Poll: "Lack of skill" of other players is not a legit justification for being an asshole

[Loonyyy]

As far as GTA:O goes, I agree with you. When you're level 12, with hardly any weapons or money, then taking out tanks or even guys with long range weapons who hunt you down is basically impossible, certainly in a 1v1 situation.

I'm going to take you to task a little on the Battlefield thing though!

Firstly, I agree 100% that most of the denizens of the Battlelog forums are pretty toxic and hostile. They tend to be utterly stat obsessed (in a game where stats aren't that important!) and pretty unpleasant. That said, when it comes to people complaining that gun X, Y or Z needs a nerf, I believe that 9/10 times, the complainer hasn't seen the bigger picture.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the "most powerful class weapons" you refer to are the LMG's. I run the support class a lot at the moment - mainly because now that ammo boxes aren't mandatory for support, too many players don't carry them any more and ammo is much harder to get. I run the LMG a lot (specifically the M240), and LMG's are simply *not* the wonder gun people think.

They fall into two basic type - high rate of fire/low damage/poor accuracy, and low rate of fire/fair damage/decent accuracy. The pros and cons kinda balance out and basically the LMG will compete with most assault rifles at mid-long range in the hands of a capable user. Short controlled bursts are the key but you still need to be able to control the recoil. At short range, a PDW or shotgun will beat an LMG most times, unless you get the drop on the other guy. The biggest advantage to the belt-fed guns is the massive mag size, and the stupid amount of suppression you can lay on the other guys.

All the weapons have their pros and cons. Some are very scenario-specific (shotguns and PDWs are only good for small maps and short range engagements), some are good all rounders (Assault rifles and LMG's - but those are carried by primarily anti-infantry classes), and to be fair the carbines are pretty capable in most short-mid range situations and any class can carry them.

Personally, my biggest "grief" about Battlefield at the moment is the number of Assault players who don't revive and only drop combat med packs for themselves while they sit in one spot with the M320, and Support guys who don't carry ammo boxes. It's a team game, increasingly being played by lone wolves.

As one of those assault players who can't revive, I'll have to let you know my biggest grief: The damn hitbox for the defib is broken as fuck, and with the latency and rego issues, getting a revive is hit and miss. I've only ever gotten one charged revive, you're better off spamming, since if you spam you can get three in before you lose them. Aiming for the spot they were standing when they died (Usually where their legs are) helps a little, but it's a nuisance.

Damn shame too, since it worked better in BF3, and really well in Bad Company 2. Being a suicidally brave medic has always been my favourite thing to do in those games, especially when you can keep a whole squad alive while taking ridiculous amounts of fire and defend ground or objectives.

Also, what's withe the MG hate Jacco, it seems misplaced. Yes, there's always the assholes (And Battlefield has to have the most toxic community I've ever played in) saying get better etc, but there actually have been some serious balance issues in the past *cough* USAS-12, Explosive Ammo *cough* that've been dealt with because when enough people complained, DICE changed it. And the problem is very rarely people saying that someone's unlocked a great machine gun (Which tend to fit in well in the scheme of things[Although they're going to have to come for my P90 soon, it's just tearing through people]), it's usually more along the lines of something actually broken, like the constant back and forth on the suppression effects, and the explosive rounds. I dunno, this complaint doesn't really fit like the other. I completely agree that having to unlock things over a long period is annoying, and limits the options a new player has, but except in the cases of say, a few vehicle perks, most of these really don't hurt balance.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I think if its a multiplayer game you should get good honestly.
There are options for private lobbies I think, you could also use them.

I was going to agree with you based on the title, and figured it was something along the lines of you shouldn't have to be good to be allowed to play the game. But at the same time, the game shouldn't be changed in order to please those who are not good at it.

In a singleplayer game, it depends on the target audience. Something like mario kart is a good example of a game that wouldn't work if you needed a high skill requirement. Dark Souls would lose all its appeal if you made it easy though.

