[POLL] Is competitive multiplayer overly complicated/saturated these days?

[The Chosen One]

Do you believe competitive multiplayer has become overly saturated with complicated user interfaces, tedious in-game weapon building, gimmicky grenades, misc. traps, frustrating randomized weapon caches/drops, and arbitrary game mechanics which only detract from the focus and objective of the game? Or.... Do you believe that competitive multiplayer has evolved over the years and the level of detail regarding weapon building/customization, interface design, player loadouts, and in-game mechanics provide a much more exciting and personable competitive multiplayer experience? Or.... a bit of both?

What are your thoughts fam? What would you like to see stay or go away in these games?

[MadMummy76]

So you pose an OR question, but provide YES / NO as the answers?! That makes no sense, if I reply YES, which part am I agreeing to?

I enjoyed Quake 1, and HLDM, UT, Q3, but nothing since then. So I think the simpler the game the better. I already hated CTF, which was the first multiplayer mode that was slightly more complicated than classic deathmatch.

[The Chosen One]

MadMummy76 to clarify the Poll question is “Is competitive multiplayer overly complicated/saturated these days?” If you voted “YES” then you are agreeing that it is. I threw in the “Kinda” because some people may be on the fence and indecisive.

Also your game list is pretty hardcore when compared to the competitive multiplayers of today. You’ve been around a while my friend! Those are some intense games regarding multiplayer.

[xadu]

All multiplayer feel to me like the same game with a different reskin. I'm disappointed by never making any progress. There is no advance to be made. Even if you are the best player, you are doomed to play again the same map.

[The Chosen One]

xadu what would you do to improve the experience? More maps, more modes, new game variants etc..?

[xadu]

@ The Chosen One

If I had to design a multiplayer game, I would make a randomly generated world like in No Man's Sky, but with more vegetation, and it would be like STALKER, with anomalies everywhere.

Some players would be Generals, viewing the game from above, like a real time Civilization or Command & Conquer game. They would give orders to other players playing in first person.

Fighting players would manage small squads of 5 animals or bots, (in first person, on the style of Rainbow Six Vegas), and after leveled up, they would manage small platoons (up to 50 units)

At start they would fight against local fauna, collect resources, and prepare defenses, but in the end they would fight against other teams.

Objectives would be destroying the other team or conquering a moon. But they would had to fight for the entire world, not knowing where the other team is located.

I would use neural networks (Advanced AI) to control the animals and bots, with different difficulty levels. The difficulty would come from the intelligence of the AI, and not from raising shielding of the AI or making them largest sponge bullets.

If a player dies, he would be permanently dead. He could keep watching the game, but to reenter it, the other players should collect enough resources/machinery/technology to bring him back. He would not automatically re-enter the game, but the team would be hurt by his death, and recovering him as a player would be just another strategic objective.

Players would be able to specialize in roles, like in a RPG game, but it would be flexible (so they can adapt to the needs of the team). Roles would be resource collecting, building, exploring, fighting in different classes.
The AI would rank each player for his skills (not for the perks gained inside a playthrough), so generals can choose his team for their skills.

The purpose is to make the game tactical and strategic, allowing each human to decide how they want to play.
Also I want a sense of progress along the game, and not just "conquering one map".
I want the AI to make the game challenging and entertaining, adapting to the skills of each player, and giving different rewards to different levels of skills. Some teams would fail just at trying to colonize the world. More advanced players would be able to fight against other teams.
I want the player to be armed to fight like a FPS, but encouraged to use his squads and platoons, so they can be slowly defeated by enemies, and been given the opportunity to escape and live for another battle. I hate one headshot kills on multiplayer FPS, but also hate the "health bar", which is unrealistic. I also hate automatic respawning after dying, because it removes the strategic advantage of killing an enemy, and makes dying too meaningless.

I also want games where the player is taught to be better, and not just leveled up with more powerful weapons, largest health bars and shielding.

I also like games where the AI can be manipulated in creative ways for his behaviors and expectations.

[Soulessgingr]

They are not more complicated. Only have more mechanics and a lot of stuff to hide how casual actually the games are. OW it's the epitome of a casual FPS.

