Poll: A Question For Fellow Competitive Gamers

[The Wykydtron]

I'm a bit torn on the subject myself, especially fighting games. Going on about a learning experience is all well and good but often it can't even be called that. I've played Makoto god knows how many times online in BB but I still have no fucking idea what i'm doing. As in i've played well more games with Makoto than my main gal Mu-12 who I can actually play.

Apparently getting locked in the corner every single game until I die teaches me nothing. Who knew?

I dislike going easy on people because it's morally worse than destroying them. I once had to fight the same guy like 5 times because ArkSys loves runbacks, he was playing Tager so instant Scum of the Earth status. After the first few losses he tried to give me a free round by just standing there, I don't think i've ever been so insulted within a video game in my life. So naturally I put my controller down as well. He can't be bothered to play neither can I. Actually felt a little bit victorious when he reluctantly had to start hitting me after the first 20 seconds of the round. I don't mind going a bit easier on people but a whole free round is nothing sort of insulting by any standard.

I pride myself on remembering how bad I was. So many people like to pretend they were always good and it's not really a good thing. Like if someone tells you that they find the movements hard so many will reply with "no they aren't lol" despite all the time it took them to learn it before.

Oh and all the vicious circle revenge present in this thread is pretty saddening. "I want to destroy the bad people to make me feel better about being destroyed before" Do you people even listen to yourselves? This is how UMVC3 got absolutely ruined online community wise as far as i'm concerned.

As for MOBAs it's different. You go into ranked in League you have to bring your tryhard with you dammit. Enemy Zed top started boots and pots? I'm Vi with a Doran's mate. I'm pulling no punches on the level 2 first blood.

Another thing though is that you can lose through not much fault of your own. Your top can't do much about his bot lane feeding like crazy can he? Then the fed Tristana comes up and pushes your tower while you were winning lane before.

Still don't have much of an idea on stopping pubstomps though. Sometimes the other team is just better, sometimes your mid is just that terrible.

 

[tranceformat]

I mostly tend to switch servers if the players are REALLY new and subsequently bad,but really I only go to pubs these days to mess around,try new stuff I'm no good at so I try not to pubstomp,ever.
Maybe it's just me,but I need someone who is better to give me motivation to improve,otherwise I just have no reason to beat them in a given game,I don't gain anything from it.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I dislike going easy on people because it's morally worse than destroying them. I once had to fight the same guy like 5 times because ArkSys loves runbacks, he was playing Tager so instant Scum of the Earth status. After the first few losses he tried to give me a free round by just standing there, I don't think i've ever been so insulted within a video game in my life. So naturally I put my controller down as well. He can't be bothered to play neither can I. Actually felt a little bit victorious when he reluctantly had to start hitting me after the first 20 seconds of the round. I don't mind going a bit easier on people but a whole free round is nothing sort of insulting by any standard.

I am always unsure what to do when I am playing someone I know has almost zero chance at victory against me obviously if its random ranked you dont want to get lax and I will just try my best but if I dont feel pressured I have a nasty habit of messing about and not trying my hardest and basically figuring out new tech if possible.

But say its a player match and it keeps putting me against a person I have destroyed I tend to switch characters both because I want to learn a new character and secondly to hopefully allow both of us to have a fun match as I hate being destroyed without knowing what the hell is going on because my opponent is leagues above me and likewise I hate destroying people who are far below me in skill.

I have got shit both ways though i.e you destroy them you get hate mail because you arent letting them even press a button or you get hated on because you werent putting in 100% effort.

I will never just let them have the match though sod that if they are really new I will sometimes just slacken off the offense and go defensive so they can try a few attacks and when they do something really stupid I punish it as hard as I can so hopefully they stop doing incredibly unsafe shit or to be so predictable.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I dislike going easy on people because it's morally worse than destroying them. I once had to fight the same guy like 5 times because ArkSys loves runbacks, he was playing Tager so instant Scum of the Earth status. After the first few losses he tried to give me a free round by just standing there, I don't think i've ever been so insulted within a video game in my life. So naturally I put my controller down as well. He can't be bothered to play neither can I. Actually felt a little bit victorious when he reluctantly had to start hitting me after the first 20 seconds of the round. I don't mind going a bit easier on people but a whole free round is nothing sort of insulting by any standard.

