Poll: Competitive multiplayer success handling

[Jordi]

In most games success is rewarded in some way. You get more money, gear or experience points when you show more skill at the game. This mechanism is also used often in competitive multiplayer games, such as shooters or race games. Shooters will often reward kills or kill streaks access to better weapons, other gear, stats or some sort of reinforcements. Race games might give you more "turbo" if you manage not to bump into stuff for longer periods of time, or let you buy/earn better cars.

In a way this makes sense to me: success is rewarded. But on the other hand, it also magnifies the differences in skill between players. If one player is already better than a friend, the game is probably not going to be very exciting. The better player would win in equal circumstances, let alone with the bonuses he might earn.

There is also another approach. One that helps the weaker player make an exciting game out of it. In an old Need for Speed game that I used to play you could enable "catch up". This basically made your car go faster when you were behind. In shooters, the game could give a losing player reinforcements (although no examples spring to mind).

So, what approach do you prefer? I omitted boring options like "it depends" and "both" from the poll, but obviously they can be discussed in the thread.

 

[Tibs]

I think winners should be rewarded, but people who are losing should get some sort of buff to help them compete.

Winners should always be rewarded, but lets throw a bone to people who are not always winners, make their game time more enjoyable.

 

[Terminate421]

Shooters should do everything to nerf competition and make it just fun. Competitive players ruin the experience for non-competitive gamers who are just out to blow shit up.

The sad part is Halo: Reach has to have DMR's everywhere other wise "MLG" Junkies attack Bungie

The good news is that the Assault Rifle got an upgrade so now its still fair and KILLS MLG junkies.

I love machine guns so Halo became even more fun than it once was, I don't want accurate rifles just because "It takes skill" I want to have fun. If it takes skill, you should be able to kill me with you're pistol when I have a rocket launcher.

 

[Jordi]

I would personally like to see a lot more of the "helping the weaker player" mechanic.

A couple years ago I was playing on LAN with 7 friends and two of them played COD 4 on a weakly basis, while the rest of us never played it (and very rarely played Counter-Strike: Source, which is the shooter we had played at previous LANs). They insisted they'd be in a team together (because they were best friends), and their team was basically raping us completely. We were basically killed non stop. The other team was already better off knowing the weapons and the maps, but they could also often see us on their mini-maps and call in air strikes earned with their frequent kill streaks, making it even more unfair.

At first, their characters were actually better (level 55), but we fixed that. Then, I apparently selected a weapon that was considered overpowered and a noob weapon (guess what, I am a noob). My friend started complaining that I was using it for this reason, but the game was actually a lot more fun, because it was much closer now that my team selected this better weapon. After a while, everybody basically agreed that while they didn't really mind killing us non stop, it was actually a lot more thrilling this way, because the matches were so much closer.

It would be nice to see this in more games. Give the losing team reinforcements (which kind of makes sense), or better "supplies" or something. Ideally I would combine this with rewards for success that don't actually help the player win. For instance, you could give them achievements, new costumes, or perhaps even new classes/skills/weapons as long as they are not more powerful than the starting classes/skills/weapons.

 

[zehydra]

You can help the weaker player by simply creating a lobby for weaker players only. Only anybody with a KDR of ___ or lower can enter it. It's what Combat Arms did, and I approve. I dislike trying to give buffs though to the losers (or winners) though.

 

[zehydra]

Shooters should do everything to nerf competition and make it just fun. Competitive players ruin the experience for non-competitive gamers who are just out to blow shit up.


Racing games, however, are 100% for the competition. So for them I say leave well enough alone. Faster car is faster.

But why? There is no logical reason to support nerfing shooters but not racing games.

 

[zehydra]

Shooters should do everything to nerf competition and make it just fun. Competitive players ruin the experience for non-competitive gamers who are just out to blow shit up.


Racing games, however, are 100% for the competition. So for them I say leave well enough alone. Faster car is faster.

But why? There is no logical reason to support nerfing shooters but not racing games.

Let me embolden such reasoning, which you completely and entirely missed in the very post you quoted.

Shooters should do everything to nerf competition and make it just fun. Competitive players ruin the experience for non-competitive gamers who are just out to blow shit up.

But since that didn't explain it, I shall elaborate slightly.

Racing games are all about the competition. There is nothing else there. Even players just in it for lulz are racing to win.

But in shooters there's people, myself included, who are just playing because they're bored and want to fill their screen with juicy, cell-shaded, hat-covered violence. It doesn't matter if we win or lose. However, people like me tend to get annoyed when a competitive player shows up and ruins that fun. We can't get thirty feet from spawn without getting blasted, we can't get to the fun without getting backstabbed, and we can't go around a single corner without someone backburning us. It's fucking annoying.

so that's why I think they should either be nerfed or be forced onto servers full of their own kind. Whatever it takes to get them away from people who are just having fun blindly spamming explosive pills into hallways.

except that there are indeed people who play racing games just to be able to drive like crazy without any real care to the results of the race.

