Does Online Multiplayer Always Make Sense?
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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As many of us have said already, most good fighting games require plenty of mindwork in more advanced play. One of Yatzee's misconceptions is that expert players instantly react to what they see. Instead, a plan is usually required in advance, and a plan cannot be formulated until you have an understanding of how your opponent thinks and functions. There may be an exception, but I'm pretty sure few players out there have the reflexes to just react to everything they see without predicting that it will happen beforehand.
The Dead or Alive counter system provides an excellent example of a clear difference between human and AI combat. In Dead or Alive, you can respond to any attack by entering a counterattack stance and ju-jitsuing the opponent if you do it right. However, the buttons you press vary, depending on what attack you're countering, and only a robot would have the reflexes to press the right buttons. Everyone else just has to guess, based on the opponent's behavior thus far.
Against a human opponent, you can avoid being countered by using a variety of different attacks throughout the fight so that your attacks cannot be predicted. However, since the AI is fast enough to counter all of your attacks, it is programmed to only counter some of them for fairness. As a result, probability replaces strategy.
The Dead or Alive counter system provides an excellent example of a clear difference between human and AI combat. In Dead or Alive, you can respond to any attack by entering a counterattack stance and ju-jitsuing the opponent if you do it right. However, the buttons you press vary, depending on what attack you're countering, and only a robot would have the reflexes to press the right buttons. Everyone else just has to guess, based on the opponent's behavior thus far.
Against a human opponent, you can avoid being countered by using a variety of different attacks throughout the fight so that your attacks cannot be predicted. However, since the AI is fast enough to counter all of your attacks, it is programmed to only counter some of them for fairness. As a result, probability replaces strategy.
Can Mr.Croshaw get over the fact he doesn't like multiplayer, so we can move on?
And a giant EWWWW on that kissing part. I know Croshaw is gay, but that still gross me out.
And a giant EWWWW on that kissing part. I know Croshaw is gay, but that still gross me out.
The flaw in your posit is the assumption that I don't know and/or can't communicate with the people I am playing with. I have a bevy of good friends who over the years have spread themselves across the far flung shores of the US. Once or twice a week we all call into a conference bridge and play CoOp/Multiplayer games together. When I played Resident Evil I had a good friend as a partner with complete full-duplex communication (not the shitty PS3 stuff, real telco-grade VoIP) whom I've known for years and have developed a gaming "partnership" in our strategy, the very sort of partnership you lament could not possibly occur unless the person is in the same room with you. If games were set to Offline Multiplayer only then I would simultaneously lose contact with many lifelong friends (who with our busy lives the twice a week gaming session is our only real chance to keep in touch) and retire from gaming as I am a grown man with a family and children and can't reasonably expect that my local friends (also with families and children) will regularly travel to my house late in the evening after the kids are asleep just to play some video games.
I hear you regarding online multiplayer. Giant kill fests against swarms of (hopefully) silent faceless 14yr old snipers on the same boring maps over and over and over don't interest me. And I don't dispute that having multiple people can render cut scenes pointless as we inevitably chat through them (but since the quality of dialog in most cutscenes generally causes my ears to bleed, I consider this a blessing). But please recognize that some people DO play online multiplayer CoOp so that they can experience the game with their friends, even if their friends are across the country. And it is possible to do so that the experience is not different than if they were sitting next to you on the couch, except you don't have to share TV screen real estate. Many games such as Borderlands and Operation Flashpoint and Resident Evil would be a terminable slog if it were not for the opportunity to work and talk with friends and maybe go on a good romp through the game in a manner that the developer never intended and would be hallow and empty if not shared with others in the same manner that a weekend trip to Vegas is not really the same when your mates don't come with you.
I hear you regarding online multiplayer. Giant kill fests against swarms of (hopefully) silent faceless 14yr old snipers on the same boring maps over and over and over don't interest me. And I don't dispute that having multiple people can render cut scenes pointless as we inevitably chat through them (but since the quality of dialog in most cutscenes generally causes my ears to bleed, I consider this a blessing). But please recognize that some people DO play online multiplayer CoOp so that they can experience the game with their friends, even if their friends are across the country. And it is possible to do so that the experience is not different than if they were sitting next to you on the couch, except you don't have to share TV screen real estate. Many games such as Borderlands and Operation Flashpoint and Resident Evil would be a terminable slog if it were not for the opportunity to work and talk with friends and maybe go on a good romp through the game in a manner that the developer never intended and would be hallow and empty if not shared with others in the same manner that a weekend trip to Vegas is not really the same when your mates don't come with you.