But will they?

Competitive shooter gaming is dying. You can say its not, but it is. MLG went mainstream with Halo 2 and continued into Halo 3. But now MLG keeps Halo in the lineup just as a (thank you). The real money maker is starcraft, where sponsers fly foreign gamers from their countries into the MLG events around America.

Anyways, as I was saying. Before I even continue, i will say I am not a Call of Duty hater. Have gotten every one.. BUT. To many games are going the CoD approach, which is very smart. For example, id say online, Call of Duty takes the least skill than any other popular shooter. Killstreaks and equipment is fun, but it takes zero skill.

Ive recently been playing a lot of Ghost Recon FS. The online is solid. The lower level you are, the more you have to rely on skill and teamwork. As your level increases, you unlock more and more BS that takes zero skill. You can unlock claymores (i feel no game should allow a weapon that you can lay on the ground and forget about it to get kills), Shock Claymores that when you walk in the path, you get shocked and fall to the ground for 30 seconds or so. Oh, and Drones that shoot missles.

I understand why gaming companies want online to take less skill... So that more people will enjoy it.

I know im not alone in this, but its annoying to have more skill than someone, but yet still get killed by them. Every game is doing it, babying the new kids.

Gears of war 3 allowed a super weapon at the spawn (sawed off shotgun).

Ghost Recon FS lets you unlock a bunch of stuff at higher levels that allow you to get kills without even moving.

Halo 3-Reach added armor and equipment to the game so that way a kid with less skill can be on equel ground. Tell me how many times you were in a DMR fight, was about to get the kill, then they armor lock and wait for a teamate. yes thats good teamwork, but why should a kid with less skill get to live. Or in halo 3, you get a few shots on someone with the BR and they drop a shield regen or bubble shield.

Heck, even Max Payne online is rediculous. It rewards higher level players with the best weapons. And i mean, the BEST.

Halo 4 should stop relying on MLG gametypes to save the competitve nature of online. Yes all of these games are competitive. But there hasnt been a game like Halo 1 or 2 where the entire philosphy of the online was "hey, you either get good, or youre done". Not "Hey if you're kinda bad, we'll let you spawn with something that takes zero skill to use".

343 is already failing. But I wish they wouldnt. Random weapon spawns because skilled players learn the spawns of the weapons. Seriously?

Competitive online mutiplayer doesn't make companies as much money as social online multiplayer does, so very few companies care about. I'm all for lowering the barrier of entry so more people can get into gaming.

Agreed, except for the part where it's smart for developers to take the CoD approach in multiplayer. CoD4, as enjoyable as it was for a while, butchered and ruined everything that made multiplayer games awesome. Rank-ups and unlocks destroy the balance and skill-gap that most multiplayer games have to offer and is why I would rather play games like Counter-Strike Global Offensive, Team Fortress 2, Mount and Blade, ect. A game with dedicated servers and mods makes a multiplayer experience all the better, in my opinion.

Competitive gaming is dumb. The fact that you think claymores should be cut out of a military shooter just proves it.

First, competitve gaming doesn't need saving. Second, play Battlefield if you want to test your skill more versus perks per se. Third, random spawns of power weapons in Halo 4 is a balance thing, and it's a very smart choice imo. More competitve matches equals more fun, and more people will stay and play longer in terms of weeks and months, and maybe years.

As long as they include classic, equal playing field Halo gametypes, then there's still hope.

Unfortunately, all we've heard about are changes that they're making to the tried-and-true formula (instant respawns, loadouts/unlocks, killstreak weapon drops, etc.). Halo has been the last true competitive arena shooter on consoles for some time, but it's barely scraping by at this point, and they risk further ruining its simplicity and purity by piling on new elements to the sandbox.

They really need to go back to the roots of balanced, skill-based shooting, map movement, communication that Halo 1 and 2 were built on. The incentive for people to play should be for the love of the game itself, to actually improve one's skills - not some dopamine thrill of unlocks flashing on the screen. I withhold full judgment until E3.

The answer to getting a huge fan-base with a game that actually takes skill and teamwork is to make it free to play. A lot of the reasons we have games that go under the radar is that people don't have unlimited amounts of money to pour into every "great" game that releases.

Just look at LoL, Tribes, and all the other competitive f2p games. They are going gangbusters because their is zero risk in trying the game out. The companies get their money, the world gets a persistent community, and in the end the player gets what he wants: A free game that allows you to pay as you want.

It's just that a normal $60 retail box is so risky now for developers to do something different because people flock to the popular game. Right now the game is Call of Duty and regardless of how good games that are different come out, it's to mainstream of a genre for them to care.

More advanced gear doesn't make the game require less skill; it just changes the kinds of skill required to succeed. I agree being way behind in unlocks sucks, and brand new players should be 100% competitive with veterans (even if they have more limited choice). All other things equal, good weapons/unlocks makes things way more interesting and can vastly improve the meta game.