[The Chosen One]

Very nice. Soulessgingr

[Hopeless Wombat]

Siege really is a great yet frustrating game. It rewards creativity but still keeps its shooting mechanics as a number one priority. Pulling off a Blitz 5K is what I sometimes live for.

[Soulessgingr]

Agree. The netcode still sucks even with the operation health. I keep playing it however.

[Hopeless Wombat]

I personally think this was the inevitability of multiplayer games. I've lost track of how many times a friend or user would express how much they'd like the idea from a single player game into a match against other players.

I guess in terms of complexities, I like them. I like the learning process as it keeps what I play more refreshed. I think I would have dropped shooters a long time ago if they all had the same nuance as Call of Duty, but I'm happy that there are games like Overwatch, Battleborn and Paladins that use HP systems, games like Rainbow Six Siege that really lend themselves to using the entire map with creativity to gain advantage less you take a ding to the forehead, and games like Battlefield where you have a whole map to consider. Then of course you have your battle royales which work on a complete reset system, creating even ground and works best for people who pray to the RNG gods daily, and then you've also got Splatoon which is an entirely different ball game. I also remember sinking hours into Uncharted 2 MP but avoiding co-op, similar to how I sunk hours into Resistance 2 co-op but avoiding MP. Brrrr that was a rough time. I also like usin the Bow in Monster Hunter which more or less makes the game a shooter.

I don't play Senran Kagura Peach Beach Splash for the gameplay. Just my loneliness.

I feel perhaps the older shooter crowd that grew up playing Doom, Quake, UT, Goldeneye and CS:not GO may find all this a little wanting. I get that, because I grew up with those too. It probably also feels that this stuff only happens in single player shooters now too. I just think that, because there is a storied history of competitive games, hybridisation and customisation become important in defining what your game is. I think it's gonna be hard to get these straightforward games without players thinking it was mobile trash or something stupid like that.

[Hopeless Wombat]

I don't necessarily think there's a clear cut line as to when the learning process finishes. I think that's more on a person's tastes as to what they find they want to understand. For example, in Overwatch as compared to my friends, I think I had a greater pool of characters I wanted to figure out, so I lasted longer in that regard. Once that well ran dry, it became definitely harder to stick to the game. There aren't any goals the game can give you outside of rank climbing at that point.

Call of Duty as another example, providing a list of false challenges for me to go complete, which in ways became the crux of my earlier goes with the series. So even if the gameplay is perhaps even more repetitive, trying to make some of the harder challenges happen was a weird form of masochistic fun in itself. Maybe not so much the modern entries. There's more than enough to make me puke there.

The point I want to make although not very well, is that what you seek in a game is dictated by you, and that never has a clear line. But being given things you don't understand fully can make you expend more time into learning them, if you believe it can be done. I have friends who can't be fucked, or rather, it doesn't connect enough for them to commit to learning whatever it is in the first place and that's fine.

As for the second point, I think it's most probably a developer to publisher result. Developers are either good guys with their intentions turned against the end user by the publisher, or they've had the taste of that sweet nectar called revenue swelter in their mouths long enough to take that initiative.

But regardless of what's true, what I meant is players like to fuck around with settings, and if given that option they will. I want to believe that one of the things that makes Overwatch popular is because characters are pretty much set in stone making the game jump in and play. If I were to compare this to League of Legends and it's massive array of shop upgrades, it seems overwhelming to me trying to find that thing I really want. I like Paladins and Battleborn because they have a nice middle ground between these extremes.

I don't think we're seeing eye to eye on that point, reading the end of your comment. I was thinking of something really general and all encompassing as opposed to money making schemes, but that's my fault for insinuating its to make games stand out and I don't 100% disagree with you either. What I was trying to say, I feel was also applicable to games well before an era where DLC and microtransactions ran rampantly through the entire industry.

[The Chosen One]

Thank you for clarifying . Do you tend to get bored with games once you’ve done all you can do i.e. challenges, characters, missions etc. because it looks like you really commit to a game (more so than your friends :P ). As far as the second point, I’m picking up what you’re putting down, they are important to give a game character and separate it from the pack. Thanks again for your clarifications.

