Poll: "Lack of skill" of other players is not a legit justification for being an asshole

[Loonyyy]

I'm gonna have to agree with the people who pointed the blame at Rockstar. What the OP is describing isn't bad /players/, it's a terribly designed /game/. This isn't a case of skill vs. skill, where the better player wins. That can be less than fun for the wrong kind of gamer, but at least it's fair. Instead what we've got is a case of account vs. account, where the account that has been used the longest has the advantage. These "high level" players would be getting their asses kicked by other high level players, if they had to start a new account for some reason. In a properly balanced game, that won't happen -- the best player wins, regardless of whether they're even playing on their own account or not.

Basically, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Hate the player too, they're assholes.

Game developers should do their best to make things work, and prevent people from being assholes, and the blame is entirely on them when it happens, and they're the only ones with the power to fix it... but if you need to sit in a tank waiting to prevent noobs from playing at all to get your rocks off, you're an asshole.

The player who takes advantage of it may be an asshole, but the player that complains about it is an idiot. Twice over, in fact -- once for buying such a broken game in the first place, and twice for continuing to play it after they've realized it's terribly designed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play some Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that's actually balanced[footnote]For the most part. I avoid Hero Assault because the hero characters are designed for mowing down grunts and turning a battle around, not for dueling each other, which makes a game mode based around heroes dueling each other decidedly broken, with some units being straight up better than others. But instead of complaining about that, I just enjoy the Conquest, CTF, and Hunt maps, all of which are fun and, if not perfectly balanced, balanced enough that it's still up to player skill more than anything else.[/footnote].

That doesn't seem all that fair. The player often has little way of knowing of faults like these before they purchase it. I'll agree that complaining to the assholes is stupid, since trolls love the feeding, and that trying to play against them and not having fun is pointless.

If only I still had my PS2, I'd be back to playing Battlefront. That game, all of my childhood.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm gonna have to agree with the people who pointed the blame at Rockstar. What the OP is describing isn't bad /players/, it's a terribly designed /game/. This isn't a case of skill vs. skill, where the better player wins. That can be less than fun for the wrong kind of gamer, but at least it's fair. Instead what we've got is a case of account vs. account, where the account that has been used the longest has the advantage. These "high level" players would be getting their asses kicked by other high level players, if they had to start a new account for some reason. In a properly balanced game, that won't happen -- the best player wins, regardless of whether they're even playing on their own account or not.

Basically, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Hate the player too, they're assholes.

Game developers should do their best to make things work, and prevent people from being assholes, and the blame is entirely on them when it happens, and they're the only ones with the power to fix it... but if you need to sit in a tank waiting to prevent noobs from playing at all to get your rocks off, you're an asshole.

The player who takes advantage of it may be an asshole, but the player that complains about it is an idiot. Twice over, in fact -- once for buying such a broken game in the first place, and twice for continuing to play it after they've realized it's terribly designed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play some Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that's actually balanced[footnote]For the most part. I avoid Hero Assault because the hero characters are designed for mowing down grunts and turning a battle around, not for dueling each other, which makes a game mode based around heroes dueling each other decidedly broken, with some units being straight up better than others. But instead of complaining about that, I just enjoy the Conquest, CTF, and Hunt maps, all of which are fun and, if not perfectly balanced, balanced enough that it's still up to player skill more than anything else.[/footnote].

That doesn't seem all that fair. The player often has little way of knowing of faults like these before they purchase it. I'll agree that complaining to the assholes is stupid, since trolls love the feeding, and that trying to play against them and not having fun is pointless.

If only I still had my PS2, I'd be back to playing Battlefront. That game, all of my childhood.

The player has plenty of ways, if they just have the patience to wait a minimum of a week or two past launch. And really you're nuts if you wait less than 6 months, considering how much worse games are on launch than six months to a year after these days. Not to mention how ridiculously expensive a launch game is. I could buy a week of food with enough left for most of a tank of gas for what a videogame costs on launch these days.

As far as Battlefront, BF2 is available on Steam and still has an active online component. BF1 I see as a hard copy periodically, but I don't know if the multiplayer portion still works. Also can't comment on the PS2 versions, but the PC versions of both are $10 full price these days, and BF 2 constantly drops below $5 on sales.

 

[srm79]

Yep, that's pretty much how I run it too. I always go with the box and paddles, since not only do they do the most for your team, but you can rack up some great stacks of points if you revive a couple of people and throw them a medic box. I just wish they'd fix the registry on it so that there was more of the medic team work that previous games had. It scares people off using the paddles, and reviving is one of the best parts of being a medic.

My kinda guy...

Got to get the necklace of dogtags somehow, amirite?

Hehe yep...although no tags for the shock paddle kill. Or the claymore up their ass then run in front of their scope to make em move. Or the M15 AT mine detonated by pistol shot. Or the C4 blanket, where you then get their attention so the last thing they see is you standing there with the detonator in your hand. Or the roadkill by landing a helicopter on their camping spot. Or the jihad dirtbike. Yeah, I can be an asshole, but at least I'm a creative asshole, and usually at least point out how they made it so easy for me to mug them.

