RaceRed

I know this is an older thread but I wanted to address this topic because it is something I have given some thought to recently. Like a lot of you I used to enjoy online multiplayer shooters when I was younger but frankly I just don't enjoy them anymore. My latest attempt to try and get back into this genre of games was Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 on XB1. I do not enjoy either of them and in fact I disliked BF1 so much that I took it back after only a few days. I have narrowed down the dislike that many of us have for these games to the core root of the problem or at least what I believe is the core root of the problem. To put it as simple as I know how, if you're not enjoying online shooters anymore it's probably because you have a life.

I noticed when I was playing Titanfall 2 that in nearly every match when the stats were displayed at the end there are typically 3 to 4 players that are dominating and the other 8 or 9 players are really just there to get shot and be a source of points for the core group of dominant players. These dominant players are the ones who have massive amounts of time on their hands to spend hours and hours a day doing nothing but developing their skill as an online shooter. If that's what you enjoy doing and you have the time on your hands to devote to it than so be it. But the majority of people out there have other responsibilities and obligations in life that preclude us from spending 5 to 8 hours a day online. I have a full time job like a lot of you and in the evenings I hit the gym after work. Then of course there are responsibilities around the house and so forth so when it's all said and done I can spend maybe an hour to an hour and a half a day playing video games. If it's an off day I might have more time but typically even on my off days I have things to do. At any rate, the end result is that a lot of us just do not have the free time to spend getting really good at a shooter video game. As a result, when we get into an online match with these players that spend countless hours playing we just spend the entire match getting shot. I noticed at the end of a lot of Titanfall 2 matches that there would be 3 or 4 guys that had 20 to 25 pilot kills just about every match. I would be lucky if I had 6 or 8 pilot kills. I'm sitting there thinking "I didn't even see 20 pilots to even shoot at in the whole match."

I liken it to the Pros versus Joes analogy. It might seem like it would be fun and cool to play football against a bunch of professional football players until you're actually on the field and then it would suck. It's sort of like that. You can't really have any fun in these online shooters anymore because there is a core group of players that are really good at online shooters. They dominate the games and the rest of us who have lives and just play video games casually end up really disliking the game and getting frustrated because there is nothing fun about just getting shot constantly and rarely if ever having a good match. I ran into this same problem when playing the latest Star Wars Battlefront. I'm a Star Wars fan from the time I was just a kid so when the new Battlefront came out I really wanted to try it. Visually it looks fantastic and really took me back to my childhood from that standpoint. Soon, however, the game was just not at all enjoyable because, as with all online shooters, that core group of really good players took over and the rest of us were just fodder. Just point bait. I don't care how cool a game looks, human nature dictates that you aren't going to enjoy losing all the time and having to constantly respawn. There's nothing fun about that and really the only solution is to devote the countless hours it would take to get really good and be competitive. It's hours that most of us just don't have, nor would I even want to because the games aren't interesting or engaging enough to me for that level of commitment. So in answer to the initial question of this thread, no I do not enjoy online shooters anymore. I really tried to enjoy Titanfall 2. I put in a good solid month of playing about an hour or so a day and made it up to level 42 before quitting because even after all that I was just spending every match getting shot constantly. I think my best match was something like 8 Pilots, 3 Titans and 12 Minions. Not even remotely as good as the core group of really good players. So yeah, online shooters are out for me. Just not fun at all anymore.