I am always unsure what to do when I am playing someone I know has almost zero chance at victory against me obviously if its random ranked you dont want to get lax and I will just try my best but if I dont feel pressured I have a nasty habit of messing about and not trying my hardest and basically figuring out new tech if possible.

But say its a player match and it keeps putting me against a person I have destroyed I tend to switch characters both because I want to learn a new character and secondly to hopefully allow both of us to have a fun match as I hate being destroyed without knowing what the hell is going on because my opponent is leagues above me and likewise I hate destroying people who are far below me in skill.

I have got shit both ways though i.e you destroy them you get hate mail because you arent letting them even press a button or you get hated on because you werent putting in 100% effort.

I will never just let them have the match though sod that if they are really new I will sometimes just slacken off the offense and go defensive so they can try a few attacks and when they do something really stupid I punish it as hard as I can so hopefully they stop doing incredibly unsafe shit or to be so predictable.

I do try to switch characters to make things fairer but due to my habit of picking one and only one character and fixating on it I often do not have a second character at all. I mean the skill gap between my Labrys and Naoto in P4A is huge, I don't even get put against the same level of people so changing for that one person ends up being pointless.

Well I do have some funny stories of people throwing the easiest wins against me. Like the Hakumen who was intent on winning with his Astral because "he's so bad lol." Forgetting the only reason he was winning was because he was rushing me down so hard I couldn't move. He decided the best way to get his Astral off was sitting on the far side of the screen waiting for me to come to him. I mean literally sitting there not moving at all.

If you don't know BlazBlue, his Astral is a counter, you hit him while he's doing some melodramatic speech thing and he just kills you.

I'm uh, playing Mu mate. 1. I don't need to come anywhere near you and 2. Thanks for the free gun fortress.

He did this two rounds in a row, one I could maybe forgive but to try such a stupid thing twice is ridiculous. Then he tried to Astral a projectile... How embarrassing.

You could just see the horrible realisation in his eyes during the last round when he realised he was never going to get it off and suddenly he's staring down the barrels of constantly firing guns with dwindling health and no way through them.

These people and their obsession of styling others to death. Honestly. When I Astral someone it's because it was the only thing I could do to win. Fuckin' Krazykidd knows what I mean.

"AHH, NO HEALTH, UNBLOCKABLE SUPER! NEED INVINCIBILITY! NOT IN THROW RANGE. USE SOMETHING INVINCIBLE!"

lol jk clutch Galactic Punt gg.

 

[krazykidd]

I voted 'Sometimes' but probably not because of why you'd think. Firstly let me clarify that I'm referring to fighting games in here (most recently Injustice: Gods Among Us and Dead or Alive 5: Ultimate). I sometimes feel bad when I get matched up against new players in that I feel bad for myself because I'm probably going to be wasting my time. What I mean by this is that while there are things to be gained from playing lesser players there is a point of diminishing returns on this if the player truly has no clue how to play the game. If the person is never blocking, isn't taking advantage of whatever character they're playing's best move(s), etc. then I gain basically nothing but a free win and that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for matchup experience.

I view playing online as an extension of training mode. I get to play against a greater variety of characters than I could ever hope to properly program setups for in training mode and that is invaluable for when I play against people IRL. Again if the player is completely unfamiliar with how the game actually works then I'm not getting much out of this. This has been especially annoying in Injustice where the game seems to insist of matching me (of several thousand online matches) up against a lot of 0-0 people (that's two zeros). At least DoA5U for all of its other matchmaking issues lets me filter out the true novices.