As an example, claymores and mines demand more attention and skill from opponents because it means you actually have to pay attention to where you're going in a level. As self-professed BF3 player, I'd say the fact I haven't run over a mine in weeks is evidence that I've become more skilled at reading my environment and expecting that kind of attack. It's not twitch skill, it's contextual awareness, one of several skills that I honestly prefer in modern shooters. But to each their own.

Watching StarCraft is better than watching FPS games for a couple of reasons. 1: It is intellectual in nature which means you can learn about the game beyond number crunching or learning where the best spots to snipe are; 2: It is easier to watch because you can see more of the action at once; 3: It is easier to cast because there is more to talk about than who shot who; 4: The game is drastically different at high levels of play, unlike an FPS. Not to mention that it's just basically 200x more dynamic than a shooter. I'd wager those are some of the reasons it is so much more popular.

I'm not hating on FPS games because I happen to enjoy them myself. I'm just saying that I don't find it nearly as entertaining to watch.

Also, explain to me the part where you know that the guy who killed you is less skilled than you are?

@VelourMustache said:

Also, explain to me the part where you know that the guy who killed you is less skilled than you are?

If the game is fundamentally flawed, like Halo: Reach's bloom which randomizes where your shots hit no matter how well you aim, then the test of "who's better at shooting" is pretty much diminished. There are plenty of factors that can throw off a game's skill gap and lead to cheap tactics, especially if it's attempting the chess-like balance that Halo used to.

What I really hate is when I know that I have more skill than someone at video games, yet when something unfair happens to me others just mock me.

Anyway, I just want every single game ever to lose the unlocks. Fuck 'em. Get rid of 'em. Gone. Bye-bye. Out the fuck of my game. Cosmetic ones are A-OK, but I want to put in a game and know that I'm not going to be absolutely destroyed by some motherfucker who's played it for 1000 hours and has the gamebreaking class setup.

Unfortunately, it seems like Halo 4 is going to have some sort of unlock system, so there goes that.

If people were so good you would find counters to power weapons. The sawn-off in gears 3 was ridiculously easy to counter. Retro Lancer trumped it every damn time unless they flanked you in which case that's on you for not being aware enough. There is always a counter to things.

@Rohok said:

Competitive gaming is dumb. The fact that you think claymores should be cut out of a military shooter just proves it.

lol what?

It won't. Competitive MP has always been a pointless addition to shooters, adding nothing and detracting from the fun of the game, just look at Headhunter in Reach MP, I have never before, nor will I ever see, such a shitty idea placed in a setting where it didn't belong. Competition is grand, but in a game, where things are supposed to be fun, why is there such a difference between ranks of players. A rank should only influence your matchmaking, like a tiered system, but that's never the case as weapon and perk unlocks fuck the difficulty and skill curves right up, sometimes for more positive reason, but mostly to accomomdate for the fact that the devs didn't think that an implementation of a more soild ranking system in the MP mode of their game was as important as making arbitrary shit for players to struggle for, that they might not even want when they get it.

Reach's problems spread far beyond those perks, same with CoD or any Mp shooter. Balance is the key, and perks are not the way to go. If anything, the higher your rank, the fewer perks you should have access to, until a stage where your rank dictates that you can no longer use them anymore. It's only fair, as new players need a bit of a push, and those who want a challenge and have the skills will rank up more quickly, shedding the perks and getting the gameplay that they want. I don't know why this ever became an issue, seems like some people just don't want to play with default mechanics anymore, and that speaks volumes about shooter designs as of late.

Halo 4 will do nothing new on the SP or MP fronts that hasn't already been done a thousand times, and MLG is the single worst place to draw the target audience for a game from.

I am a huge fan of Halo, I am pretty good at it but competitive Halo is on a new level, it is so hard.

I have basicly made Battlefield into my main competitive game, because I am pretty damn good at it, but Halo is harder because if you take time off you really lose the skills you once had, it takes so many elements to be good at Halo, you really have to understand the game on a whole new level to truly be good at it. Your location, aim, grenade throwing ability, team work, communication, and map knowledge are all so important in Halo.

Playing Reach as of late after taking some time off it actually seems that there is a skill gap that is present, one I though did not exist, Halo is competitive, it is what I would say is easily the most competitive shooter that exists today.

Halo has always been my go to online shooter of choice, but Halo: Reach has kinda left a bad taste in my mouth, while Battlefield is giving me what I want (before EA effed it up that is) so I can see this game being the perfect blend of all the current online shooters

I wish MLG did Battlefield 3 stuff.

