Poll: Will the competitive side of the "shooter" genre eventually be dumbed down?

[yungr3zzyson]

To give a bit of back story to the subject, my friend and I were having a conversation about the Call of Duty franchise. There are MANY people who think Call of Duty is a joke, many people who praise it, and a lot who simply don't care at all because they don't like shooters. There are SO many great shooters out there: Halo, Battlefield, Gears of War, Killzone, and the upcoming Destiny and Titanfall.

The conversation came down to this. I feel like the Call of Duty franchise has ruined competitive shooters, and will probably poison the shooter genre as a whole. I think it's aim is towards easy, casual play with a small skill gap to be a top player. I worked at a GameStop for 4 1/2 years (recently resigned) and every year the number one complaint about another shooter game was "it's not like Call of Duty," or "I don't like to have to shoot someone 5 times to kill them." I feel like this franchise has made people dislike a challenge in their video games now. I feel like if you have a competitive shooter at all it has to be like Call of Duty or your fan base will lack severely because you do have a challenging aspect of your game. When it comes down to it, when you are in a gun fight in Call of Duty it's essentially who sees who first, and that person dies, respawn immediately to run out and do that about 15 times and the game is over. But in the other games I listed above if the players personal skill is high enough he can get himself out of that situation and turn it around in his favor. I know there are some reading this who "oh well if he was good enough he wouldn't be there in the first place," I'm not looking for that response I'm giving examples of how I think Call of Duty has dumbed down the competitive area of the shooter genre. I believe it's the same game every single year with 4 extra guns, 3 maps, and 5 perks. The rest is just copy/paste, and somehow it gets 9/10 from reviewers and is one of the top competitive shooters out there??? HOW.

TLDR: Call of Duty has affected the shooting genre so much that I think future competitive shooters will follow in its footsteps and will have to dumb down its mechanics to appeal to the mass market of gamers in order to succeed.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I think the genre largely existsI think the genre now largely exists in two utterly separate parts: the console casual shooter and the simulation. There are gradiations in each of those sides of course - Call of Duty and Halo both include very strong aim assists for example though Call of Duty's implementation is far more egregious.

This missing middle ground represents games like Quake, Unreal, or Duke Nukem. These games were notable because their combination of arbitrary adherence to reality and fast paced play allowed for wide performance variation between players in a format that was compressed enough for true competative play. The Modern Shooter tends to de-emphasize the individual. Call of Duty does this by making the world so fantastically lethal that you can die by a stroke of luck as surely as design and simulation games achieve the same by simply making sure your personal contribution will never be terribly significant.

Given that the more popular side of the genre does this with features and variations that effectively narrow the skill gap between competent and theoritical best a human can do, I'd say that it, by definition, has already been "dumbed down". There exist a wide variety of systems in the game that serve to allow a mediocre player do better than they would in a pure game of skill. I'm not going to cry foul on that though - if that's what people want to play I don't begrudge them. There are lots of games to play and even a few shooters that I like.

PlanetSide 2's arbitrary mix of simulation and arcade action set on a ludicrous scale is fun even though I'm quite aware that I rarely have anything meaningful to contribute to a fight. Sure, I might cleverly sieze a series of ridges during an offensive but I hardly could be said to have won the battle - the four dozen other infantry, half a dozen tanks and assorted aircraft probably helped a little.

 

[GoaThief]

[Call of Duty] is one of the top competitive shooters

CoD isn't a competitive shooter, never really has been or will be. What many regard as proper competitive shooters have died a death, think Quake, Nexuiz, Warsow, Kingpin, Unreal Tournament, etc. The reason they don't really have anyone playing is down to their very nature and design - the majority of gamers don't want to feel like they're losing or face high skill ceilings where player ability is the deciding factor instead of a loadout. CoD and it's ilk tap straight in to the reward for any action or consequence mindset (even death streaks earn you awesome XP bonuses!) and it's lapped up every year without fail.

Controllers also have a large part to play, have you tried Quake 3 on XBLA? It's slow and horrible, completely unsuited to competitive play due to the pad. So in answer to your initial question, no the "competitive" side to shooters will not eventually decline as it already happened a good half a decade ago at least...

 

[ohnoitsabear]

The flip side of this is that another common complaint of shooters is that they're too much like Call of Duty. If companies try too much to appeal to Call of Duty players, they'll lose out on people that don't like that type of gameplay. In fact, usually games that try too much to be like Call of Duty end up not being very successful because people that don't like Call of Duty don't want to play something like Call of Duty and people that like Call of Duty are usually too busy playing Call of Duty (see, new Medal of Honor games and Homefront).

Really, I don't think Call of Duty being excessively popular is the issue here. The issue is people that are unwilling to buy anything that's too unlike Call of Duty, and companies that are unwilling to stray too far from Call of Duty's formula, and I'm not even convinced that these are huge issues. It's not like there aren't games unlike Call of Duty coming out, you just have to look for them.

 

[his1nightmare]

CoD already has. Crysis 2 is proof. Why is Crysis 2 proof? Because Crysis 1 is way more of a DAMNED good, XonX-supporting arena+BF-styled shooter than the abomination Crysis 2 could ever hope to be.
What does that mean? It -eliminated- a very talented contender for E-Sports by simply being there, being loved by super casuals and being made for exactly those (casuals), not everyone noticing. This does not ruin FPS, E-Sports, semi-professional competition or whatsoever, neither are games like CS, Quake, etc. affected, but it certainly and absolutely leads to less games representing FPS, less people raising interest for them and eventually less people playing something like Quake Live instead of CoD GHOOOOOSTS, speaking of the kind of player who always wants to play .. something.