Multiplayer games though (Mainly competitive non-co-op ones) would lose their purpose if they took no skill. What would be the point of being good at the game if you still had no better chance at winning then a monkey holding a controller? GTA's case is a little different and it should match you with similar level players but that's not a great difference. The high level players had to go through it as well.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm gonna have to agree with the people who pointed the blame at Rockstar. What the OP is describing isn't bad /players/, it's a terribly designed /game/. This isn't a case of skill vs. skill, where the better player wins. That can be less than fun for the wrong kind of gamer, but at least it's fair. Instead what we've got is a case of account vs. account, where the account that has been used the longest has the advantage. These "high level" players would be getting their asses kicked by other high level players, if they had to start a new account for some reason. In a properly balanced game, that won't happen -- the best player wins, regardless of whether they're even playing on their own account or not.

Basically, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Hate the player too, they're assholes.

Game developers should do their best to make things work, and prevent people from being assholes, and the blame is entirely on them when it happens, and they're the only ones with the power to fix it... but if you need to sit in a tank waiting to prevent noobs from playing at all to get your rocks off, you're an asshole.

The player who takes advantage of it may be an asshole, but the player that complains about it is an idiot. Twice over, in fact -- once for buying such a broken game in the first place, and twice for continuing to play it after they've realized it's terribly designed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play some Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that's actually balanced[footnote]For the most part. I avoid Hero Assault because the hero characters are designed for mowing down grunts and turning a battle around, not for dueling each other, which makes a game mode based around heroes dueling each other decidedly broken, with some units being straight up better than others. But instead of complaining about that, I just enjoy the Conquest, CTF, and Hunt maps, all of which are fun and, if not perfectly balanced, balanced enough that it's still up to player skill more than anything else.[/footnote].

 

[srm79]

As one of those assault players who can't revive, I'll have to let you know my biggest grief: The damn hitbox for the defib is broken as fuck, and with the latency and rego issues, getting a revive is hit and miss. I've only ever gotten one charged revive, you're better off spamming, since if you spam you can get three in before you lose them. Aiming for the spot they were standing when they died (Usually where their legs are) helps a little, but it's a nuisance.

Damn shame too, since it worked better in BF3, and really well in Bad Company 2. Being a suicidally brave medic has always been my favourite thing to do in those games, especially when you can keep a whole squad alive while taking ridiculous amounts of fire and defend ground or objectives.

Also, what's withe the MG hate Jacco, it seems misplaced. Yes, there's always the assholes (And Battlefield has to have the most toxic community I've ever played in) saying get better etc, but there actually have been some serious balance issues in the past *cough* USAS-12, Explosive Ammo *cough* that've been dealt with because when enough people complained, DICE changed it. And the problem is very rarely people saying that someone's unlocked a great machine gun (Which tend to fit in well in the scheme of things[Although they're going to have to come for my P90 soon, it's just tearing through people]), it's usually more along the lines of something actually broken, like the constant back and forth on the suppression effects, and the explosive rounds. I dunno, this complaint doesn't really fit like the other. I completely agree that having to unlock things over a long period is annoying, and limits the options a new player has, but except in the cases of say, a few vehicle perks, most of these really don't hurt balance.

I feel your pain re: dodgy revive mechanics. Whenever I run assault, I spec as a combat medic. I don't often charge the paddles, simply because there's no way of knowing how long you have to do the revive in many cases. Quick revive, then throw down the medic bag is my preferred M.O. If you have two or three guys close together it works too, because the box has a range of about 4-5 metres. Forget reviving anyone who falls on stairs, rubble or too close to a bro box though. I still feel that if you really want to take a launcher then ditch the box and take the paddles - they're more valuable to the team, and the game is a team game. Especially in rush, where games can go right down to the last few tickets.

I think the biggest cause of people deciding a gun is OP is because they get killed by it a lot. That doesn't mean it's actually OP, it just means lots of people are using it. Ironically this is often because it's gotten a reputation as being OP. It's a vicious circle, but often wrong. Take the MTAR-21 for example. It's not a bad gun by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not the uber-cannon that lots of players seem to think it is. It rivals a PDW in close range situations but at mid to long range it's utterly awful. The recoil and drift are massive, and you basically have to fire in one or two round bursts. But guys like Matimi0 and LevelCap did a couple of vids where they hailed it as the best thing since sliced bread and suddenly everyone is running it. I've gone back to the SG-553 though, because it seems to suit me better.

