Your thoughts on Competitive Multiplayer

I'd personally take good Co-Op over competitive multiplayer anyday.

Competitive multiplayer is just so damn frustrating and even stressful most of the times.

Some examples for me are;
Call of Duty and Battlefield games;

Every death is an aggravating "what the f*ck?" and "how the hell?" no matter what the circumstances.

League of Legends;

Frustratingly boring.

it is competitive to the point of boredom and frustrating aggravation.

I personally enjoy Borderlands 2 and other co-op games as they relieve stress rather than inducing stress.

What are your thoughts?

I love competitive multiplayer but it's only fun when the games are balanced. I simply cannot get into BF3 because it feels unbalanced, it's too often the case that one team gets pushed to deploy and gets stuck there. Then, depending on which side you are on, you either die over and over or you sit back and pick people off. BOOORING. For some reason I found that BFBC2 did not have a big problem in this rehard and I enjoyed it A LOT more. Sad.

So yeah, balanced competitive multiplayer shooters are, imo, some of the best fun out there but it can be ruined easily if there is imbalance.

As for games like LoL, I do not play those. I can say however that GW2 PvP sucks. This was very disappointing to me because I loved playing high end HA and GvG in GW1. Unfortunately in GW2 PvP has been dumbed downed and made less intense. There was nothing as satisfying to me as playing ranger, spreading poison, rupting, and when called spiking someone down. Oh my, it brings back some good memories. There is nothing like that in GW2. 

Ultimately, what makes competitive multiplayer gaming of any sort fun is the ability to test your skill against other human players. AI is still nowhere good enough to challenge human players. Also, the greater the you can improve your skill in a game, the better. I don't mean leveling up either, I mean learning skills, strategies, and tactics. That's why GW has so much potential, it didn't focus on level or gear but rather on teamwork and individual ability. The greater your knowledge of skills, the greater your ability to position yourself effectively, the greater your team work together, the greater your chances of winning.

Uh, yeah well I could rant for a while but..

I don't usually like it, I prefer single player and co-op though. I'm not really a fan of FPS games which is what most people tend to play. I'm not competitive at all and never care about winning or losing, even though I usually am one of the best players in games if not the best I frequently upset the people I play with by not showing any kind of positive emotion when we win or sometimes just getting bored and barely trying. Not really any benefit to winning, I care more about a game working the way it should, I think the times I get most upset or emotional during a competitive game is when the game does something stupid, lags, etc and screws the other team over. 

I enjoy it in specific game types. COD games are fun to pick up and put down, and the level progression makes you feel like you're making some progress even when you aren't in SP. I like co-op games in principle, but I dislike what co-op has done to gaming in general. I used to wish that every game had co-op, but then I got my wish and the result was oversimplified interfaces, mandatory braindead AI parters when in SP, balance issues, a lack of ability to pause games in SP, etc.

Basically it turns games into Resident Evil 5.

I'll take a great, atmospheric, immersive, story-driven single player game over a multiplayer experience any day of the week.

-Byshop

I am a competitive person, so I can enjoy competitive gaming. When playing online I can get pretty pissed off but when playing locally at others I'm generally good at containing my feelings (now if only others could do the same...)

I'm not opposed to competitive MP but anymore it seems every game has it.  I find myself just playing BF3 for an online shooter and Madden for online sports gaming (though, I will be adding the Vita Killzone for competitive MP when it comes out).  I don't really need to play deathmatch in every game that has a gun and I can't stand when obvious singleplayer games have trophies for the tacked on MP (i.e. Tomb Raider and Bioshock 2 just to name a couple).  Sometimes competitive online can be surprisingly fun such as Uncharted 2, but for the most part I find myself ignoring it in most games since it starts to get repetitive.

I have not gotten as much into co-op MP unless it's with people I know.  I'm hoping Killzone on the PS4 has co-op, KZ3 was fun playing through splitscreen.

But lately I've been playing mainly SP games with just BF3, Madden, and Soul Sacrifice for online play.

Its only Shooters that seem to have this problem and even then its limited to simple Deathmatch modes. I think competitive games should focus less on kill counts and more on some other types of objectives.Lulekani

I have fallen out of the mood for competitive multiplayer. Back when they used to have public arcades, I was more into it. There was a certain level of respect playing somebody competitively face-to-face. Now, with the anonymity of the internet, people just act like 9 year old dicks with no kind of respect for anybody. I can definitely do without that.chicknfeet

It's been overplayed. It was once really good, but they've just mashed it everyone's face so hard and stuck it in so many games it has no business being in that I just really don't give a flying fvck about it anymore. The way I see it, there are about four or five interesting multiplayer modes, and as such, I only really need one or two games with those modes to fill that niche for an entire generation. I say go with an uber-popular game like Gears or Halo; one that is still going to have a community in six months unlike 98% of every other multiplayer community. Beyond that, I have no idea why anyone would continue to buy online multiplayer games when the only differences are the settings and size of the community. I mean, how many King of the Hill, CTF, Team Battle, and Versus does anyone need? I just can't imagine anyone playing the fvck out of King of the Hill in Halo and then jumping into another game's KOTH mode and being blown away -- I just can't.