If you're annoyed by players actually playing the game, then I suggest you find yourself an fps sandbox where you can blow stuff up all you want without any interference. Perhaps something like Gary's mod.

 

[Lullabye]

More of what Demon's Souls did. A combination of 2&3.

 

[zehydra]

except that there are indeed people who play racing games just to be able to drive like crazy without any real care to the results of the race.

Never met one. Even the people just in it to screw around are racing with the rest of us.

If you're annoyed by players actually playing the game, then I suggest you find yourself an fps sandbox where you can blow stuff up all you want without any interference. Perhaps something like Gary's mod.

I guess I'd be correct in assuming you're one of the competitive players against which I rail regularly. There's no other reason you'd tell me that if I'm annoyed by players 'actually playing the game' I should go elsewhere. This also tells me that your assumption is that players just screwing around in an FPS aren't playing the game, which couldn't be farther than the truth. Hell I have more caps than competitive players more often than not because, in taking the game seriously, they focus on their KDR as opposed to, oh idunno, CAPPING THE POINT! MAGGOTS! Capping the point is pretty easy when those derps are out killwhoring since they never leave anyone guarding the point and they never come running when someone starts capping.


In that case I can't take you seriously. Do remember that you ruin it for those of us who are just playing to blow stuff up.

Just like a Basketball player ruins a game of basketball for the one golf player on the team. Hell all the golf player wanted to do was shoot hoops.

 

[TerranReaper]

except that there are indeed people who play racing games just to be able to drive like crazy without any real care to the results of the race.

Never met one. Even the people just in it to screw around are racing with the rest of us.

If you're annoyed by players actually playing the game, then I suggest you find yourself an fps sandbox where you can blow stuff up all you want without any interference. Perhaps something like Gary's mod.

I guess I'd be correct in assuming you're one of the competitive players against which I rail regularly. There's no other reason you'd tell me that if I'm annoyed by players 'actually playing the game' I should go elsewhere. This also tells me that your assumption is that players just screwing around in an FPS aren't playing the game, which couldn't be farther than the truth. Hell I have more caps than competitive players more often than not because, in taking the game seriously, they focus on their KDR as opposed to, oh idunno, CAPPING THE POINT! MAGGOTS! Capping the point is pretty easy when those derps are out killwhoring since they never leave anyone guarding the point and they never come running when someone starts capping.


In that case I can't take you seriously. Do remember that you ruin it for those of us who are just playing to blow stuff up.

So you're saying competitive players only go after kills and not for objectives? I'm starting to get a feeling you don't know what you're talking about. A competitive player would be someone that actually does go for objectives and actually does defend it, otherwise, he would just be someone who does nothing but "kill-whore". Also, you say you have no problems with losing but yet you have a problem with these people and then you state you have no problem being better than them. If that is the case, then what is the problem?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

except that there are indeed people who play racing games just to be able to drive like crazy without any real care to the results of the race.

Never met one. Even the people just in it to screw around are racing with the rest of us.

If you're annoyed by players actually playing the game, then I suggest you find yourself an fps sandbox where you can blow stuff up all you want without any interference. Perhaps something like Gary's mod.

I guess I'd be correct in assuming you're one of the competitive players against which I rail regularly. There's no other reason you'd tell me that if I'm annoyed by players 'actually playing the game' I should go elsewhere. This also tells me that your assumption is that players just screwing around in an FPS aren't playing the game, which couldn't be farther than the truth. Hell I have more caps than competitive players more often than not because, in taking the game seriously, they focus on their KDR as opposed to, oh idunno, CAPPING THE POINT! MAGGOTS! Capping the point is pretty easy when those derps are out killwhoring since they never leave anyone guarding the point and they never come running when someone starts capping.


In that case I can't take you seriously. Do remember that you ruin it for those of us who are just playing to blow stuff up.

You could find a server full of people who like to screw around, and leave the competitive players to compete on their servers, you know. Alltalk enabled servers tend to be a lot more laid back, since strategizing with your team is a lot more difficult than chatting with the other team is.

OT: A game should be balanced. Don't give winning players an additional advantage, but don't go all Mario Kart on the losing players, either. If a team keeps losing, the developers should include some kind of scramble mechanism, and that should be enough to balance things out; afterall, it's the team as a whole that wins a multiplayer match, not a single player. As for Free For All and standard Death Match modes, it's just a part of the game that the weaker player is going to get his butt kicked. If you aren't good enough to handle yourself in a free for all, and losing upsets you instead of giving you a lesson in what not to do, go play a team based game and learn the ropes with a safety net.