In keeping with the original point of this thread though, with the recent influx of christmas noobs I have actually tried to give pointers to players who are clearly new and haven't a clue. Admittedly usually after getting a comedy kill on them, but that's pretty much a given...

 

[RJ 17]

As far as GTA:O goes, for the most part anyone can kill anyone else, regardless of their weapons or levels...it mostly depends on who sees who first and who has the better aim. That said, there is indeed very little one can do to stop someone going on a rampage with a tank. I admit that I was one of the players that used the "replay mission" exploit to get a ton of cash, fast. There was a mission where you basically just blow up everyone and everything in a parking garage and get 20K. This could be repeated over and over again with each run taking no more than 30 seconds (if you have the right set-up), allowing you to make boatloads of cash and experience points. As such I was able to power-level up to getting a tank. But even so, I didn't use it for griefing...but rather as an anti-griefer measure. If there were a bunch of people just out being random jackasses (which is pretty much the entire point of open lobbies in GTA:O) and just gunning down other players, then I'd bust out the tank and put them in their place.

I won't deny I got a sadistic kick out of the fact that I clearly made three different people rage-quit from a lobby in the course of 10 minutes. First was a sticky-bomb bandit going around blowing everyone up, until I blew him up a couple times. The next one was in a jet just bombing and gunning every player he could...until I shot him out of the air. And the last one was in an attack chopper who felt like harassing me while I was hunting down the guy in the jet. He left after I proved 3 times that Tank Beats Chopper.

So I liked to consider myself more of a policing force rather than a griefer.

Now, with regards to the general idea laid out in the topic's title, I think it can be viewed from the other perspective. No, I don't think that being stuck on what I like to call "The Shit Team" is an excuse for someone to act like an asshole...that said, I do think it's a perfectly valid reason to get pissed off if your teammates are quite clearly utter crap. You're playing CoD and going 15 and 3. You're having a pretty good match, but then you check the scoreboard and see that you're team is getting smashed. Why? Because you've got three people going 2 and 8, 4 and 17, and 7 and 19. You're not failing, your TEAM is failing due to the lack of skill of your teammates. As such you come to realize "I'm on the Shit Team". And no one likes being on the Shit Team.

It's sad, really, but I made a joke with some of my friends back when we actually played CoD that "If a Green Arrow" meaning a random teammate not in your party "is behind you, you're about to get shot in the back" poking fun at the fact that random people out there aren't dependable and chances are they're not going to take out the guy that just turned a corner behind you and is about to shoot you from behind. The sad part is that when I actually started implementing this joke-motto...my game improved very noticeably.

So yeah, do I think that other player's lack of skill is cause to be an asshole? No. Not everyone is going to be god's gift to that game and have a natural in-born talent to be awesome at it. Still, it can be incredibly frustrating when you come to find that you're stuck on the Shit Team.

 

[Loonyyy]

I feel your pain re: dodgy revive mechanics. Whenever I run assault, I spec as a combat medic. I don't often charge the paddles, simply because there's no way of knowing how long you have to do the revive in many cases. Quick revive, then throw down the medic bag is my preferred M.O. If you have two or three guys close together it works too, because the box has a range of about 4-5 metres. Forget reviving anyone who falls on stairs, rubble or too close to a bro box though. I still feel that if you really want to take a launcher then ditch the box and take the paddles - they're more valuable to the team, and the game is a team game. Especially in rush, where games can go right down to the last few tickets.

Yep, that's pretty much how I run it too. I always go with the box and paddles, since not only do they do the most for your team, but you can rack up some great stacks of points if you revive a couple of people and throw them a medic box. I just wish they'd fix the registry on it so that there was more of the medic team work that previous games had. It scares people off using the paddles, and reviving is one of the best parts of being a medic.