 

[Terminate421]

This is why I pretty much hate any multiplayer game with an unlock tier and leveling progress. First time I hopped into Battlefield 3 I jumped into a jet and corkscrewed through a sky full of AA missiles and chaff... and wasn't allowed to use either of them. The game expected me to rack up aerial kills with the puny cannon before I was allowed anywhere near chaff, and once I unlocked the missiles I even had to quit the match and activate them on a menu?

What the hell happened to multiplayer?

What happened to arena shooters where ALL weapons were available to ALL players, ALL the time? What happened to shooters where ALL players could hold ALL weapons at once, so each duel was a pure test of skill rather than the game of dice rolling you played minutes earlier when you picked a class?

Call of duty 4 Happened.

On topic:

Higher level does not equal skill.

I am damn good at what I do, but sometimes just general thinking and I MEAN GENERAL THINKING needs to be applied in these situations. If you're an assault class in Battlefield, fucking revive dead people. If you are the last man in your squad in Search and Destroy, don't run out into the open and be quiet, listen for the enemy. If you have the rocket launcher in Halo, don't miss with it.

I won't be an asshole but common sense shit is when I get annoyed at people.

 

[Loonyyy]

Yep, that's pretty much how I run it too. I always go with the box and paddles, since not only do they do the most for your team, but you can rack up some great stacks of points if you revive a couple of people and throw them a medic box. I just wish they'd fix the registry on it so that there was more of the medic team work that previous games had. It scares people off using the paddles, and reviving is one of the best parts of being a medic.

My kinda guy...

Got to get the necklace of dogtags somehow, amirite?

Hehe yep...although no tags for the shock paddle kill. Or the claymore up their ass then run in front of their scope to make em move. Or the M15 AT mine detonated by pistol shot. Or the C4 blanket, where you then get their attention so the last thing they see is you standing there with the detonator in your hand. Or the roadkill by landing a helicopter on their camping spot. Or the jihad dirtbike. Yeah, I can be an asshole, but at least I'm a creative asshole, and usually at least point out how they made it so easy for me to mug them.

They'll probably be laughing harder at it anyway. Best moment for me was when an enemy slam took down my teams chopper whilst I was in their trench on Storm, I'd killed 5 people and armed the objective, and then the damn chopper, now a firey wreckage comes out of nowhere and crushes me. Me and the guy who'd plated the slam spent the rest of the game laughing about it.

 

[Loonyyy]

I'm gonna have to agree with the people who pointed the blame at Rockstar. What the OP is describing isn't bad /players/, it's a terribly designed /game/. This isn't a case of skill vs. skill, where the better player wins. That can be less than fun for the wrong kind of gamer, but at least it's fair. Instead what we've got is a case of account vs. account, where the account that has been used the longest has the advantage. These "high level" players would be getting their asses kicked by other high level players, if they had to start a new account for some reason. In a properly balanced game, that won't happen -- the best player wins, regardless of whether they're even playing on their own account or not.

Basically, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Hate the player too, they're assholes.

Game developers should do their best to make things work, and prevent people from being assholes, and the blame is entirely on them when it happens, and they're the only ones with the power to fix it... but if you need to sit in a tank waiting to prevent noobs from playing at all to get your rocks off, you're an asshole.

The player who takes advantage of it may be an asshole, but the player that complains about it is an idiot. Twice over, in fact -- once for buying such a broken game in the first place, and twice for continuing to play it after they've realized it's terribly designed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play some Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that's actually balanced[footnote]For the most part. I avoid Hero Assault because the hero characters are designed for mowing down grunts and turning a battle around, not for dueling each other, which makes a game mode based around heroes dueling each other decidedly broken, with some units being straight up better than others. But instead of complaining about that, I just enjoy the Conquest, CTF, and Hunt maps, all of which are fun and, if not perfectly balanced, balanced enough that it's still up to player skill more than anything else.[/footnote].

That doesn't seem all that fair. The player often has little way of knowing of faults like these before they purchase it. I'll agree that complaining to the assholes is stupid, since trolls love the feeding, and that trying to play against them and not having fun is pointless.

If only I still had my PS2, I'd be back to playing Battlefront. That game, all of my childhood.

The player has plenty of ways, if they just have the patience to wait a minimum of a week or two past launch. And really you're nuts if you wait less than 6 months, considering how much worse games are on launch than six months to a year after these days. Not to mention how ridiculously expensive a launch game is. I could buy a week of food with enough left for most of a tank of gas for what a videogame costs on launch these days.

That's reliant on other people buying it around the launch and experiencing the fuckups that a lacklustre QA testing has left behind. It shouldn't be such a crapshoot. This isn't acceptable elsewhere, it shouldn't be in videogames.

As far as Battlefront, BF2 is available on Steam and still has an active online component. BF1 I see as a hard copy periodically, but I don't know if the multiplayer portion still works. Also can't comment on the PS2 versions, but the PC versions of both are $10 full price these days, and BF 2 constantly drops below $5 on sales.

