Ok, so I've been playing MW2 a lot for the last few days, and I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to be "good" at it because it's more of a complicated game of hide and go seek than a measure of skill.
TL;DR version
Since you die so quickly in games like this it gives you no chance to defend yourself if you get shot from offscreen, and any player worth his salt can immediately aim and kill a player he does see, making the game more of a "who sees who first" scenario then a competition of skill.
Do you agree, or is there something I'm missing here?
Disclaimer: I actually like MW2 because it does feel very satisfying when you kill someone and it is a fun game to play. It's just not one that I think should be taken seriously. But hey, it's a videogame right?
So lets look at it this way. There are basically 3 scenarios for MW2, Confrontation (both players see each other) Flanking (one player sees another unsuspecting player) and Camping (one player stays in one spot and either one of these scenarios can be the result)
Confrontation is the closest thing to a competition of skill games like this have. Basically, because you both see each other, the first person to aim and fire is going to win. Most people like me have been playing mostly FPS games for the last 3-6 years, and can pretty much immediately look down the sights of their M16 and kill someone, so two players of functional level of skill doing this would leave the victor to be the person who's reticule was closer when the two players encountered each other.
Flanking really gives no chance to the player who can't see the other player. Unless by some miracle you're unknowingly already on a running path to some very near cover, you get shot from somewhere you can't see and you're dead before you even have the chance to react. On games like Halo or TF2, yes, having someone sneak up on you is a disadvantage, but unless you let the person get literally within punching distance it's still possible to try to retaliate or retreat in some way when you're being shot at.
Camping is pretty much making your whole strategy about taking someone out before they see you. So obviously if you don't see a camper and they see you, you have zero chance to defend yourself. Likewise, if you sneak up on a camper they usually die before knowing you're there.
Now you might argue that the skill aspect comes into play with where you're going to position yourself or how you're going to sneak up on the other players. I would say that isn't skill, because you really have no idea where the other players are going to go or what they're going to do, so if you manage to kill them that's pretty much all luck. Even if you work out a really good strategy, tactics don't have anything to do with skill. Sure, a professional UFC fighter could beat the crap out of me head on, but if he didn't know where I was and I had a gun it doesn't matter how good at fighting he is.
Anyways this is why I find it strange when people say halo takes no skill and then bring up CoD as a counterpoint, or when people back in CoD 4 would ***** and moan about juggernaut making it possible to survive 3 bullets instead of 2. When I point this out most people retort with something something like "WELL THEN GO PLAY HARDCORE PUSSY" which doesn't really make sense to me because removing the radar makes the game even more "hide and seek" oriented, and it's not that I suck at the game because I usually come out of games with a K/D of like, 24/17, but of those deaths 9 out of 10 times it's from somewhere offscreen. Maybe it's just my playstyle? I dunno.
I could probably go off about this all day but this is getting way too lengthy as is so
Confrontation is the closest thing to a competition of skill games like this have. Basically, because you both see each other, the first person to aim and fire is going to win. Most people like me have been playing mostly FPS games for the last 3-6 years, and can pretty much immediately look down the sights of their M16 and kill someone, so two players of functional level of skill doing this would leave the victor to be the person who's reticule was closer when the two players encountered each other.
Flanking really gives no chance to the player who can't see the other player. Unless by some miracle you're unknowingly already on a running path to some very near cover, you get shot from somewhere you can't see and you're dead before you even have the chance to react. On games like Halo or TF2, yes, having someone sneak up on you is a disadvantage, but unless you let the person get literally within punching distance it's still possible to try to retaliate or retreat in some way when you're being shot at.
Camping is pretty much making your whole strategy about taking someone out before they see you. So obviously if you don't see a camper and they see you, you have zero chance to defend yourself. Likewise, if you sneak up on a camper they usually die before knowing you're there.
Now you might argue that the skill aspect comes into play with where you're going to position yourself or how you're going to sneak up on the other players. I would say that isn't skill, because you really have no idea where the other players are going to go or what they're going to do, so if you manage to kill them that's pretty much all luck. Even if you work out a really good strategy, tactics don't have anything to do with skill. Sure, a professional UFC fighter could beat the crap out of me head on, but if he didn't know where I was and I had a gun it doesn't matter how good at fighting he is.
Anyways this is why I find it strange when people say halo takes no skill and then bring up CoD as a counterpoint, or when people back in CoD 4 would ***** and moan about juggernaut making it possible to survive 3 bullets instead of 2. When I point this out most people retort with something something like "WELL THEN GO PLAY HARDCORE PUSSY" which doesn't really make sense to me because removing the radar makes the game even more "hide and seek" oriented, and it's not that I suck at the game because I usually come out of games with a K/D of like, 24/17, but of those deaths 9 out of 10 times it's from somewhere offscreen. Maybe it's just my playstyle? I dunno.
I could probably go off about this all day but this is getting way too lengthy as is so
Since you die so quickly in games like this it gives you no chance to defend yourself if you get shot from offscreen, and any player worth his salt can immediately aim and kill a player he does see, making the game more of a "who sees who first" scenario then a competition of skill.
Do you agree, or is there something I'm missing here?
Disclaimer: I actually like MW2 because it does feel very satisfying when you kill someone and it is a fun game to play. It's just not one that I think should be taken seriously. But hey, it's a videogame right?