I think the biggest cause of people deciding a gun is OP is because they get killed by it a lot. That doesn't mean it's actually OP, it just means lots of people are using it. Ironically this is often because it's gotten a reputation as being OP. It's a vicious circle, but often wrong. Take the MTAR-21 for example. It's not a bad gun by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not the uber-cannon that lots of players seem to think it is. It rivals a PDW in close range situations but at mid to long range it's utterly awful. The recoil and drift are massive, and you basically have to fire in one or two round bursts. But guys like Matimi0 and LevelCap did a couple of vids where they hailed it as the best thing since sliced bread and suddenly everyone is running it. I've gone back to the SG-553 though, because it seems to suit me better.

Yep. I'm forever being killed by low level unlock primaries, but I don't think they're overpowered, and indeed, I tend to prefer later ones, but the amount of people you see with them influences what you think of them. That's the other thing that's important, the weapons all have vastly different effective ranges, and if you get the wrong gun, you're going to have a bad time. Operation Locker in particular (So many 24/7 locker servers) would make you think that accurate or stable weapons were useless, and what you needed was a high rate of fire with high damage, unless you wanted to hide behind everyone and make one kill with a sniper rifle per round, but most of the bad guns are just in the wrong range. Even the damn .44 works if you pretend it's a sniper rifle and put it on your engineer class.

In keeping with the original point of this thread though, with the recent influx of christmas noobs I have actually tried to give pointers to players who are clearly new and haven't a clue. Admittedly usually after getting a comedy kill on them, but that's pretty much a given...

Got to get the necklace of dogtags somehow, amirite?

 

[Loonyyy]

I'm gonna have to agree with the people who pointed the blame at Rockstar. What the OP is describing isn't bad /players/, it's a terribly designed /game/. This isn't a case of skill vs. skill, where the better player wins. That can be less than fun for the wrong kind of gamer, but at least it's fair. Instead what we've got is a case of account vs. account, where the account that has been used the longest has the advantage. These "high level" players would be getting their asses kicked by other high level players, if they had to start a new account for some reason. In a properly balanced game, that won't happen -- the best player wins, regardless of whether they're even playing on their own account or not.

Basically, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Hate the player too, they're assholes.

Game developers should do their best to make things work, and prevent people from being assholes, and the blame is entirely on them when it happens, and they're the only ones with the power to fix it... but if you need to sit in a tank waiting to prevent noobs from playing at all to get your rocks off, you're an asshole.

The player who takes advantage of it may be an asshole, but the player that complains about it is an idiot. Twice over, in fact -- once for buying such a broken game in the first place, and twice for continuing to play it after they've realized it's terribly designed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play some Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that's actually balanced[footnote]For the most part. I avoid Hero Assault because the hero characters are designed for mowing down grunts and turning a battle around, not for dueling each other, which makes a game mode based around heroes dueling each other decidedly broken, with some units being straight up better than others. But instead of complaining about that, I just enjoy the Conquest, CTF, and Hunt maps, all of which are fun and, if not perfectly balanced, balanced enough that it's still up to player skill more than anything else.[/footnote].

That doesn't seem all that fair. The player often has little way of knowing of faults like these before they purchase it. I'll agree that complaining to the assholes is stupid, since trolls love the feeding, and that trying to play against them and not having fun is pointless.

If only I still had my PS2, I'd be back to playing Battlefront. That game, all of my childhood.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm gonna have to agree with the people who pointed the blame at Rockstar. What the OP is describing isn't bad /players/, it's a terribly designed /game/. This isn't a case of skill vs. skill, where the better player wins. That can be less than fun for the wrong kind of gamer, but at least it's fair. Instead what we've got is a case of account vs. account, where the account that has been used the longest has the advantage. These "high level" players would be getting their asses kicked by other high level players, if they had to start a new account for some reason. In a properly balanced game, that won't happen -- the best player wins, regardless of whether they're even playing on their own account or not.

Basically, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Hate the player too, they're assholes.

Game developers should do their best to make things work, and prevent people from being assholes, and the blame is entirely on them when it happens, and they're the only ones with the power to fix it... but if you need to sit in a tank waiting to prevent noobs from playing at all to get your rocks off, you're an asshole.