Beyond that, these games will eventually be unplayable once the servers are shut down, which means they have a finite shelf life anyway (and that's assuming they even have a decent community beyond a few months from launch, which most don't) and will eventually be a complete waste of money. Someone buying a shlt ton of multiplayer games reminds me of someone hoarding food; buying carts and carts and carts full of it, but by the time this person goes to eat most of it, it's all rotten. 

I have zero interest in it.  Considering what the audience for those games is like, I'd compare it to working at a daycare center and not getting paid for it.  You just do the exact same thing on the exact same maps over and over (until they come out with more maps you can buy) and whoever can stand the tedium the longest gets the highest kill/death ratio.

[QUOTE="Lulekani"]Its only Shooters that seem to have this problem and even then its limited to simple Deathmatch modes. I think competitive games should focus less on kill counts and more on some other types of objectives.Spartan_N7

I can't really enjoy multiplayer to it's fullest because I have a very crappy 1Mbps internet connection which gives less than 1Mbps most of the time. Plus I have over 300 ping on most servers.

I gave up on it a while back. I used to play a fair amount of FPS multiplayer, and my skill level was such that at least I was'nt getting totally obliterated within the first few seconds of a match. But after a few years of playing, fatigue started to set in. I was playing the same modes across more than one game. Everything felt stale, and the behavior of the online community certainly did'nt help either.  I'm not competitive either, so all of this combined to stop me from playing vs multiplayer at all.

Only sort of multiplayer interaction I choose these days is some co-op in Dark Souls/Borderlands, and on a few rare occasions, I'll boot up Dirt 3 for some rally stages. 

I used to love the Rainbow 6 co op modes, Seems you don't get those in games anymore.

I used to love the Rainbow 6 co op modes, Seems you don't get those in games anymore.

CUDGEdave

I generally avoid it, but there have been a few online games that I've enjoyed and been very active in.

If I were to to chose between co-op and comp, I'd go with co-op. Several reasons why.

-Online lag. You really can't have a good, straight match without lag getting in the way. Because of that, gamers can use lag to their advantage and get you killed in places that you would think you would be safe in or it would make you jump from one spot to the next and then you'd end up dying. That's not cool at all.

-People are cheap, ridiculous, and pathetic. A lot of them, especially the MW community, love to Halo jump and tube the hell out of people to win. Then there's camping, a strategy that I find to be incredibly ridiculous and uncalled for.

-Co-op just seems a lot more fun to me and more relaxing, even though I do have times when some things in the game don't work out right and I get mad. Hell, who doesnt? Still, it's more enjoyable than competitive.

Overall I do prefer co-op of competitive.

That's not to say I don't like competitive games, but they have to be balanced.  The problem is a lot of online games are "balanced" to cater to players who just aren't very good.  Creating some pretty terrible oversights that can easily be exploited.

I personally prefer fighting games as far as competitive gaming goes.  The fact that It's just you and one other person, no random factors outside of your control, appeals to me.  In a well made and balanced fighter, the better player wins, simple as that.

Love it, but I'm a bit too competitive.

As a competitive player I enjoy it. Depending on the game, it's like chess with faster reflexes and proper execution. I have a healthy competitive spirit, so I enjoy learning and developing very much.

I like it all. I love co op in the right game, and multiplayer is great because it adds to the replay. If a game doesn't have multiplayer I usually stop playing it after I beat it.

Prefer competitive to co-op. Been playing League for 3 years now off and on. Every match is pretty much a learning experience and the majority of my best gaming moments this gen have stemmed from competitive multiplayer. Skype + friends + 5 man troll teams is too good.

I don't mind playing some co-op campaigns, but I gave up on competitive multiplayer years ago.  It just doesn't appeal to me any more.

[QUOTE="Spartan_N7"][QUOTE="Lulekani"]Its only Shooters that seem to have this problem and even then its limited to simple Deathmatch modes. I think competitive games should focus less on kill counts and more on some other types of objectives.Lulekani

I've had fun playing them.

[QUOTE="Lulekani"][QUOTE="Spartan_N7"] Play Battlefield. I had a game earlier where I didnt get a single kill, died twice, and still had the most points at the end of the match. Anyway, the only competitive multiplayer game I play is Battlefield. Occasionally Ill pop in Call of Duty 4, but it's nothing but hackers anymore so I dont get much fun out of it. Spartan_N7

I enjoy competitive games to a certain extent. Every time I see other people play, it looks exciting, fun, and fast paced Then I get around to playing it, and I can't do any of the things I see other people do. I usually come around back to Halo every now and then, because it's the only multiplayer that I can actually play decently. Everything plateau's after a while and I find myself a little too frustrated to enjoy myself, which defeats the purpose of why I play games in the first place. I keep the competitive stuff to a minimum right now. Co-op, on the other hand, is something I prefer much more.

It's incredible. I'll take Battlefield 3 over Halo or Call of Duty any day. Spartan_N7

I wouldn't put CoD and Halo in the same sentence though. At high level one requires a five (soon to be four) shot precision weapon with proper set ups and such versus pray and spray. I feel you though in regards to BF, it's golden.