not really sure if it was really any one thing, its just that losses in BF:BC and BF3 just didn't bother me.

I don't play many other online games, but I will say that Forza is another game I don't mind not coming in 1st in. The wins feel awesome, but that's a game where you can really just appreciate your own performance, and work to improve if it doesn't get you a victory.

 

[Zhukov]

I don't mind so much as long as I'm not getting absolutely whooped.

I'd rather lose a close game than win by a landslide. Curb-stomping the opposition isn't fun. I just feel sorry for them because I know they're probably not having fun.

 

[The Madman]

As long as I'm enjoying myself it's all good. Some of my favourite online matches tend to be those where I'm losing but putting up one helluva fight, especially if the other player(s) is cordial about it. Those GG's at the end feel well deserved and everyone had a fun time, can't ask for a better online experience win or lose.

Same for singleplayer, so long as it feels like it's something that makes sense I'm fine with losing whether it be a battle in a strategy game or a scripted plot moment.

This is also something some games get wrong, where they make the player lose in a manner that feels unfair or cheap. I can't count the amount of times in games my protagonist has been 'captured' and all I could think was "I could easily have taken those guys, what the hell?".

 

[oplinger]

i like having fun, but what's sort of important is at least attempting to win <.<

If I fail that's fine, if I win, cool. I just hate it when I join a match and people are just...doing whatever, and are actually hostile about doing the objective and maintain that they'd rather the team lose as long as they get to go off and do fuck all.

Really, there's a goal there, you're trying to reach it >.> if you're not going to...why bother playing? You can go do nothing somewhere else..

 

[Smolderin]

Hrm....depends on the circumstance. Lets take Starcraft 2 for instance...I had to quit the ladder games of that game entirely. I don't know why, but with Starcraft 2, whenever I lose...man...my self esteem gets lowered. However.....anytime else...I am completely fine.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Winning doesn't matter to me too much. I prefer to focus on my own performance. I tend to be let down by my team alot anyway so as long as I'm playing well I'm happy.

 

[Erttheking]

Not a whole lot in single player. In Multiplayer...eh...more than I really should.

 

[Hira]

Multiplayer... Not really. Depending on the game and how fun the match was, I'll ask for a rematch or two. But only if it was fun.
Single player... TONS. I don't care how long I need to practice, I WILL clear Boss Battles on Intense Difficulty with Jigglypuff, dammit. ><
That said, I don't get sucked in enough to be unable to take a break and look at different ways to try things. Guess I'm flexible?

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Not much, really.
Sure, winning's always nice but I play for fun. That said, I don't like being told where I am in the scoreboard. If I'm in first or last I start to get nervous and feel like I need to keep my game up/get my head in the game. Which, ironically enough, is when I start to falter. I'm actually really good when I play for fun, but not so good when I play to win.
Funny how that works.

 

[Ljs1121]

I don't play multiplayer much, but when I do I tend to just do whatever I can to have fun.

Typically that means either acting completely stupid and doing terrible or trying my best and finishing near the top. There's really no middle ground with me.

In competitive games, though, I tend to not worry about my overall placing, but rather to set a goal for myself. In Call of Duty, I'll maybe make it a goal to get ten kills or two killstreak rewards. In Assassin's Creed, I'll try to get a certain amount of points by the game's end. That method seems more rewarding since I don't feel as much pressure as I would trying to finish first in the lobby, and it's not a big deal if I don't make it. There's always next game!

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

Not much. The prospect of winning, however, I find to be pretty entertaining. That's why I'll generally back out of a game where I'm being completely and utterly thrashed, but will be having fun during a streak of close losses.

 

[bswmagic]

I feel like this post was made for me haha. This is something I've been struggling with recently since I started playing black ops 2. Now, I've been playing cod since late in the mw2 era, and at this point I'm the best cod player I personally know. I learned early on to be an objective player and to go for the win before worrying so much about the k/d. For me the k/d tends to be positive, but never really bugs me if its not. For those unfamiliar with it, blops 2 has made a huge push to reward obj players such as myself which is lovely and you'd think it would serve as at least a hint for people to focus on the obj, yet the vast majority of people still just ignore it. Since I also play solo 99% of the time it leads to me being the only player on my team going for the obj, and then dying a ton of times in the process since i have no help. with no team support we lose the match and my k/d is shit. This in turn leads to me raging and any sort of good mood I was in vanishing.

tl/dr?

Play the obj and get low k/d + win > high k/d + loss

winning is my motivation to play and how I have fun with videogames. It keeps me and my team in good spirits which generally leads to more good games after get on a roll.

also since i usually play solo on ps3,
if any other cod players are of a similar mind and go for the win feel free to message/add me on psn: BSW_Magic

 

[Sacman]

Not at all... infact I don;t like winning and just do my best to sabatoge myself...<.<