The player who takes advantage of it may be an asshole, but the player that complains about it is an idiot. Twice over, in fact -- once for buying such a broken game in the first place, and twice for continuing to play it after they've realized it's terribly designed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play some Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that's actually balanced[footnote]For the most part. I avoid Hero Assault because the hero characters are designed for mowing down grunts and turning a battle around, not for dueling each other, which makes a game mode based around heroes dueling each other decidedly broken, with some units being straight up better than others. But instead of complaining about that, I just enjoy the Conquest, CTF, and Hunt maps, all of which are fun and, if not perfectly balanced, balanced enough that it's still up to player skill more than anything else.[/footnote].

That doesn't seem all that fair. The player often has little way of knowing of faults like these before they purchase it. I'll agree that complaining to the assholes is stupid, since trolls love the feeding, and that trying to play against them and not having fun is pointless.

If only I still had my PS2, I'd be back to playing Battlefront. That game, all of my childhood.

The player has plenty of ways, if they just have the patience to wait a minimum of a week or two past launch. And really you're nuts if you wait less than 6 months, considering how much worse games are on launch than six months to a year after these days. Not to mention how ridiculously expensive a launch game is. I could buy a week of food with enough left for most of a tank of gas for what a videogame costs on launch these days.

As far as Battlefront, BF2 is available on Steam and still has an active online component. BF1 I see as a hard copy periodically, but I don't know if the multiplayer portion still works. Also can't comment on the PS2 versions, but the PC versions of both are $10 full price these days, and BF 2 constantly drops below $5 on sales.

 

[srm79]

Yep, that's pretty much how I run it too. I always go with the box and paddles, since not only do they do the most for your team, but you can rack up some great stacks of points if you revive a couple of people and throw them a medic box. I just wish they'd fix the registry on it so that there was more of the medic team work that previous games had. It scares people off using the paddles, and reviving is one of the best parts of being a medic.

My kinda guy...

Got to get the necklace of dogtags somehow, amirite?

Hehe yep...although no tags for the shock paddle kill. Or the claymore up their ass then run in front of their scope to make em move. Or the M15 AT mine detonated by pistol shot. Or the C4 blanket, where you then get their attention so the last thing they see is you standing there with the detonator in your hand. Or the roadkill by landing a helicopter on their camping spot. Or the jihad dirtbike. Yeah, I can be an asshole, but at least I'm a creative asshole, and usually at least point out how they made it so easy for me to mug them.

 

[Terminate421]

This is why I pretty much hate any multiplayer game with an unlock tier and leveling progress. First time I hopped into Battlefield 3 I jumped into a jet and corkscrewed through a sky full of AA missiles and chaff... and wasn't allowed to use either of them. The game expected me to rack up aerial kills with the puny cannon before I was allowed anywhere near chaff, and once I unlocked the missiles I even had to quit the match and activate them on a menu?

What the hell happened to multiplayer?

What happened to arena shooters where ALL weapons were available to ALL players, ALL the time? What happened to shooters where ALL players could hold ALL weapons at once, so each duel was a pure test of skill rather than the game of dice rolling you played minutes earlier when you picked a class?

Call of duty 4 Happened.

On topic:

Higher level does not equal skill.

I am damn good at what I do, but sometimes just general thinking and I MEAN GENERAL THINKING needs to be applied in these situations. If you're an assault class in Battlefield, fucking revive dead people. If you are the last man in your squad in Search and Destroy, don't run out into the open and be quiet, listen for the enemy. If you have the rocket launcher in Halo, don't miss with it.

I won't be an asshole but common sense shit is when I get annoyed at people.

 

[Loonyyy]

Yep, that's pretty much how I run it too. I always go with the box and paddles, since not only do they do the most for your team, but you can rack up some great stacks of points if you revive a couple of people and throw them a medic box. I just wish they'd fix the registry on it so that there was more of the medic team work that previous games had. It scares people off using the paddles, and reviving is one of the best parts of being a medic.

My kinda guy...

Got to get the necklace of dogtags somehow, amirite?

Hehe yep...although no tags for the shock paddle kill. Or the claymore up their ass then run in front of their scope to make em move. Or the M15 AT mine detonated by pistol shot. Or the C4 blanket, where you then get their attention so the last thing they see is you standing there with the detonator in your hand. Or the roadkill by landing a helicopter on their camping spot. Or the jihad dirtbike. Yeah, I can be an asshole, but at least I'm a creative asshole, and usually at least point out how they made it so easy for me to mug them.