I really hope they deliver on the multiplayer side of Halo 4, I've played a lot of Reach and I consider myself kinda good ( at least 50% of the time ) and I love the teamwork that is needed if you want to succeed.

I've totally given up on CoD, didn't even buy MW3, I went the Battlefield route instead and damn was that a different game, got my ass handed to me. So I'm sticking with Halo when it comes to fps games on consoles, at least that is a game I can give the the opposite team a challenge and not just running around getting killed.

What I do like about Halo is that a it takes some serious skill if you want to be good at it. I just feel that when a headshot is not an instant kill, it creates something that is not just die spawn die spawn die spawn. You have to fight for your kills, you can take out a whole team by yourself bit it takes effort.

@Lebensbaum: Pro kid.

I doubt it has a chance.

Play Counterstrike.

I remember when people played games for fun. Those were the days.
 
>.>
 
Also, the Halo 4 unlock system will just give you more options in combat, not more power. That's why they still have POWER weapons laying around the map.

Console + Competitive multiplayer: http://i.imgur.com/TmvqA.gif

Is it wrong that I thought this was a Jay thread by the title.

Shootmania has the chance to save competitive shooters. Not this

Just because they are using abilitys doesn mean they are less skilled it means they are smart, do you think humans got to the top of the food chain because we are faster, tougher, or stronger then a lion or bear. No we got there because we were smarter.

I go to MOBA games instead of FPS for my competitive online multiplayer.

@Chavtheworld said:

Shootmania has the chance to save competitive shooters. Not this

Are you kidding me?

Halo is the hallmark for modern competitive shooters, Halo 2 put MLG on the map.

@big_jon said:

@Chavtheworld said:

Shootmania has the chance to save competitive shooters. Not this

Are you kidding me?

Halo is the hallmark for modern competitive shooters, Halo 2 put MLG on the map.

I'm not saying it didn't but dude, you think Halo which is now a common household console ass console game, made for as many casual gamers as care to look at it has any chance of revitalising a dying pro scene?

The only thing that will be suitable is a game built from the ground up with pro play in mind. Halo is not this game. Halo will be horribly unbalanced and almost certainly have all of the perks and shit we've seen from Reach and 3 upgraded another level of crazy. Shootmania's sole reason for existence is E-Sports, so that's the game that I'd put all my money on any day.

Actually I would posit the "standard online shooter" is CoD4 not Halo. A lot of games seem to copy what CoD4 did where Halo is now the outlier. Its amusing to see someone pickup the controller to play a Halo game and see them throw a grenade or jump when someone comes into view because they were instinctively going for the "look down the sights" which these games do not have.

Competitive shooter gaming is dying. You can say its not, but it is.

Citation needed there, buddy.

The the next thing you know, the OP will be claiming that PC gaming is dead or something.

Starcraft II will die also. League of Legends killing it in # of views.

FPS games can never have the same success in esports as a game like Starcraft. It just is not as watchable as Starcraft. I would guess the majority of people who watch starcraft have either never played or no longer play. Halo had success because it was so popular and so many people played it, but if you want to ask someone who has never played a FPS to watch competetive halo they will have no idea what is going on. You can only really watch one players perspective at a time which gives you very little information of what is going on in the game, and sure you could zoom out and watch from a third person perspective, but anytime I have seen that for an FPS it looks like the most boring thing in the world, and you have no sense of the players skills. Starcraft is simple, build an army and kill your opponent. Anyone can understand that, plus you can see so much of what is going on and at the same time recognize the players skill.

@Green_Incarnate said:

Starcraft II will die also. League of Legends killing it in # of views.

No it won't, just because another game gets more attention doesn't mean they can't co-exist.

The only competitive games I can stomach watching are fighting games (oozing with personality) and a bit of StarCraft. Shooters are just not fun to watch at all, I don't like watching LoL either really, playing it is fine though.

Give me competitive Crusader Kings 2. Then I'd actually give a damn about competitive gaming.

Armor abilites and equipments doesn't necessarily make the game require less skill. Not when everyone has it equally. You can say it makes the game less balanced and interesting, but it's a part of the game and using it as efficently as possible is a skill.

@Green_Incarnate said:

Starcraft II will die also. League of Legends killing it in # of views.

I'm not sure, League of legends is much more difficult to understand to just the casual viewer. It does have a ton of viewers, but I think that is because of the huge amount of people playing it. I never hear of people who don't game watching LoL, and that isn't sustainable. For a sport to be successful in the long run you need people to watch it who have never played it or have no interest in playing it, like all the major sports and this is one thing Starcraft does really well. It seems a lot like the Halo scenario, once people are done playing LoL it will fall off the map. Many people are done playing starcraft, but it still has massive tournaments and viewers almost every week.

Not tyring to be a fanboy or anything, I think MOBAs are fucking awesome, this is just how I see it.