When winning matters more than fun (then no one has fun)

People who don't use mics in team based games are scum IMO anyway. Sure, I could understand if you are mute and all that, and if it had a dailouge wheel to help with orders and such. But in a team game? Yeah... that does not fly in my ballcourt. Get a mic and help or run off like a lone wolf and die, leaving us to our doom. No mics... they are all terrible.

@Demoskinos said:

@ZeForgotten If your not willing to learn then your not willing to learn. Learning takes effort. If you dont wanna put in that effort that's your prerogative but your going to also have to deal with the flack you get for being the clueless new guy.

Playing a video game shouldn't require someone to go out of their way and research stuff that most likely will be gibberish to a new player. When it comes to games, people learn by doing because it's more about entertainment than anything. That's a huge reason why tutorials in most games are the way they are. Playing bots is not the same as people, so outside of learning the hot keys it's not really helpful to "practice" against AI. I don't see why effort equals dealing with jerk players anyhow.

@Demoskinos said:

@MordeaniisChaos I dont need to be super competitive but if your too lazy to learn how to play your role on a basic level then your being rude and trollish. There's a vast difference between someone who is doing badly and at least aware and attempting to do what they need be and jackasses who try to lone wolf the entire match ignoring callouts that their teamates make.

No, you're playing with public folks, and you can't be sure that your suspicions are even a little bit correct. Because someone trying a game for the first time, or who is simply inexperienced not for lack of trying is going to look the same to you as the guy who has been playing for years and just ignores all of that anyway. If YOU want something, YOU have to get it. That means when YOU want a better competitive environment, which I agree that matchmaking/most public games are NOT good for competitive and organized, voice using team players; YOU have to go out and find that spot, not expect everyone else to look for a place designed for newcomers, because rarely does that even exist.

If you are playing a game and don't like playing with idiots, stop playing public games. Find a clan, find some buddies, get together, and play together. That's the ONLY way that you will avoid people who don't know what their doing, and you complaining about it isn't going to change the fact that there will absolutely be plenty of people joining a game's community that will need time to learn the game. I have a skype group of a bunch of my close gamer friends, and when I want to have an experience without randoms, I play with them. It's awesome, I have someone to talk to, I know I can count on them, I know how they play, and I don't need to worry about them not understanding a game because if they don't, the group helps them and is understanding enough to give them time.

@Anwar said:

sarcasm conveyed through text, my only weakness.... ugh

Everyone's, really. People who use sarcasm on text and then are surprised when no one gets it amuse me greatly. Sorta like when a girl expects me to know "Hey what's up!" in a text means "Hey fuck you you piece of shit why didn't you ____".

Perhaps top men can add a new "sarcastic" font or something. lol.

@Example1013: My bad for not writing for the sake of fellas that haven't read anything above the schoolastic level, but in the real world, often we have these things called "books" with very dense, small text and very long paragraphs. If I could read a paper back edition of War and Peace in middle school, you can read a couple hundred words of what I read. Or, you can not, and be just as well off for it. I might even prefer you don't read it, because if you're so lazy that you won't read that, you probably won't have much in the way of a useful response.

@Anwar said:

sarcasm conveyed through text, my only weakness.... ugh

I'm terrible when it comes to sensing sarcasm on forums too.

@Atary77 said:

@Demoskinos said:

@Atary77 In MOBA games there IS a definitive "right" way to play. Everything you do affects your entire team and you have to be willing to learn what you need to be doing or your gonna get bitched at. If you want something more casual man you shouldn't be playing MOBA games.

Yeah I've learned that you can't play MOBA games the way you would like a team based FPS where you do what you can till you get killed. In a MOBA you have to keep the other teams from getting kills because that will make them stronger and give them an edge the "Feeding" affect that's mentioned a lot. But it's kinda stupid when you're trying your best NOT to be killed only to get owned on by some expert and your whole team turns on you and accuses you of feeding the other team even when you're trying not to.

