Because it doesn’t seem to matter currently if you play ranked games or casual games, the general experience tends to be the same. But one has numbers and things to go with it. You still get people playing to win in casual games and you get people dicking around having fun in ranked games, and the ranks don’t necessarily indicate how they play as a team and a whole bunch of other things that make it less than ideal.
I just wish “gamers” would get less angry, anger management or something.
Something that really doesn’t help is that although I am a gamer, I hear about how toxic many multiplayer environments are, so I never join them. I’ll only play with my real life friends, who aren’t going to call me a racial slur if I make a mistake or am honest-to-goodness bad at the game.
A toxic environment leads to droves of people who won’t tolerate it fleeing. Most people who won’t tolerate toxicity also would not perpetuate a toxic environment themselves—in other words, the toxicity drives out lots of non-toxic people. Now the proportion of toxic to non-toxic people is much more slanted towards the toxic.
I just disable voice chat these days. Makes the game (any game) so much better.
There was a brief time in the late 90s to early 2000s where you’d just hop into an open server. The lobby would keep the same players as it went round to round and people would just filter in and out as they felt like it. It didn’t track scores or stats between games, and there wasn’t a leveling or progression system that followed you. You just played through the round as it came. People seemed to care a whole lot less about their record or team–it just seemed like everyone was happy to be able to play online. Maybe it’s just because I’m older now and I’m looking back at it with rose tinted glasses, but I wish we could go back to casual modes like that. I don’t have the energy or will to deal with people the way it’s set up now.
The problem with non balanced lobbies is that they can be completely wrecked by someone who is more skilled.
This is still an issue with matchmaking systems intended to keep the game balanced in developer controlled servers though, so I don’t know what the relevance is.
Its a lot less of an issue so it’s obviously relevant.
If anything it happens more in the unmoderated matchmaking systems because there are no admins.
Admins do not kick people for being to good. I dont know where you get that idea.
Well I can tell you never actually played in that era, because it did happen. Just on the SLAUGHTERHOUSE TF2 servers, in which I myself was an admin, would kick players who completely dominated a game over to another server where they would fit in better. This was a pretty common practice. Not to mention the admins who power tripped and would kick anyone who killed them too often or claim everyone better than they were was cheating.
Smash Bros uses/used “For Fun” and “For Glory”, which I thought was pretty cute.
I think there is an issue with saying that ranked is “playing to win” though, since people in non-ranked games are still trying to win. They probably don’t want the pressure of ranked, or maybe just don’t want to play the meta.
I think there is an issue with saying that ranked is “playing to win” though, since people in non-ranked games are still trying to win
And also people in ranked may still be having fun
What about the people who play to win for fun
Do you still have fun when you lose?
Yes because I’m not a crybaby.
That statement comes off a bit disingenuous when you qualify like that.
One might get the idea that you’re inserting the same toxic behavior we see in competitive games so often into this conversation.
A simple “Yes” would have sufficed and I wouldn’t have thought twice about your sincerely on the subject.
Chivalry 2 might be the only PVP game I played where I often still have fun when losing.
Team Fortress 2 and Fall Guys have this quality as well. I wish more games would embrace the goofiness. It’s harder to take a match so seriously as to become toxic when the game isn’t even taking itself seriously.
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Honestly for competitive games if you’re not playing to win, just don’t play. What’s even the point?
There’s different levels of playing to win though. I play a lot of R6 Siege. In the evenings I mostly play casual with my friends. I’m either using the random button to pick my operator for variety, or I’m playing all shotguns for a battle pass challenge or I’m trying to find ridiculous places to put a frost mat.
Within that structure I’m trying to win the rounds, but it doesn’t matter if we lose. I’m just having fun in a game with my friends.
What counts as a “competitive game” - is it anything where there are winners and losers or something more specific?
Another name for them would be adversarial multiplayer. But, basically yes. Anything where there would be winners and losers is what I would call a competitive game.
Though others narrow it down further to more high skill adversarial games like Quake and Counter-Strike and League of Legends/DOTA for their professional competitive leagues.
Trying to think of an example of any games I play where winning or losing is possible, but doesn’t affect my enjoyment.
I’m coming up short, I don’t think I can honestly say that I have one. Anyone else?
i think a competitive game would be like CSGO where it’s often pretty intense and there’s a lot of mechanics to learn and often times your pretty frustrated when you lose as opposed to like call of duty where it doesn’t really matter if you win or lose (or didnt in older titles)
Can you think of a game that exists in a gray area? Most games I would consider competitive multiplayer games are pretty obviously so. Maybe something like a BR game where you’re expected to not win. Or Elden Ring where the competitive multiplayer aspect is de-emphasized. Do those games even have casual and ranked modes?
MTG Arena - there’s a regular play queue and a ranked queue, and people definitely play to mess around and try new decks for fun. This of course doesn’t cease to induce salt from sweaty gamers in the play queue.
Even ignoring games that you consider “in the gray area,” who are you to say someone can’t find a way to have fun in a game that doesn’t align with your way of having fun? Not everyone is playing the game hoping to land on an esports team.
Edit: I’m mostly referring to casual queues - ranked queues being hyper competitive does make sense. I’ve just seen the same argument made that casual queues should be the same level of competitive.
Co-op games that let you troll your buddy?
Things like L4D’s primary mode and Portal 2’s co-op mode.
Those are multiplayer co-op. Can you even compete in those games?
You can compete against each other for points in L4D while not actually playing the adversarial/competitive mode.
You can kill each other in Portal 2’s co-op by being a dick with your side of the portal.
They’re the only things I can think of that are a gray area and not pretty well defined.
I said something similar in another reply, but I can’t think of any games where winning/losing is possible but doesn’t change my enjoyment. Even elden ring invasions feel better if you win the encounter.
The only thing that could come close is an encounter like that or in something like DMZ where you can talk it out and join forces, but maybe that’s just another form of winning.
Didn’t Smash basically do this already?
FOR GLORY vs FOR FUN
