When Halo 2 and Xbox Live came out, i was so pumped to finally get to play some new people…
I prefer offline solo games now.
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But Halo 2 was peak Halo multiplayer. Persistent game lobbies and in-game proximity chat were amazing. Back when the number one priority for game devs was making a fun game. Now it’s catering to sweaty streamers or maximizing mtx fomo.
The point was that the weak point in multiplayer is the other people. Loved that particular game, but damn was that eye opening on how shitty humans can truly be.
I think that really depends on how the multiplay is setup. Ranked games breed the tryhards. I was just hyping up Halo 2 multiplayer, but the older model of just having an Open Server Browser was better for chill games. You could find a server with a group community that you vibed with and just chill there. You could get a reputation and people are less likely to fly off the handle at you.
I never found a group that I gelled with until GTAO. Man, that first month was just racing shenanigans.
My favorite from those times was Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. I’ll never forget the 2 v 2 Spies vs. Mercs. First time I experienced Proximity Chat. The spies could sneak up behind you and once they were near, they could whisper in your ear, so you’d get a lot of, “Hey, baby…” and other funny stuff before your neck was snapped. It was so much fun and I still wish for a replacement.
sudden whisper
“The Lannister’s send their regards.”
DEAD.
It’s not even a ranked thing, but it’s why I’m sticking to my friend group or solo for monster hunter wilds.
“YOU ARENT RUNNING META!? IM OUT!” …thanks for forcing the monster to be scaled for multiplayer now that I have to solo it…
Meanwhile I’m running wide range drinking 50 fucking pots a hunt making everyone invincible.
Sweaty players suck in any game, but I find them less common in MH. You can just abandon the hunt too when something stupid happens like that.
At least in MH, the monsters health scales to the number of current players. If people drop the monster weakens proportionally. Aka, Baseline 1000 HP, x.2 multiplier per additional player, 1600HP for 4 players, 1000HP for 1 player.
If you have 4 players, and two drop, the HP total of the monster will drop from 1600 to 1200, and the remaining HP will adjust to the same percentage.
For for MH at least don’t stress it.
Part of why I like Helldivers is that there’s some element of shenanigans baked in.
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I hate to say it but sometimes I get a lvl 150 on my team (I’m 120) or I join 150 person they take it so seriously like it’s their day job. They get killed by something once by you it’s “I better not die again or I will kick you”. You ran in front of my line of fire, what?! Other than that great times all around!
Sounds like fun but rootkit anti cheat is too much for me.
I love how they just buffed the hell out of everything a few months ago so almost every weapon and strategem is viable for everything.
Reasons I love PVE more than PVP. There are still try hards, but fewer and PVE games generally have a different vibe.
Part of what ruined this is not letting players host servers. Back in the day most FPS servers were run by end users, and could form clans and communities with like minded players. The admins of those servers could set rules, and you could know what to expect going in. Hell the server NAME would let you know. Now you go to their servers, their sorting, random lobbies never with the same people, etc.
I adminned several clanservers for years for a couple popular FPS games. It wasn’t a perfect system and suffered from the same issues regular servers did along with some clans treating everything on the server as theirs - like game resources, vehicles, whatever. We ran pretty chill servers, but even our members could be guilty of some less than stellar behavior. If you were a newb and showed up on a random private server odds were that you were gonna have a rough time. If you were associated with another clan and showed up on teamspeak along with joining the server you were going to have a much better time.
That said, I think private servers were far better because they kept a lot of the tryhards on their own turf, and if you found a good server with chill players and admins, they often kept a clean house. But it could be difficult to find that server where you fit with the crowd.
I go into ranked modes to chill with games I enjoy. Why? I am (in games with a good ranking system) placed into games with others who play at about my skill level, which makes the game more fun - and I can usually play a full game in ranked, whereas people are more likely to quit early or just not try at all in quick play modes. Do people complain if I’m not meta? Sometimes, sure - but I just think about how they’re still the same rank as me anyways and I don’t sweat it too much. Its fun.
Ranked is for being a try hard and coordinating with a decent amount of game knowledge. People are gonna get heated and toxic, you’re playing with humans.
Just play unranked with comms off when you just wanna chill??
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I thought that most people claim not to like skill based matchmaking in casual because the players who are like top 10% but not top 1% have to always try harder even in casual mode.
This sums up Rocket League pretty well.
In Halo they’ve given up on moderating unranked. Unranked is where ranked people to to “practice” now, you can see their shitty clans running around and 360 no scoping all of us just trying to chill. Inevitably every game is crazy one sided, they high five and move on, and we get swamped 50-13
It’s unfortunate how rare good sportsmanship is in online multiplayer games.
My friend group refers to Left 4 Dead 2 versus mode as “the grand finals” for this reason; the players in it treat it like it’s the most important event that’s ever happened in their life, and a single mistake is completely unacceptable
Then… Don’t play ranked?
Ranked is specifically for the competitive crowd. If you’re just playing for fun, stick to the casual/quickplay mode. 🤦♂️
If you’re getting this shit in casual mode, just point out to the dude whining about his team that they should go play ranked instead of expecting people to give a single fuck about winning in casual.
I’m still salty that Smash Bros Ultimate removed the for glory/fun distinction that they had in WiiU/3DS, and moved everything outside of lobbies to ranked.
Some games are just shitty like that 😔
Could be worse; LoL used to have a rule that you had to play to win not to have fun
I think the theory was that even if you wanted to have fun, 9 other people wanted to play competitively
I met some good friends during my days of online multiplayer. I’m still glad those days are behind me. I’m pretty much exclusively a single player gamer now. When I do need to scratch the multiplayer itch I play boardgames with friends.
Not saying this approach is for everyone! But some single player games and some in person gaming may be nice to mix in. Anyway, whatever you choose to do, I hope you have some good experiences in the near future!
I’m not competitive at all, it’s just tiring to me. The journey with the mod to defeat every enemy with 3 hits in Witcher 3 was pretty chill, still an amazing game. Jot that down, you guys with the “intended experience”.
The trick is to either not give a shit or be amused by their rage over something that should be trivial.
Don’t play COD 2v2 Gunfight then. This is where the demons go when bored.
They aren’t sweaty lobbies, despite what people think. They are usually ice cold assassins testing their tactics and skill against other ice cold assassins. Occasionally some new players wander in, and it’s a bad time for them. The tough ones take their 6-0 loss like champs. The cheaters cry. Not your thing? Play Valheim on an easy setting cooperatively and enjoy. Something for everyone.
Is this like a bit?