[Hopeless Wombat]

More or less. I don't really like to do repeat performances anymore. I don't know if it was all the trophy hunting I've done, or the game collecting, or that I keep going to live service games with no real ending. Something happened somewhere that made it intolerable to replay a game.

[Astraea]

Yes, much yes. (Team) deathmatch or capture the flag is more than enough for me. I don't care much for the overly complex games of Overwatch and the likes. I will admit the creativity is high with the developers and a lot of people seem to like it. But i'd much more like to see that creativity be put into (team) deathmatch games and up the ante in terms of ways to frag each other and move about like UT and Quake did back in the day, moving past Duke Nukem and Shadow Warrior by completely overhauling our idea of PvP shooters. Instead of sticking with the genre, companies like Blizzard Activision made a whole new genre and a lot of people - especially the younger generation - don't even know what an over the top PvP shooter looks like.
Nowadays it's all about borish objectives while I have a sneaking suspicion people don't play because of they think the objectives are fun, but because they enjoy fragging people and would much rather play a game that's all about that and ditch the objectives.

I don't know if i'm correct about it all, feedback is welcome.

(edit: I would say evidence is in the popularity of Battle Royale games, dethroning games like Overwatch. While I would never play a Battle Royale, I think the popularity of a game where you ever more forced to focus on the players around you and take them out quickly is an indicator people long for the simple formula of the deathmatch. I say ditch battle royale and reintroduce normal maps with all their intracacies, hidey holes, bridges, sniping spots, 'town square', tunnels etc. . Be creative and put your efforts into map design, weapon complexity and variety, maybe a power up here and there for crazy effects, achievements, unlockables etc.)

[The Chosen One]

Astraea for full transparency I’m a very much Halo 3 competitive multiplayer type. Having said that I definitely think in the area of FPS structured games, that games like Quake, UT etc. are a generational preference IMO. Having said that I do believe there is a hunger for that type of action even today, but I think it will have to be developed in the form a new game.

Me personally I think FPS’ like Quake and like Halo 3 are iconic models that should be multiplayer template in terms of competitive multiplayer for new games. Note: Not saying they should recreate Quake or a Halo 3, but recreate the feel, UI, gameplay etc. into a new game from a multiplayer PvP standpoint. I think if there was a fast paced and intense 2019 multiplayer modeled like Quake, or a 2019 version of PvP multiplayer modeled after Halo 3 and all of its game variants you’d see a lot more people who are FPS players streaming them on twitch. I’ve noticed a lot of FPS streamers getting bored with the newest FPS’ right now.

A lot of my friends are all about the PvP killing. They couldn’t be bothered with objective based games. One of my friends I used to play with would simply go and try to kill the other team in CTF and later say, “If their all dead, they can’t get our flag” lol.

As far as creativity goes, it’s almost as if (from my perspective on the games I’ve played) the creativity has shifted towards skins, abilities, and monetization of cosmetics than optimizing gameplay for skilled matches (Granted not in all cases).

You seem to be a straight killer..... fragging and hurling well timed rockets into where your opponents will be.

[Astraea]

Yeah, you're reply is pretty much how I look at it except maybe you think there's a large market for objective based FPS? I really think the market for that is solely based on the fact that there is no real straight up over the top high quality FPS right now, not one with today's market standards. I'm convinced that if it were to exist, it would steal away a lot of the Overwatch/Fortnite/PUBG players because now they have a good alternative as well as attract old time fans.
Hah, your friend is a wise man, can't argue with his logic. I agree on the monetization part you mentioned, it's godawful and seems to be overly present in competitive gaming, even more so than online PVE. Which makes sense ofcourse, because competitive people like to stand out. I do like the ability to stand out, but what I like even more is great gameplay.

[The Chosen One]

“...maybe you think there’s a large market for objective based FPS?..”

To be honest, I really don’t know. I don’t think I said that, or if it came off that way I really don’t know. However, to beat a dead horse, Halo 3 gave you the option to stay in Slayer and allowed you to set up your own custom game types to share with the community. I’m always down for the death match, but I also think the game should have multiple game variants, plenty of maps for these respective variants, and fast matchmaking.