They'll probably be laughing harder at it anyway. Best moment for me was when an enemy slam took down my teams chopper whilst I was in their trench on Storm, I'd killed 5 people and armed the objective, and then the damn chopper, now a firey wreckage comes out of nowhere and crushes me. Me and the guy who'd plated the slam spent the rest of the game laughing about it.

 

[Loonyyy]

I'm gonna have to agree with the people who pointed the blame at Rockstar. What the OP is describing isn't bad /players/, it's a terribly designed /game/. This isn't a case of skill vs. skill, where the better player wins. That can be less than fun for the wrong kind of gamer, but at least it's fair. Instead what we've got is a case of account vs. account, where the account that has been used the longest has the advantage. These "high level" players would be getting their asses kicked by other high level players, if they had to start a new account for some reason. In a properly balanced game, that won't happen -- the best player wins, regardless of whether they're even playing on their own account or not.

Basically, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Hate the player too, they're assholes.

Game developers should do their best to make things work, and prevent people from being assholes, and the blame is entirely on them when it happens, and they're the only ones with the power to fix it... but if you need to sit in a tank waiting to prevent noobs from playing at all to get your rocks off, you're an asshole.

The player who takes advantage of it may be an asshole, but the player that complains about it is an idiot. Twice over, in fact -- once for buying such a broken game in the first place, and twice for continuing to play it after they've realized it's terribly designed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play some Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that's actually balanced[footnote]For the most part. I avoid Hero Assault because the hero characters are designed for mowing down grunts and turning a battle around, not for dueling each other, which makes a game mode based around heroes dueling each other decidedly broken, with some units being straight up better than others. But instead of complaining about that, I just enjoy the Conquest, CTF, and Hunt maps, all of which are fun and, if not perfectly balanced, balanced enough that it's still up to player skill more than anything else.[/footnote].

That doesn't seem all that fair. The player often has little way of knowing of faults like these before they purchase it. I'll agree that complaining to the assholes is stupid, since trolls love the feeding, and that trying to play against them and not having fun is pointless.

If only I still had my PS2, I'd be back to playing Battlefront. That game, all of my childhood.

The player has plenty of ways, if they just have the patience to wait a minimum of a week or two past launch. And really you're nuts if you wait less than 6 months, considering how much worse games are on launch than six months to a year after these days. Not to mention how ridiculously expensive a launch game is. I could buy a week of food with enough left for most of a tank of gas for what a videogame costs on launch these days.

That's reliant on other people buying it around the launch and experiencing the fuckups that a lacklustre QA testing has left behind. It shouldn't be such a crapshoot. This isn't acceptable elsewhere, it shouldn't be in videogames.

As far as Battlefront, BF2 is available on Steam and still has an active online component. BF1 I see as a hard copy periodically, but I don't know if the multiplayer portion still works. Also can't comment on the PS2 versions, but the PC versions of both are $10 full price these days, and BF 2 constantly drops below $5 on sales.

Mmm, I'll have to pick it up when I've got cash free.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm gonna have to agree with the people who pointed the blame at Rockstar. What the OP is describing isn't bad /players/, it's a terribly designed /game/. This isn't a case of skill vs. skill, where the better player wins. That can be less than fun for the wrong kind of gamer, but at least it's fair. Instead what we've got is a case of account vs. account, where the account that has been used the longest has the advantage. These "high level" players would be getting their asses kicked by other high level players, if they had to start a new account for some reason. In a properly balanced game, that won't happen -- the best player wins, regardless of whether they're even playing on their own account or not.

Basically, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Hate the player too, they're assholes.

Game developers should do their best to make things work, and prevent people from being assholes, and the blame is entirely on them when it happens, and they're the only ones with the power to fix it... but if you need to sit in a tank waiting to prevent noobs from playing at all to get your rocks off, you're an asshole.