Depends . I use playing new players online as an opportunity to try something new on the fly . I realised that myself and most people who play semi competently , tend to play on autopilot at first . We have our go to combos and setups. And if all is well , we would do just that , because it's safe and what we are comfortable with. But when i go up against a new-ish player , that's the time to switch things up and try something new . Try put moves that are less safe , and take more risks . Iv'e actually learned quite a bit doing that.

 

[krazykidd]

I dislike going easy on people because it's morally worse than destroying them. I once had to fight the same guy like 5 times because ArkSys loves runbacks, he was playing Tager so instant Scum of the Earth status. After the first few losses he tried to give me a free round by just standing there, I don't think i've ever been so insulted within a video game in my life. So naturally I put my controller down as well. He can't be bothered to play neither can I. Actually felt a little bit victorious when he reluctantly had to start hitting me after the first 20 seconds of the round. I don't mind going a bit easier on people but a whole free round is nothing sort of insulting by any standard.

I am always unsure what to do when I am playing someone I know has almost zero chance at victory against me obviously if its random ranked you dont want to get lax and I will just try my best but if I dont feel pressured I have a nasty habit of messing about and not trying my hardest and basically figuring out new tech if possible.

But say its a player match and it keeps putting me against a person I have destroyed I tend to switch characters both because I want to learn a new character and secondly to hopefully allow both of us to have a fun match as I hate being destroyed without knowing what the hell is going on because my opponent is leagues above me and likewise I hate destroying people who are far below me in skill.

I have got shit both ways though i.e you destroy them you get hate mail because you arent letting them even press a button or you get hated on because you werent putting in 100% effort.

I will never just let them have the match though sod that if they are really new I will sometimes just slacken off the offense and go defensive so they can try a few attacks and when they do something really stupid I punish it as hard as I can so hopefully they stop doing incredibly unsafe shit or to be so predictable.

I do try to switch characters to make things fairer but due to my habit of picking one and only one character and fixating on it I often do not have a second character at all. I mean the skill gap between my Labrys and Naoto in P4A is huge, I don't even get put against the same level of people so changing for that one person ends up being pointless.

Well I do have some funny stories of people throwing the easiest wins against me. Like the Hakumen who was intent on winning with his Astral because "he's so bad lol." Forgetting the only reason he was winning was because he was rushing me down so hard I couldn't move. He decided the best way to get his Astral off was sitting on the far side of the screen waiting for me to come to him. I mean literally sitting there not moving at all.

If you don't know BlazBlue, his Astral is a counter, you hit him while he's doing some melodramatic speech thing and he just kills you.

I'm uh, playing Mu mate. 1. I don't need to come anywhere near you and 2. Thanks for the free gun fortress.

He did this two rounds in a row, one I could maybe forgive but to try such a stupid thing twice is ridiculous. Then he tried to Astral a projectile... How embarrassing.

You could just see the horrible realisation in his eyes during the last round when he realised he was never going to get it off and suddenly he's staring down the barrels of constantly firing guns with dwindling health and no way through them.

These people and their obsession of styling others to death. Honestly. When I Astral someone it's because it was the only thing I could do to win. Fuckin' Krazykidd knows what I mean.

"AHH, NO HEALTH, UNBLOCKABLE SUPER! NEED INVINCIBILITY! NOT IN THROW RANGE. USE SOMETHING INVINCIBLE!"

lol jk clutch Galactic Punt gg.

STOP TELLING PEOPLE ABOUT THAT!

Actually those astral finishers and insta kill moves are very risky and shouldn't be thrown out willy nilly . You were actually doing it right! You use that when you have nothing to lose. I kinda regret trading back in blazblu now , i woulda loved to see who was worst at that game ( spoiler : i am). I mained as Mu-12 and subbed as Taokaka .

Off-topic . Does Jojo's bizzar adventure all star battle and/or Guilty gear xrd interest you at all?

 

[-Seraph-]

Generally I just take it a bit easy on them if they are of a vastly lower skill level than me, at least for the first fight. Can't make much judgement until halfway through a round because I've had some people hold back on the first round before they try and blow me up on the second. So I'll just do silly stuff and not quite stomp them into dust the first round.