 

[theevilsanta]

The question is whether or not you want the game to be truly competitive - ie serious, organized tournaments that people train for. If that's your goal, giving help to the losing player/team is very risky for balance. Giving advantages to the winning team is usually a good idea though.

If you want a just fun for everyone multiplayer then I think giving advantages to the losing player/team is great. The Midway method has been making super close, exciting matches for years.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

You could find a server full of people who like to screw around, and leave the competitive players to compete on their servers, you know. Alltalk enabled servers tend to be a lot more laid back, since strategizing with your team is a lot more difficult than chatting with the other team is.

That's precisely what I do but that doesn't stop some who insist on showing up anyways. Nice job assuming I'm too dumb to go to a relaxed server, though. Brilliant!

So you're saying competitive players only go after kills and not for objectives?

As a matter of fact, yes. I have yet to observe one who was going after objectives. They're always the ones with 30:2 KDRs, they're always the ones talking trash and ruining it for people who want to enjoy a round of game X, and they're always complete assholes.

A competitive player would be someone that actually does go for objectives and actually does defend it, otherwise, he would just be someone who does nothing but "kill-whore".

Competitive players don't play for fun, they don't play for objectives, they seek out a better KDR they can brag about on forums.

Also, you say you have no problems with losing but yet you have a problem with these people and then you state you have no problem being better than them. If that is the case, then what is the problem?

The problem is that, by taking the game seriously, they ruin it for those of us just out to have some damn fun. I don't have a problem with losing as long as it was a fun round anyways, the only time I have a problem is when someone shows up that's miles better than anyone else on the server and runs around just killing everyone.

The nice thing about TF2, and perhaps part of the reason it's the only multiplayer FPS I can play for more than five minutes before I try to break my hand on my CRT, is that it doesn't favor the competitive players. An absolutely rubbish player just out for fun, like oh say me, can still strongly contribute to a round win and/or get a few kills. You don't have to take TF2 seriously at all to win. You don't even need good tactics, just tape down your fire button and select Demoman or Pyro.

And nice job assuming all competitive players are assholes. The longer I spend online, the more competitive I get, but it boils down to me actually trying to work with a team to win, regardless of what that means for my individual statistics. To put it another way, my K/D is terrible, but my W/L is respectable. I'm also friendly at all times, and I never personally attack anyone on the server; teams lose games, not individual players. Your problem is with K/D obsessed assholes, not with actual competitive players.

Also, if you get the kind of assholes you're talking about on an alltalk server, it doesn't usually take long for an admin to kick and/or ban them. I play on the refugeegaming.com servers in TF2, which are about as laid back as it gets outside of Gmod, and I've seen maybe two individuals like that in the last year. With experiences like I've had, you can excuse me for assuming you're not doing something obvious, because what you're describing doesn't mesh with what I've seen on that kind of server.

Edit: To counter one last point: competitive players do play to have fun. Winning is fun, as is giving a concerted effort to win, even if you eventually lose. There's just something really cool about working with a group of people to achieve a goal within the framework of a game, and it's something that you don't get to experience if you spend all day goofing around. Not that goofing around isn't fun as well, but there's a time and a place for everything. Goofing around, for example, is great when there's six people on the server and you're killing time waiting for more to log on.

 

[Jordi]

Shooters should do everything to nerf competition and make it just fun. Competitive players ruin the experience for non-competitive gamers who are just out to blow shit up.


Racing games, however, are 100% for the competition. So for them I say leave well enough alone. Faster car is faster.

If the goal of the game is to kill each other (or capture a point or whatever) and you decide you want to do something else, I don't really think that the game should be trying to accommodate that. Why would you go on a multiplayer server if you don't want to get shot?

When I talk about "helping weaker players", it applies to racing just as it applies to shooters and many other competitive games. It is not meant to help or protect players who just want to fuck around. It is meant to help those who are trying to play the game as it was meant, but who are simply not as good as their opponents.

I don't think there are no players trying to fuck around in racing games, but even if they were 100% competitive, that doesn't necessarily mean that helping the weaker player wouldn't make it more fun. If me and a friend both want to race to win, but I'm much better than he is, it'd be nice if he got some kind of boost to make it more even. That way there is a chance we will actually see each other during the race (instead of just in the beginning).

 

[Saelune]

I think skill should get more post-match reward, which most shooters now accomodate (as shooters slowly take on ROG qualities) but in-match, the worse players should get more leeway. Thats why I hate killstreaks. Id rather deathstreaks be expanded in better ways. Also why I dont understand people who cpmplain about pain pill death streak in MW2...they got it because they were sucking...

Or they could just leave out all of it. In CoD2, all you got for doing well, was win. All you did for doing bad was lose. Everyone was equal in setting, and it was just the person who mattered in who won.