Why do you not play PVP games?

[Yankee Zulu]

This **** about getting old is just not gonna cut it. It may be true for some twitchy fast paced games like CS or LoL but thers plenty of pvp games which dont need reaction time of a 12 year old. World of tanks, world of warships, Dark and Darker, Escape from Tarkov, etc.

[J1M]

Matchmaking sucks. Especially when the opponent's rank is intentionally hidden.

Being algorithmed into a 50% win rate saps my motivation to play. I would rather play a fair match, then one where I stomp somebody, then one where I almost pull a draw before losing against a really high ranked player.

Modern game designers have created a perfectly flat rollercoaster.

[ManjuShri]

I prefer co-op.

[Ratcatcher]

Last good PVP game was Unreal (<--- If you disagree you're gay ofc). As such, nowadays I prefer to play PnP. I get more kills like that anyway.

[Manny V]

i hate the sweaty meta **** with pvp, but idk i have a tendency to play them alot anyway.

at least with the boyz it makes it a bit more enjoyable

[Orvas Dren]

I like pvp the problem is that most of them are scams or mind-numbingly repetitive

[boot]

I often get into a game long after it's popularity wanes and all that's left are the super sweaty elitists

[Norfleet]

I've heard solid arguments for and against skill-based matchmaking. @Norfleet hypothesized to me that mixed skill levels is better overall for improvement. On the other hand, professional esports players train against other professionals for a reason.

Yes, but those same professionals also would suggest not always playing at maximum sweatiness and trying out something new while sealclubbing.

[rusty_shackleford]

I've heard solid arguments for and against skill-based matchmaking. @Norfleet hypothesized to me that mixed skill levels is better overall for improvement. On the other hand, professional esports players train against other professionals for a reason. Either way, I think the disappearance of user-hosted servers is a tremendous loss for online gaming.

The main issue I've seen with skill-based matchmaking is that it doesn't place you against people better than you enough, not that it doesn't place you with people worse than you.
You can't learn to get better unless you're getting beaten, but not to a degree where you don't understand what your mistakes are.
And if you're just playing against people who are roughly the same skill level, you're not going to get better either. Why? You need to be exposed to new tactics that you haven't encountered before, both to learn how to use these against others and how to play against them.
This is known as 'optimal challenge' in teaching.

Many players actually don't like this tho, because they're playing for fun, not solely to get better.

---

When professionals are playing against each other, you're no longer getting better at playing the game — you're learning how to beat that player. You need to know how they will react to every situation, their favored tactics, how they deal under pressure, etc.,

[DDC]

I just can't be bothered to maintain the skill needed to make the games fun. These 12-year-olds have their parents buy them one game that they then play for hundreds of hours. I would rather clear dozens of games in that time.

Any FPS takes a decent investment up front just to learn the maps -- where guns and powerups are, where players are likely to be coming and going, the best places to shoot from and most likely places to be shot at from, etc. It used to be that if you left the game alone for a few months and came back, everything would be the same and you could pick it right back up. Now, more likely, **** will be completely different if you quit for a while due to seasons, etc., so more time is wasted having to relearn the game before it can be played well enough to have much fun with it.

[WhiteShark]

I just can't be bothered to maintain the skill needed to make the games fun. These 12-year-olds have their parents buy them one game that they then play for hundreds of hours. I would rather clear dozens of games in that time.

It's a fair complaint, but there's a thrill in defeating another human that simply can't be obtained from PvE. Going up against a very skilled player, someone from the top percentile or the top tenth of a percentile, and winning... well, I know not everyone gets it, but I'm strongly competitive by nature.

Now, more likely, **** will be completely different if you quit for a while due to seasons, etc., so more time is wasted having to relearn the game before it can be played well enough to have much fun with it.

This is true. I 'came back' to League of Legends a couple times after extended breaks and it was very frustrating having to relearn all the subtleties of matchups and itemization each time.

[Hauberk]

Some observations I've made over the years (I'm talking about wargames but it's applicable to other types as well):

The average player won't team up, stay in formation, cover set angles etc. Instead he will charge blindly at the enemy, ignoring all objectives, in order to rack up his kill statistic. He may shoot quickly and accurately and move like a *******, but if you flank or ambush him these abilities will count for nothing. If he cannot get even with you he might seek to have you kicked off the server due to "unfairness".
The only way to play is with people you know, but even then most people like to run around without a plan instead of fighting like a unit.

However, when you do find the players that are tactically inclined you pretty much win the game ...unless they're with the opposing force.

Another thing I've noticed is that if you compare the average skill level of US vs. Euro players, I'd give the former a consistent 2-3/5 while the latter are much more varied and range from 1/5 to 5/5 so you see brilliant stuff as well as the opposite. I'm not sure why, though.