Though there are times where these low skill players like to just do lame annoying shit that while doesn't work well against higher level players, still pisses me off and makes me want to "show them their place" so to speak. There is no need to go all out on lower skilled players when I don't have to. Not to be insulting mind you, but no need to waste more effort than what it's worth because if I kill em to quickly, then I won't get a good picture on how they play.

Well I do have some funny stories of people throwing the easiest wins against me. Like the Hakumen who was intent on winning with his Astral because "he's so bad lol." Forgetting the only reason he was winning was because he was rushing me down so hard I couldn't move. He decided the best way to get his Astral off was sitting on the far side of the screen waiting for me to come to him. I mean literally sitting there not moving at all.

If you don't know BlazBlue, his Astral is a counter, you hit him while he's doing some melodramatic speech thing and he just kills you.

I'm uh, playing Mu mate. 1. I don't need to come anywhere near you and 2. Thanks for the free gun fortress.

He did this two rounds in a row, one I could maybe forgive but to try such a stupid thing twice is ridiculous. Then he tried to Astral a projectile... How embarrassing.

You could just see the horrible realisation in his eyes during the last round when he realised he was never going to get it off and suddenly he's staring down the barrels of constantly firing guns with dwindling health and no way through them.

These people and their obsession of styling others to death. Honestly. When I Astral someone it's because it was the only thing I could do to win. Fuckin' Krazykidd knows what I mean.

"AHH, NO HEALTH, UNBLOCKABLE SUPER! NEED INVINCIBILITY! NOT IN THROW RANGE. USE SOMETHING INVINCIBLE!"

lol jk clutch Galactic Punt gg.

....As a Hakumen player myself....that dude is a fucking idiot who didn't even bother to option select. Seriously, his astral is one of the most impractical ones to pull off aside from a few derpy people. Even then, if they are spamming projectiles, you don't fucking astral that shit!! seriously? What kind of idiot Hakumen player attempts an astral on a projectile heavy character from across the damn screen? If it was Hazama, I'd understand because of stupid cheap shit which allows haku to astral haz chains.

He could have ya know....used yukikaze just before one of your projectiles hit to punish your spamming, and still have 4 more magatama to either yuki you again if the first missed (and you try to hit him during recovery), or super flash shippu, or any number of things....This kind of derpy shit from other people who use your character always leaves me speechless.

That's just depressing, considering his Yukikaze Distortion will activate on projectiles. The charater who threw the projectile doesn't get locked down to the ground, but Hakumen will go full i-frames and do the full screen dash-slash. I've managed to snag a number of online Jin's that way when they'd jump in and throw a projectile hoping to trip me up; always fun to see them go "oh shit" and do their double jump only to land right in my path.

Ya know what's also funny? People who rapid cancel when caught by yuki...lol way to throw away 50 heat. Or stupid Jins (or makotos, or plat, or rachel) who throw out a slow projectile to force you to block while rushing you down to trip you/ pressure you or whatever. Uh...hey...5D your projectile and watch as you run into the zanshin animation and get punished for boneheaded pressure....trollololol

I can't count how many times I've destroyed derpy jins that throw out flying ice and then ice car soon after like an idiot. They pretty much just drove into a wall of pain XD

 

[-Seraph-]

...

Ya know what's also funny? People who rapid cancel when caught by yuki...lol way to throw away 50 heat. Or stupid Jins (or makotos, or plat, or rachel) who throw out a slow projectile to force you to block while rushing you down to trip you/ pressure you or whatever. Uh...hey...5D your projectile and watch as you run into the zanshin animation and get punished for boneheaded pressure....trollololol

I can't count how many times I've destroyed derpy jins that throw out flying ice and then ice car soon after like an idiot. They pretty much just drove into a wall of pain XD

For those types who just like to throw projectiles I 5D them every chance I get; if they run in, they're gonna eat a Zanshin. If they don't, I'm showing them I have mastery over their projectiles and they have something to think about (I also like to think Haku's *****-slapping the projectile out of the air). If they persist, I start cutting them and laughing as they give me a free shield. It's funny that a number of scrubby players choose Jin, you take away their reliance on projectiles and you can literally see them lose faith in themselves.