It's like what Jeff had mentioned during the quick look vid for AwesomeNauts. We've been kinda trained to play online games a certain way of playing till we die and simply respawn. But a MOBA can't be played like that. It's a useful lesson though and it's cool when a game dose something different and makes you change your tactics accodringly, but you can't rag on people who are trying to learn the ropes. They're gonna make mistakes but hopefully they learn from those mistakes. I know I did but I'm still no expert and don't plan to be.

Bottom line, a MOBA dosen't have to be for casual players, but you shouldn't HAVE to be an expert either.

Reading through the thread this sounds a lot like the forum discussions you would find in Left 4 Dead and L4D2 in the whole "mic vs no mic" discussions. People would complain about constantly getting kicked out of lobbies because they didn't have a mic in versus matches. Communication was so vital in those games that even if the person without a mic knew how to play each infected, knew where to expect attacks, and knew where to set up attacks they could still be a liability. A failure to communicate meant not letting the team know if they see infected, where they got dragged off to, or to move in any particular direction because of possible attack and this would usually be enough to end the chapter or match right there.

Even at their best a person with no mic was still unable to provide vital information that a person with a mic could give. Unfortunately, most people without a mic didn't know how to "properly play" their infected class. You would see boomers lumbering at people in plain view from 50 yards away, the hunter jumping in by themselves with no team back up, or the Tank trying to solo the survivors when the infected team is all dead waiting to respawn. As this was usually the case the argument put forth was, "Why start the game with a no mic player only to see a few minutes in that they can't play as a team when you can simply kick them in the lobby and get someone who will cooperate?"

Jeff's experience with Team Fortress 2 is the best case for these kinds of games where knowing how to "properly play" the different classes is vital to the gameplay experience. He's mentioned in the past how he can't get into the game because he's expected to know exactly what to do with each class at all times (very similar to the L4D series). Unfortunately for him that's the kind of game that is and some genres require that level of knowledge to play with people who aren't your friends.

@onan: Wow, ok I was not aware of that. Thanks for the information, I'll keep his in mind... and stick with some class other than Vangaurd lol.

Here's my questions for all the veterans out there. What would you say to a person who has never played a game like TF2, LoL, SMNC, or any competitive online game, and for the first time they want to try playing your game. They buy it, download it, install it, whatever and they just want to jump right in and see what they can do, would you get on that person's case because he didn't go to a website and read a whole guide first? What if said new comer actually went to the trouble of at least playing the game's built in tutorial, maybe played a number of games against bots before ever stepping foot online?

Could you still blame that person who wants to see what all the fuss is about and all he did was play the game without ever looking up an online resource? Because me personally I don't think I could. More often than not this is how I approach most games. Not by reading a FAQ or some big guide but by playing the damn game itself.

I know earlier in this thread I've said that yes there are plenty of guides out there for people who want to find them, but I don't think that should be a requirement. I don't think there's anything wrong with just wanting to play the game itself.

@onan: Wow, ok I was not aware of that. Thanks for the information, I'll keep his in mind... and stick with some class other than Vangaurd lol.

Here's my questions for all the veterans out there. What would you say to a person who has never played a game like TF2, LoL, SMNC, or any competitive online game, and for the first time they want to try playing your game. They buy it, download it, install it, whatever and they just want to jump right in and see what they can do, would you get on that person's case because he didn't go to a website and read a whole guide first? What if said new comer actually went to the trouble of at least playing the game's built in tutorial, maybe played a number of games against bots before ever stepping foot online?

Could you still blame that person who wants to see what all the fuss is about and all he did was play the game without ever looking up an online resource? Because me personally I don't think I could. More often than not this is how I approach most games. Not by reading a FAQ or some big guide but by playing the damn game itself.

I know earlier in this thread I've said that yes there are plenty of guides out there for people who want to find them, but I don't think that should be a requirement. I don't think there's anything wrong with just wanting to play the game itself.

I find it hilariously ironic that those "hardcore" douchefucks claim it's others that ruin the game when it's those very people who actually do it.
 
@Demoskinos said:

@MordeaniisChaos I dont need to be super competitive but if your too lazy to learn how to play your role on a basic level then your being rude and trollish.

