Multiplayer : do you hold back ?

[Jackhorse]

Never, although I tend to ignore small fry in favour of the nastiest of the enemy team. I play TF2 and will often do my best to simply sneak around or plough through the other team just to get that spy/sniper/engineer who keeps taking my whole team out. Sometimes I'll even send them congratulatory messages if they pull off a beautiful headshot but I will hunt them down to my last breath before giving them an opportunity for another cheap kill.

TL;DR I tend to somewhat ignore weak players in favour of the stronger.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

If I end up fighting someone who is clearly less skilled than me, then yeah, I'll hold back slightly... but only to toy with them before unleashing absolute carnage on them when they least expect it. Yeah, I'm a dick.

EDIT; As an example, when playing AVP with a friend once, we were both Predators and we were kicking so much ass that we decided to just chill out and do nothing for a minute on top of some pillars high up in the middle of the map. The marines and alliens were all running around down below trying to kill each other and it was just fun to sit and watch. Then my friend says to me over hte mic, "So, you wanna kill that marine down there?" I reply, "nah, you can have him." He fires a casual caster shot and vaporises the guy. Me; "Nice shot," Him; "thanks!"

Was pretty funny. Then I decided to pull out the spear and go for long range precision kills whilst he watched. All this time nobody could figure out where we were or tried to stop us.

We won by miles.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

In UMvC3, when I come across an inexperienced player, I'll play defensively, get a picture of whether they're actually trying or just button bashing.

If they seem like they're actually trying, I'll give them some time, see if they have any tricks ups their sleeve, but I won't underestimate them, if I feel like they may be a hidden threat, I'll end them

If they're a button masher, I'll just take the piss for a bit before I end them.

Stuff like using Vergil's Summoned Swords, then using the Sword Storm (when the swords float above their head) and just teleport spam

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Nah, I don't hold back. I'd be insulted if I found out my opponents weren't throwing all they had at me, so I don't do any less. If I find myself at the top of the lobby leaderboard more than twice in a row however, I back out of the lobby to find different opponents. I've been in a few lobbies where a player of markedly higher skill was dominating game after game after game and it kinda ruins it for the rest of the lobby, so on the rare occasions when I find myself on a winstreak I don't stick around.

 

[NathLines]

I never hold back. Pushing myself to get better and get better scores/stats is fun to me. I know I might be ruining someone else's fun, but I see no reason why I should ruin my own. Why would I even play then? I play MP for the challenge, that's what I find fun about it.

 

[ColaWarVeteran]

I don't hold back but I do have the tendency to try new things and experiment with different setups instead of always going for the sure fire winner.

 

[Llil]

The only game I play online is Mount & Blade: Warband, and I'm usually somewhere in the middle of the scores, so I don't have to hold back. And it's a nice change from getting my ass kicked to kicking ass when I end up against someone weaker than me.

For some reason I did really well in the Duke Nukem Forever multiplayer, when I played that for some time after the release. Maybe it was because of how old fashioned that game was or something. It was so new to me to consistently win matches and be on the top of the kill-list that I never even thought about holding back.

I also remember doing pretty well in Aliens versus Predator 2 (I wonder if people still play that, it would be fun to play in again some time), but never well enough that I felt like I was winning unfairly.

Besides, winning because someone let you isn't really winning at all.

 

[Bobipine]

I most likely do, even against players who are better then me (depending on the genre). Often randomly try to do something a bit more creative(let's say for TF2), or at least flashy (for fighting games). However, even more for fighting games, that never goes well (that will teach me to use characters with low health pool) oh I got hit, aaaand he/she's comboing, might as well put the controller down. Why must the game always make me face people ranked wayyyyy higher then me, stupid borked search criteria.

edit: though there was that higher rank player recently who didn't seem to care as well, fun times messing around.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

In LAN matches with friends I would always hold back, because they were never as big into games as I was, so I'd pick the rubbish guns and work on getting good at them, it actually really helps your aim and tactics when your using a crappy one shot bolt action with no scope and everyone else has machineguns, you learn how to keep hidden, aim fast, aim well, and take them down before they notice you.