The player who takes advantage of it may be an asshole, but the player that complains about it is an idiot. Twice over, in fact -- once for buying such a broken game in the first place, and twice for continuing to play it after they've realized it's terribly designed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play some Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that's actually balanced[footnote]For the most part. I avoid Hero Assault because the hero characters are designed for mowing down grunts and turning a battle around, not for dueling each other, which makes a game mode based around heroes dueling each other decidedly broken, with some units being straight up better than others. But instead of complaining about that, I just enjoy the Conquest, CTF, and Hunt maps, all of which are fun and, if not perfectly balanced, balanced enough that it's still up to player skill more than anything else.[/footnote].

That doesn't seem all that fair. The player often has little way of knowing of faults like these before they purchase it. I'll agree that complaining to the assholes is stupid, since trolls love the feeding, and that trying to play against them and not having fun is pointless.

If only I still had my PS2, I'd be back to playing Battlefront. That game, all of my childhood.

The player has plenty of ways, if they just have the patience to wait a minimum of a week or two past launch. And really you're nuts if you wait less than 6 months, considering how much worse games are on launch than six months to a year after these days. Not to mention how ridiculously expensive a launch game is. I could buy a week of food with enough left for most of a tank of gas for what a videogame costs on launch these days.

That's reliant on other people buying it around the launch and experiencing the fuckups that a lacklustre QA testing has left behind. It shouldn't be such a crapshoot. This isn't acceptable elsewhere, it shouldn't be in videogames.

As far as Battlefront, BF2 is available on Steam and still has an active online component. BF1 I see as a hard copy periodically, but I don't know if the multiplayer portion still works. Also can't comment on the PS2 versions, but the PC versions of both are $10 full price these days, and BF 2 constantly drops below $5 on sales.

Mmm, I'll have to pick it up when I've got cash free.

How is it not acceptable in other media? Movies and books work the same way, they just have a much lower barrier to entry, which makes a bad purchase hurt less (and games are seriously overpriced, but that's an entirely different discussion). You can't trust professional reviews, especially pre-release ones, and you sure as heck can't trust the marketing, but you can trust word of mouth. That does require people to buy it before you, but there's always going to be a large proportion of people with more money than sense. Better to let them waste their money than to waste yours. Especially since if you wait a year you get a more complete game for less money.

 

[tzimize]

Leveling up in a PVP game is retarded as hell. Its LITERALLY forcing the other players to play with a handicap.

Fortunately, a lot of games on PC allow server options, so you can tailor your game away from such stuff if you want, even though some PC games have suffered the simple-mind-syndrome of consoles lately.

I do not understand why people would want an edge in PVP and I do not understand why it exists. The purpose of PVP is to try your mettle against human players to see who is the best. Leveling in PVP is the equivalent of playing chess with someone only to pull out a 9mm and blast your opponent in the face when you realize you are losing.

I prefer my pvp to be as equal as can possibly get. That way, when I win, I know its because I was better than my opponent.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

This highlights a problem with multiplayer games in general.

It seems that the more you play a game and (hopefully) get better at it, the more the game gives you unfair advantages over lower players. The system is entirely backwards. You should start with everything and then lose things as you level up until you become godlike in actual skill rather than godlike because the game has given it to you. Then you can have prestige like things to reset everything when you max out.

As to the poll though, i answered 'no'. If someone is shit at a game then they should avoid provoking me at all costs because i will hunt them down and kill them until they leave the game. Just like in real life you pick your fights and live with the consequences, don't think that because it's a game the rules change

That said, i very rarely go looking for shit in games unless someone is causing lots of people problems...then i feel it's my job to show them where bullying gets them

 

[McMarbles]

There's no legit justification for being an asshole. Ever.

 

[Artaneius]

To me it depends on the type of game. When it comes to games purely based on skill like Quake, Unreal Tournament, Street Fighter etc. I think the most skilled player should always win. However; that doesn't mean they should act like an asshole just because others aren't as good as them. The only time I ever trash talk is when someone either trash talks first or if all they do is whine about playing against "tryhards" or anyone better than them. I'm sorry but I play a online competitive game to get better and win, not to make sure everyone else doesn't get frustrated.

 

[Mzuark]

I agree. If someone's a weak link on a team, instead of tearing into them you should just try and make up for his weakness.