Well their projectiles were never much of an issues, since you can shut them down in so many ways lol. Scrubby jins piss me off more with their DP spam since he's mr fuckin DP and that gets annoying sometimes. Though that's more in terms of approaches, once I'm in you are gonna eat it.

I really love my jD gimmick that throws off a good chunk of people who get to comfortable with their anti-airs. Gotta have good amount of space, but essentially: jump back a bit > instant air dash > whiff jA > jD. 5 frames of air dash recovery + jA recovery acts as a buffer for jD so it gives itself more of a 5D style start up. By the time they register all that is going one, the active frames of their AA are just coming out as I pull off jD Since they won't activate their AA until you start flying towards them. A silly gimmick that I don't abuse, but jins who are too comfortable with their (B) Blizzard need to be taught some humility >

 

[Flames66]

Not usually. I very rarely get good enough at a game to have a massive advantage and I always try to be welcoming to new players.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I dislike going easy on people because it's morally worse than destroying them. I once had to fight the same guy like 5 times because ArkSys loves runbacks, he was playing Tager so instant Scum of the Earth status. After the first few losses he tried to give me a free round by just standing there, I don't think i've ever been so insulted within a video game in my life. So naturally I put my controller down as well. He can't be bothered to play neither can I. Actually felt a little bit victorious when he reluctantly had to start hitting me after the first 20 seconds of the round. I don't mind going a bit easier on people but a whole free round is nothing sort of insulting by any standard.

I am always unsure what to do when I am playing someone I know has almost zero chance at victory against me obviously if its random ranked you dont want to get lax and I will just try my best but if I dont feel pressured I have a nasty habit of messing about and not trying my hardest and basically figuring out new tech if possible.

But say its a player match and it keeps putting me against a person I have destroyed I tend to switch characters both because I want to learn a new character and secondly to hopefully allow both of us to have a fun match as I hate being destroyed without knowing what the hell is going on because my opponent is leagues above me and likewise I hate destroying people who are far below me in skill.

I have got shit both ways though i.e you destroy them you get hate mail because you arent letting them even press a button or you get hated on because you werent putting in 100% effort.

I will never just let them have the match though sod that if they are really new I will sometimes just slacken off the offense and go defensive so they can try a few attacks and when they do something really stupid I punish it as hard as I can so hopefully they stop doing incredibly unsafe shit or to be so predictable.

I do try to switch characters to make things fairer but due to my habit of picking one and only one character and fixating on it I often do not have a second character at all. I mean the skill gap between my Labrys and Naoto in P4A is huge, I don't even get put against the same level of people so changing for that one person ends up being pointless.

Well I do have some funny stories of people throwing the easiest wins against me. Like the Hakumen who was intent on winning with his Astral because "he's so bad lol." Forgetting the only reason he was winning was because he was rushing me down so hard I couldn't move. He decided the best way to get his Astral off was sitting on the far side of the screen waiting for me to come to him. I mean literally sitting there not moving at all.

If you don't know BlazBlue, his Astral is a counter, you hit him while he's doing some melodramatic speech thing and he just kills you.

I'm uh, playing Mu mate. 1. I don't need to come anywhere near you and 2. Thanks for the free gun fortress.

He did this two rounds in a row, one I could maybe forgive but to try such a stupid thing twice is ridiculous. Then he tried to Astral a projectile... How embarrassing.

You could just see the horrible realisation in his eyes during the last round when he realised he was never going to get it off and suddenly he's staring down the barrels of constantly firing guns with dwindling health and no way through them.

These people and their obsession of styling others to death. Honestly. When I Astral someone it's because it was the only thing I could do to win. Fuckin' Krazykidd knows what I mean.