In online multiplayer I can't really hold back as much because you don't know who is skilled or unskilled, but if a team is getting thrashed I usually withdraw and just dick about. It's loads of fun rallying around Battlefield maps in the crappy beachbuggies as everyone tries to snipe you.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

I always try to win, but not in a cheap way or a way that seems cheap, but rather spectacular and/or skillful, but mostly spectacular.
always end things with a bang!

 

[-Samurai-]

I normally start to mess around. I'll bounce throwing knives in MW3, or try to get kills by shooting them a few times with a pistol and hitting them in the head with a smoke grenade.

I don't expect people to go easy on me when I'm not doing good. Why should they compromise their fun for mine? I get absolutely rolled in The King of Fighters XIII(3-18 at this point). But I'll never figure anything out if they don't tear me down.

 

[KefkaCultist]

Nope, even against friends I will still play as I normally do. Losing pisses off my one friend, but he won't get better if I handicap myself since I'm usually not really that good to begin with when compared to other players (Except when I play Halo. I will rock your shit in Halo ^_^).

 

[Bloodtrozorx]

Depends on the people and circumstances. If it's against a friend, I will. Also, if the teams are really lopsided, I'll generally just do pistol only or otherwise gimp myself. Past those? Nope, you're all gonna die tbh.

This^

If the game is a blow out, Be it Halo or COD or TF2 I will Drive a Mongoose/Pistol Only/Medic Rush to make it fun. However if the other team trash talks in the lobby there will be no goofing around.

 

[llew]

i always tend to hold back just eough to get a challenge out of my opponent, online and off, which is a pain when you get people who will go for the most horrendously OP'd characters, upgrades etc. and im there holding back to get a kick out of the match and im forced into a position where i cant move (see ninja storm 2 "tactics" for examples)

 

[A-D.]

I dont ever play really seriously, im prone to "mistakes" just as the next guy, i still die, i still get called hacker or whatever by the opposing team because im still usually steamrolling half of them because they screw up or i get lucky.

Course i can also play seriously, but the only result is that i die less and they die far more often. The endresult doesnt exactly change though, people still scream and ***** about it.

I just play, casually, for fun, i only ever get serious if the opposition is starting to piss me off and thats all there is to it.

Doesnt mean i pull punches, i dont give People chances, if i see you, i will try to kill you, if you see me first, i wont cry about it, i'll just pay you back. Its that simple for me really, i just take the game less seriously usually, hence i never actually play at my very best. ;P

 

[evenest]

I don't play on-line multiplayer (or off-line for that matter). The one time I did (and it really only has been once) was to see what Uncharted 2's multiplayer looked like. I found that I was dying right and left and it didn't seem much fun at all.

In real life, when I could still play basketball, and the quarters were 15 minutes long, I would definitely play to the level of my competition. My goal was to play the game and enjoy the activity, not beat the opponent so badly he doesn't want to play anymore. Same thing in tennis. I enjoyed the running back and forth and volleying so much more than ever the chance to say "Game, set, match."

 

[devilofthemist]

i just try to keep my games fun, if we are all having fun playing, i'll go a bit easy on them to make sure the game stays fun
but if they're an asshole, no i don't

 

[necromanzer52]

I very rarely take a multiplayer battle seriously, but it can be very fun when I do.

This one time in halo 2 there was this guy talking shit in the pre-game lobby about how he's better than everyone else. I grabbed my mic and told him to shut up and let his game do the talking.

We then wound up on the same team of an 8v8 team slayer match. First to 100 kills wins.
At the end of the match our team had won, and the other guy and I had a combined score of about 60 kills. I beat him by 2, but we didn't care. We were both congratulating each other on doing so well.

 

[DSK-]

Depends. If it's 1v1, then yeah, probably. In team games it's a lot harder to do so.

Unreal Tournament is full of negative feedback loops and it's really easy for someone less skilled (and probably new to the game) to just quit and never play it again because of the disparity between new players, veterans and dare I say it, pros.


If kiLLzA was your typical FPS player chances are he would have left the game at about 19:20 game time.

 

[Sarge034]

No. I play MP to win, not to be nice. Normally I don't even look at the other team's ranks. I do this in certain co/op games as well. I'm that guy in Mass Effect 3 that will beat the second place by 20,000+ points without giving it extra effort or kill stealing. Yea, I'm an infiltrator with a widow and damage mod... What of it?