Mmm, I'll have to pick it up when I've got cash free.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm gonna have to agree with the people who pointed the blame at Rockstar. What the OP is describing isn't bad /players/, it's a terribly designed /game/. This isn't a case of skill vs. skill, where the better player wins. That can be less than fun for the wrong kind of gamer, but at least it's fair. Instead what we've got is a case of account vs. account, where the account that has been used the longest has the advantage. These "high level" players would be getting their asses kicked by other high level players, if they had to start a new account for some reason. In a properly balanced game, that won't happen -- the best player wins, regardless of whether they're even playing on their own account or not.

Basically, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Hate the player too, they're assholes.

Game developers should do their best to make things work, and prevent people from being assholes, and the blame is entirely on them when it happens, and they're the only ones with the power to fix it... but if you need to sit in a tank waiting to prevent noobs from playing at all to get your rocks off, you're an asshole.

The player who takes advantage of it may be an asshole, but the player that complains about it is an idiot. Twice over, in fact -- once for buying such a broken game in the first place, and twice for continuing to play it after they've realized it's terribly designed. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play some Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that's actually balanced[footnote]For the most part. I avoid Hero Assault because the hero characters are designed for mowing down grunts and turning a battle around, not for dueling each other, which makes a game mode based around heroes dueling each other decidedly broken, with some units being straight up better than others. But instead of complaining about that, I just enjoy the Conquest, CTF, and Hunt maps, all of which are fun and, if not perfectly balanced, balanced enough that it's still up to player skill more than anything else.[/footnote].

That doesn't seem all that fair. The player often has little way of knowing of faults like these before they purchase it. I'll agree that complaining to the assholes is stupid, since trolls love the feeding, and that trying to play against them and not having fun is pointless.

If only I still had my PS2, I'd be back to playing Battlefront. That game, all of my childhood.

The player has plenty of ways, if they just have the patience to wait a minimum of a week or two past launch. And really you're nuts if you wait less than 6 months, considering how much worse games are on launch than six months to a year after these days. Not to mention how ridiculously expensive a launch game is. I could buy a week of food with enough left for most of a tank of gas for what a videogame costs on launch these days.

That's reliant on other people buying it around the launch and experiencing the fuckups that a lacklustre QA testing has left behind. It shouldn't be such a crapshoot. This isn't acceptable elsewhere, it shouldn't be in videogames.

As far as Battlefront, BF2 is available on Steam and still has an active online component. BF1 I see as a hard copy periodically, but I don't know if the multiplayer portion still works. Also can't comment on the PS2 versions, but the PC versions of both are $10 full price these days, and BF 2 constantly drops below $5 on sales.

Mmm, I'll have to pick it up when I've got cash free.

How is it not acceptable in other media? Movies and books work the same way, they just have a much lower barrier to entry, which makes a bad purchase hurt less (and games are seriously overpriced, but that's an entirely different discussion). You can't trust professional reviews, especially pre-release ones, and you sure as heck can't trust the marketing, but you can trust word of mouth. That does require people to buy it before you, but there's always going to be a large proportion of people with more money than sense. Better to let them waste their money than to waste yours. Especially since if you wait a year you get a more complete game for less money.

 

[tzimize]

Leveling up in a PVP game is retarded as hell. Its LITERALLY forcing the other players to play with a handicap.

Fortunately, a lot of games on PC allow server options, so you can tailor your game away from such stuff if you want, even though some PC games have suffered the simple-mind-syndrome of consoles lately.

I do not understand why people would want an edge in PVP and I do not understand why it exists. The purpose of PVP is to try your mettle against human players to see who is the best. Leveling in PVP is the equivalent of playing chess with someone only to pull out a 9mm and blast your opponent in the face when you realize you are losing.

I prefer my pvp to be as equal as can possibly get. That way, when I win, I know its because I was better than my opponent.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

This highlights a problem with multiplayer games in general.

It seems that the more you play a game and (hopefully) get better at it, the more the game gives you unfair advantages over lower players. The system is entirely backwards. You should start with everything and then lose things as you level up until you become godlike in actual skill rather than godlike because the game has given it to you. Then you can have prestige like things to reset everything when you max out.

As to the poll though, i answered 'no'. If someone is shit at a game then they should avoid provoking me at all costs because i will hunt them down and kill them until they leave the game. Just like in real life you pick your fights and live with the consequences, don't think that because it's a game the rules change

That said, i very rarely go looking for shit in games unless someone is causing lots of people problems...then i feel it's my job to show them where bullying gets them

 

[McMarbles]

There's no legit justification for being an asshole. Ever.

 

[Artaneius]

To me it depends on the type of game. When it comes to games purely based on skill like Quake, Unreal Tournament, Street Fighter etc. I think the most skilled player should always win. However; that doesn't mean they should act like an asshole just because others aren't as good as them. The only time I ever trash talk is when someone either trash talks first or if all they do is whine about playing against "tryhards" or anyone better than them. I'm sorry but I play a online competitive game to get better and win, not to make sure everyone else doesn't get frustrated.

 

[Mzuark]

I agree. If someone's a weak link on a team, instead of tearing into them you should just try and make up for his weakness.