"AHH, NO HEALTH, UNBLOCKABLE SUPER! NEED INVINCIBILITY! NOT IN THROW RANGE. USE SOMETHING INVINCIBLE!"

lol jk clutch Galactic Punt gg.

STOP TELLING PEOPLE ABOUT THAT!

Actually those astral finishers and insta kill moves are very risky and shouldn't be thrown out willy nilly . You were actually doing it right! You use that when you have nothing to lose. I kinda regret trading back in blazblu now , i woulda loved to see who was worst at that game ( spoiler : i am). I mained as Mu-12 and subbed as Taokaka .

Off-topic . Does Jojo's bizzar adventure all star battle and/or Guilty gear xrd interest you at all?

Jojo's Bizzare what? Wasn't that like an anime or something? It's a fighting game now? Whatever man that sounds weird.

As for the new GG, it's (presumably) an ArkSys game so i'll look into it at least and I hear BlazBlue is practically Guilty Gear when they lost the rights to the GG name or whatever legal roadblocks happened.

I think I saw the one trailer, wasn't there a girl who fights with her hair? Probably going to play her if she's not bullshit technical. oh look another female character, when will I ever stop? I need to avenge the low tier Filia who was tragically lost to time as the only balanced character in an entirely broken cast...

Anyway it's a 2D fast paced fighter with an anime artsyle made by ArkSys. Most likely going to buy it soon after release.

Hopefully they at least give people a quick plot breakdown since this is like what, the third Guilty Gear? Fourth? I assume they're mostly returning characters with a continuing plot and I HATE going into stories halfway through.

 

[FoolKiller]

No, although I haven't played anything like that really competitively.

The last time I was crazy good at a game was Burnout 3: Takedown. And that game was competitive but not necessarily combative.

 

[Rob Robson]

I do. Especially since I tend to go 30-0 with Lerk in NS2 against pretty good players. Makes it a bit sad when trying to show the game off to friends and completely turning them allergic to it.

 

[Glaice]

No, because I will kill anyone who I have my crosshairs or blade on.

 

[Username Redacted]

I voted 'Sometimes' but probably not because of why you'd think. Firstly let me clarify that I'm referring to fighting games in here (most recently Injustice: Gods Among Us and Dead or Alive 5: Ultimate). I sometimes feel bad when I get matched up against new players in that I feel bad for myself because I'm probably going to be wasting my time. What I mean by this is that while there are things to be gained from playing lesser players there is a point of diminishing returns on this if the player truly has no clue how to play the game. If the person is never blocking, isn't taking advantage of whatever character they're playing's best move(s), etc. then I gain basically nothing but a free win and that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for matchup experience.

I view playing online as an extension of training mode. I get to play against a greater variety of characters than I could ever hope to properly program setups for in training mode and that is invaluable for when I play against people IRL. Again if the player is completely unfamiliar with how the game actually works then I'm not getting much out of this. This has been especially annoying in Injustice where the game seems to insist of matching me (of several thousand online matches) up against a lot of 0-0 people (that's two zeros). At least DoA5U for all of its other matchmaking issues lets me filter out the true novices.

Depends . I use playing new players online as an opportunity to try something new on the fly . I realised that myself and most people who play semi competently , tend to play on autopilot at first . We have our go to combos and setups. And if all is well , we would do just that , because it's safe and what we are comfortable with. But when i go up against a new-ish player , that's the time to switch things up and try something new . Try put moves that are less safe , and take more risks . Iv'e actually learned quite a bit doing that.

I don't see a point in playing differently. I already know what moves my characters have that are and are not safe and roughly what, against a competent opponent, I can expect to get hit by if I go with something unsafe. I also find it incredibly...disappointing(?) when opposition has no clue about this information. I've had matches where I smacked someone around after they've done the same unsafe move for the umpteenth time and the moment the opportunity arose they throw out that same move with the same predictable result (i.e. I block it and punish). At that point I'm not even sure what, if anything, they're thinking. Even when I was terrible at fighting games I don't ever recall being that dumb and/or predictable.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

It depends on the game.