[KOS-MOS]

There’s really only one PvP game I've ever truly enjoyed: S4 League. The community was dumb, but I was young back then so I wasn’t much different. The game was incredibly addictive—the gameplay was easy to learn hard to master, with a true sportive spirit, fun weapons and more. Unfortunately, the game was ruined by greed and left to cheaters.

It’s a shame no game studio ever tried to acquire the rights to it (which should be quite cheap by now) and develop a new version. With today’s technology, it could be so much fun.

The closest game to S4 League I’ve seen is Knockout City, but it only captured about 5% of the deep gameplay that S4 League had. I played it a bit, but it got boring quickly.

I still play S4 League on private servers, and I still have fun. There's an active community, which makes me wonder: why hasn’t any game studio taken the initiative to create a new S4 League game?

[Boontaker]

DPS meters, kill counts, not dying in PvE content IS pvp!

[Vergil]

I've been playing a lot of ESO PVP and it's not as bad as I would have thought.

[Breathe]

I used to be huge into Tribes, Quake, UT, CS, BF, Halo. Most of what I played through high school was multiplayer fps, while also enjoying rpg's on pc and console. I stopped enjoying them when they became less about arena equal starts (I loved equal starts and having to gain an advantage through gameplay). As soon as it started shifting to loadouts and hero ******** I lost interest. The only shooter I loved that kind of fit that mold was the BF series. But I stopped after BF4.

Taking away community servers was a big reason for me finally letting go. I used to make friends and play on a handful of servers I'd find that were run well with good rotations. Once that was gone the last bit of interest I had to play ceased.

[Eyestabber]

I played Mechabellum PvP today, it was fun. Before that StarCraft 2, MobAs and so on. My favorite was dark souls 2 PvP. No other game since has managed to scratch that itch. I like to think some of my victims ended up in a mental asylum or went an hero. Good times...

[J1M]

Matchmaking sucks. Especially when the opponent's rank is intentionally hidden.

Being algorithmed into a 50% win rate saps my motivation to play. I would rather play a fair match, then one where I stomp somebody, then one where I almost pull a draw before losing against a really high ranked player.

Modern game designers have created a perfectly flat rollercoaster.

Lurker or coincidence?

[LemonDemonGirl]

The only PvP I EVER do in WoW are Battlegrounds. Otherwise, **** no. I not dealing with dumbass little lids or bots

[Decline]

So, what is it like playing at high level in a team-based competitive game? Exhausting. Physically and emotionally draining. Your body wasn't designed to be in a state of high alertness for ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day 5-6 days a week.

Pictured: Rusty taking Rank 11 after an exhausting 14/6 week.

[ropealready]

The main issue I've seen with skill-based matchmaking is that it doesn't place you against people better than you enough, not that it doesn't place you with people worse than you.
You can't learn to get better unless you're getting beaten, but not to a degree where you don't understand what your mistakes are.
And if you're just playing against people who are roughly the same skill level, you're not going to get better either. Why? You need to be exposed to new tactics that you haven't encountered before, both to learn how to use these against others and how to play against them.
This is known as 'optimal challenge' in teaching.

Many players actually don't like this tho, because they're playing for fun, not solely to get better.
When professionals are playing against each other, you're no longer getting better at playing the game — you're learning how to beat that player. You need to know how they will react to every situation, their favored tactics, how they deal under pressure, etc.,

SBMM's real goal is to force people into a 50% win rate, of course you will have those players who are savants and pro or whatever the **** and probably go a fair bit above it for the most part but for the typical player the whole dream is to make things fair across all skill levels.

On paper it's a good idea, it keeps the sharks out of the pond and lets the new players get better over time. The truth is though it makes everything very samey and boring. The people who are good will eventually be matched with other people who are good and that sounds cool but then it becomes using the same meta/tier lists to remain competitive. Playing the same match over and over again is going to get old no matter what.

But other issues that arise is how it makes your player pool much smaller and in many cases won't prioritize connection so you could be in say Super Badass rank but if a lot of people in that rank are scattered throughout Europe and Oceanic places instead of NA, it won't care because it only wants you to have an on-paper competitive and close match that could go either way. If it did prioritize connection then maybe there aren't enough people at your ranking yet and the queue time becomes agonizingly slow or you see the same handful of players each time which again, makes things boring.

There's a fun element to the randomness of opponents, it even allows you to branch out and try different things that aren't meta for the sake of personal amusement like how people do knife-only in an FPS game or play a pretty ****** character in a fighting game for the sake of a self-imposed challenge.

And finally, it doesn't really work out how developers want it to. It encourages smurfing and making new accounts solely to **** on new players. The truth is a lot of people love the power trip of being able to smash someone to dust and there will always be a way for them to find out how to do this. If the games are randomized though, this starts to eliminate itself naturally.