@Tim_the_Corsair: My hats off to you sir for helping new comers and the like and your friends who did the same. It's really great to hear about experienced players who don't mind helping others and welcoming them into the game with open arms. To me that's how it should be. It's a game not some club. And I bet it must have been awesome playing that game against your friend that you helped. You're a good guy.

This thread is huge. My reply is unfortunately too huge.

I'm getting flashbacks of trying to get into the arcade fighter scene on the West Coast before SF4 came out. Street Fighter 3rd Strike, a game that's hardly ever changed. A strange example of a game in a vacuum that has still managed to evolve without patching or alteration, where, while the tiers are more or less defined.. still continue to change as the players' tastes change, or as the meta-game evolves.. Summarizing very quickly, it developed my interest in things like game balance, and fostered the belief that a lot of modern gamers today want a more curated, polished experience from day one, which I honestly see as a vaguely irritating softness at times.

That being said, I was not able to break into the competitive scene despite being incredibly interested in the game's underlying mechanics. To me, it was one of the most fairly-designed games that rewarded skillful play, knowledge, and creativity even at the most statistically theorycrafted levels. It's really hard to talk about competitive play without writing a sloppy game guide sometimes. You really have to realize what you're getting into before you jump into it. Guides exist. You have to be prepared to fail. It is a team game, so you depend on other people to complete combinations for you, but even learning the basics of the game's mechanics would do wonders for you and how the designers choose to reveal them to the player in-game is unfortunately up to them.

Despite all of Brink's tutorials, I still found myself getting lost in the maps on launch day. Maybe if they'd given the player a MAP in the loadscreens instead of forgettable cutscenes...

So anyway, DOTA games can be more enjoyable once you begin to understand countering when building your hero up, decide to take the plunge and actually research the game you're playing, pick a couple topics such as heroes you intend to play, and glean some tips.

As for the reaction to the communities. If I'm not mistaken, mute functions exist! I'm all for voicing your concerns over the community being vitriolic to newbies and Valve wants to combat that. LoL wants to combat that(and is, via their Tribunal System, letting players vote on the fate of their peers should they be reported), and foster an uplifting dimension of competition which is the best thing ever! ... But if you're not prepared to experience some of the storied venom that exists on The Internet...

At least don't be naive about the fact that being failed or failing in the heat of the moment can be frustrating, even if you or the community in that game isn't letting you know. Maybe it turns out you just don't like the game and you're still working out whether or not that's true, which is how I got hooked on them in my free time. The amount of items, team-builds that can change at random, forcing you to adapt. In some ways it's like gambling addiction except with the idea that by altering your skill-progression, gear-choices, you can influence the outcome of the slot machine.

@Atary77 said:

Here's my questions for all the veterans out there. What would you say to a person who has never played a game like TF2, LoL, SMNC, or any competitive online game, and for the first time they want to try playing your game. They buy it, download it, install it, whatever and they just want to jump right in and see what they can do, would you get on that person's case because he didn't go to a website and read a whole guide first? What if said new comer actually went to the trouble of at least playing the game's built in tutorial, maybe played a number of games against bots before ever stepping foot online?

Could you still blame that person who wants to see what all the fuss is about and all he did was play the game without ever looking up an online resource? Because me personally I don't think I could. More often than not this is how I approach most games. Not by reading a FAQ or some big guide but by playing the damn game itself.

I know earlier in this thread I've said that yes there are plenty of guides out there for people who want to find them, but I don't think that should be a requirement. I don't think there's anything wrong with just wanting to play the game itself.

I would definitely try and help the guy out. I do it on Source all the time (Usual questions like "How do I buy stuff?", "How do I get the same stuff from last round?", "Why is my gun not working?", "Do you have wall hacks?", "Can you buy me a gun pleeze?"...etc.) Although my team doesn't often listen to me when I say "Hey guys, you've died down the same hallway 16 times now, maybe you should hang back for a few." Alas, they still run down the hallway (there are at least 2 others they could have gone down). I can understand how it's annoying having a random teammate telling you what to do, but come on now. The same damn hallway every time. With the same guy sitting in the window every time.

That's why I rarely play online. Too much competion, and a painful start to boot.