In an MMO like Ultima Online with full loot, it's pretty mean to kill a new player and take all their shit, plus there isn't even much sport in it.

In a fast paced FPS game, I don't even think about it. They are losing 10 seconds at most for dying. I'll play the wrecking ball all day, and they can learn from it or not. Same goes for RTS, no matter how hard and fast they lose, they should be learning something from it and getting better. It isn't my task to slow down for them, it's their task to catch up.

And every new game is a clean slate. Hence MMOs being the only time I ever might feel bad.

 

[Drummodino]

Generally not. I don't play online multiplayer anymore but when I did the games I played were LoL, DOTA, CoD and FIFA. With the exception of FIFA I never held back. In League and DOTA you play to win otherwise you're letting your team down. When I played CoD I played to get the best stats I could and to help my team win.

FIFA I would sometimes go easy if I was over three goals up or something. I didn't have to worry about letting my team down so I was willing to give my opponent some slack. No one enjoys getting pounded 12-0 (speaking as someone who had that happen IRL more than I would have liked).

 

[Vigormortis]

If I'm dominating someone in a game like, say, Counter-Strike or Quake, then no. I don't give it much thought. (unless they're one of only a few players in the match, in which case I tend to go out of my way to avoid them during the firefight and instead hunt down the better players)

However, in something like Dota 2, Left 4 Dead 2, or Starcraft 2; games with teams or long, drawn-out matches; if I or my team are absolutely mopping the floor with the other team I genuinely feel bad. I know what it's like to be stuck in a long game that's just a perpetual losing battle. It's not fun.

In those instances, I try to convince my team to "take it easy" on them for a bit. Not obviously so, as such a move can easily be viewed as condescending, but in such a way that's not "trying as hard".

If it's in a competitive match, as in a tournament, then no. Everyone in the tourney/scrim/whatever is there because they're good. If they're genuinely losing to me then it's simply because I'm out playing them. Or, they're making mistakes. Either way, in those instances, I won't feel bad for dominating. We're all there to win. In tourneys fun is, sadly, secondary to performance a lot of the time.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Depends on the game. In Planetside, for example, I don't actually care in the slightest. First, it's unlikely that I'll kill the same person several times in a row and, on the occasion it does happen, the player has a trivial out in that they can simply spawn somewhere else.

In an RTS, though, if it is appallingly clear that I'm playing against a noob, I tend to point out how they could have run a skirmish better or tell them what their flaws are. They may appreciate it and, if nothing else, it's far better for them than simply being butchered.

Thus, in shooters, I'm not inclined to feel badly largely because mechanical skill above all else is of primary importance. In more cerebral games, I'm inclined to feel bad simply because beating someone at a strategy game means I simply had a better plan than they did. It's a more personal defeat.

 

[Razentsu]

I feel bad sometimes. I fear that I might away newcomers from whatever game we're playing. Still, I tend not to go easy on newbies. Even when I "go easy" on a newbie, I still win. The only difference between a win from normal play and a win from "easy" play is that a win from "easy" play is insulting. I mean, they're playing competitive multiplayer to compete, right?

Disrespectful/troll-y play is more discouraging to newcomers than normal play, so I stick to playing normally. Again, I don't want to scare newbies away.

Sometimes I'll "go easy" by switching characters, but I usually only do that after a decent amount of matches, when I feel like I need to spice things up. Even when I do play different characters, I play normally. I won't go easy on people.

 

[Aidan Greener]

i use to play FPS's competitively (clan skirmishes) and found that when i was playing on my clans main server i was consistently in the top three for the map. And quite often over half of my kills were against the low level/new players, at the time i didn't give it a huge amount of thought, however for the clan i ended up giving new players who joined the ts chat a heap of tips to help avoid getting killed so much. So i guess i did feel a bit bad that a lot of my kills were against new players, and i tried to make it up to the new clan mates by helping them to get better.