It's an ideal that doesn't really have a comfortable place in multiplayer gaming and exists mostly because how many games are obsessed with being a big e-sport breakout title. Funnily enough, if a game does have a mode where it's randomized matchmaking I'd be willing to guarantee it is by far more popular. For example, WoW arena is nowhere near as popular as random battlegrounds and more people play casual match in a fighting game over ranked.

[Magick]

The main issue I've seen with skill-based matchmaking is that it doesn't place you against people better than you enough, not that it doesn't place you with people worse than you.
You can't learn to get better unless you're getting beaten, but not to a degree where you don't understand what your mistakes are.
And if you're just playing against people who are roughly the same skill level, you're not going to get better either. Why? You need to be exposed to new tactics that you haven't encountered before, both to learn how to use these against others and how to play against them.
This is known as 'optimal challenge' in teaching.

Many players actually don't like this tho, because they're playing for fun, not solely to get better.
When professionals are playing against each other, you're no longer getting better at playing the game — you're learning how to beat that player. You need to know how they will react to every situation, their favored tactics, how they deal under pressure, etc.,

SBMM's real goal is to force people into a 50% win rate, of course you will have those players who are savants and pro or whatever the **** and probably go a fair bit above it for the most part but for the typical player the whole dream is to make things fair across all skill levels.

On paper it's a good idea, it keeps the sharks out of the pond and lets the new players get better over time. The truth is though it makes everything very samey and boring. The people who are good will eventually be matched with other people who are good and that sounds cool but then it becomes using the same meta/tier lists to remain competitive. Playing the same match over and over again is going to get old no matter what.

But other issues that arise is how it makes your player pool much smaller and in many cases won't prioritize connection so you could be in say Super Badass rank but if a lot of people in that rank are scattered throughout Europe and Oceanic places instead of NA, it won't care because it only wants you to have an on-paper competitive and close match that could go either way. If it did prioritize connection then maybe there aren't enough people at your ranking yet and the queue time becomes agonizingly slow or you see the same handful of players each time which again, makes things boring.

There's a fun element to the randomness of opponents, it even allows you to branch out and try different things that aren't meta for the sake of personal amusement like how people do knife-only in an FPS game or play a pretty ****** character in a fighting game for the sake of a self-imposed challenge.

And finally, it doesn't really work out how developers want it to. It encourages smurfing and making new accounts solely to **** on new players. The truth is a lot of people love the power trip of being able to smash someone to dust and there will always be a way for them to find out how to do this. If the games are randomized though, this starts to eliminate itself naturally.

It's an ideal that doesn't really have a comfortable place in multiplayer gaming and exists mostly because how many games are obsessed with being a big e-sport breakout title. Funnily enough, if a game does have a mode where it's randomized matchmaking I'd be willing to guarantee it is by far more popular. For example, WoW arena is nowhere near as popular as random battlegrounds and more people play casual match in a fighting game over ranked.

So many smurfs, as you mentioned. And it REALLY saps motivation.

If I have a good 3 (especially 5!) games then I may as well just stop and not bother, as I KNOW I'm gonna lose the next chain through one way or another. Whether it's super duper pros or a team of ******* or just a bad matchup. Just eh, what's the point? It just doesn't feel natural. The challenge becomes purely overcoming the algorithm, rather than the players or yourself.

[ropealready]

So many smurfs, as you mentioned. And it REALLY saps motivation.

If I have a good 3 (especially 5!) games then I may as well just stop and not bother, as I KNOW I'm gonna lose the next chain through one way or another. Whether it's super duper pros or a team of ******* or just a bad matchup. Just eh, what's the point? It just doesn't feel natural. The challenge becomes purely overcoming the algorithm, rather than the players or yourself.

Exactly this, especially true of any team-based games with a solo queue function to it and why I hate playing those types of games. If you have a hot streak then it's going to swing to the other side and make you feel like you're ******* cursed. It's so often designed to screw people and make them feel like they're treading water or in that elo hell cycle.

One thing I've noticed in a game like Street Fighter 6 though is the game kind of tricks you into thinking you're getting better because you can win one game to cover three games worth of losses with how points work out. It becomes more of a grind at that point because given enough time anybody can hit Master rank. I don't know if that's any better because it does remove some prestige in a way if you are competitive about it since it's a hollow achievement.

[Big Red Dog]

nowadays cheats/hacks are one google search away for little timmy so anything competitive is worthless, and anything noncompetive is treated as competitive by the pants ******** ******* who play it. like if you play day z despite it not being a game about getting a huge k/d ratio you'll get sniped from across the map by someone who will never loot your body. also anything team based will have a voice chat full of ******* gays and ****** all recording tiktoks and livestreaming to 3 people on youtube.