So, yeah, as a former professional who actually saw the entire scene going downhill, everyday a bit more... this genre doesn't promise a bright feature for everyone who plays it with a serious face.

 

[wulf3n]

I think those who consider CoD to be "dumbed down" are just upset about having to actually think in a shooter to be competitive.

While other shooters are more focused on fine motor skills e.g. aiming and moving, CoD especially on HC is all about strategy, putting yourself in the correct positions, predicting what you're opponent is going to do etc.

While these elements exist in other shooters, the ease of death in CoD means they're essential if you want to win.

 

[yungr3zzyson]

COD's hardpoint isn't much different from any other games King of the Hill gametype, and all of them you can essentially use the same strategy that you would in COD. That's just a universal strategy for any KOTH game though.

 

[yungr3zzyson]

Blizzard recently came out and said that they think they ruined the MMO genre as a whole with World of Warcraft. It became too easy and pulled in all the casual people who didn't like a challenge, and wanted a quicker way to the top and because of that other GREAT MMO's are suffering. I fear the same will be for the shooter genre with COD, until we have a shooter so different and so much bigger that it just towers over it. In all honesty I think Titanfall will be the next "new IP" shooter compared to the others: COD, Battlefield, and Halo. I'm super excited for the Division too.

Heres the link for the blizzard reference, I just googled and picked a random link, anyone can find it.

http://www.gameplanet.com.au/pc/news/g51d4bfcaafdd7/World-of-Warcraft-ruined-a-genre-former-Blizzard-dev/

 

[xDarc]

I consider neither CoD nor BF games to be competitive shooters. They're both designed the same way; that is- everybody gets kills, everyone is a winner, everyone is happy and buys the same game, same time next year.

I call it the kill circle jerk; they took the movement out of FPS and it's just a bunch of people stopping or pausing to shoot someone, because they stopped to shoot someone else, who is already spawning back in and shooting the guy that just shot the guy who originally shot them...

BIG circle jerk and everyone's a winner. That's all mainstream FPS games are today.

 

[Joccaren]

Uhh...
Pretty sure that's already happened actually. Movement is so unimportant in most shooters these days its not funny, and the games just exist as a massive kill/death fest for all. Hell, I mean, I don't play console FPS. I can't use a controller for shit, they're way too inaccurate. Its just impossible.
I went to a friends place about a month back and played Halo IV, on an Xbox, with an Xbox controller. Now, I had no control over my character. I could barely aim due to the controller. I have never played Halo IV before. My friend constantly takes pictures of his achievements in multiplayer like 15-0 kill/death games and posts them on Facebook. I went 4-6 against him, losing by two kills after the round timed out. I just pressed buttons, not even knowing the controls beyond move and shoot, and he died. He's been playing the game since it came out, and the other Halos before it. The game is made so everyone gets kills. Its dumbed down.

Now, on the PC [Maybe on console too, I don't know, I don't play], there are some shooters that are still competitive and not dumbed down. Tribes Ascend is decent with a focus on movement, but without having played it and going only watching my friends play I have to give the award for least dumbed down shooter to Natural Selection 2. Movement is ridiculously important. On the alien team it is amazingly easy to tell the difference between a new public player, a reasonably experienced clan player, and a pro-ass korean team player [Korean as those are the teams my friend recently vs'd and got raped by]. How? Movement. Public new players don't move. They walk in straight lines, only on the ground, and often not as fast as they can. They get slaughtered. Reasonably experienced clan players are better. They move. They run on the walls, the roof, wall jumping matrix style to avoid bullets and never moving in a straight or predictable line. They fly when they can, and they're fairly hard to hit, especially for inexperienced players. Then there's the pros. The Koreans my friend vs'd were ridiculous. They could MOVE. They did some bouncing thing where they managed to time their jumps perfectly, or at least that's the only conclusion we could come to, allowing them to gain a significant speed boost above the soft cap that they would normally move at, whilst bouncing up and down, off walls, and the roof, in diagonal directions, without missing a beat. They were impossible to hit. A single skulk [Weakest alien unit. Zergling from Starcraft] could take on 4 marines and win using that. The marines just couldn't hit it enough.
That's what a shooter should be like. Fast paced, movement being highly important, and skill and play time being a major deciding factor in how well you do, and how skilled you can get. Not just knowing where to go, but in how well you can play the game so that you can consistently not die at all, and destroy entire enemy teams by yourself, if you've played enough. With a good community, that's the sort of shooter I'd play [Speaking of which I need to actually get NS2...]. Not what passes for competitive shooters these days, they are already dumbed down and bore me.

 

[EbonBehelit]

Eventually? I'm pretty sure it happened a long time ago, when the arena shooter fell out of favour.

I used to love FPS back in the day (Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, UT2K4) - the only one I like atm is Planetside 2.

 

[Tom_green_day]

All I can see here is one big 'let's hate on CoD thread'. CoD is aimed at a more casual player base, but it works incredibly well in the 'easy to learn, hard to master' area. It's easy to hop in and play, it's the most generic controls and it plays fluidly with almost no bugging or anything. That's why I love it, I can just jump in and play with friends without having to wait for crazy load times or commutes or dialogue or anything like that. However it's hard to be really good at the game, that's why in most games everyone has a fairly even K/D apart from a few guys who excel, because they're good at the game.
And people saying games are trying to be too much like CoD? Well, I think you've get your answer right there.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Nope, because competitive players play competitive games and if anyone "seriously" plays pro shooters they'd play Counter-Strike or TF2.

CoD's great as a casual "I wanna shoot stuff" game, and there's nothing wrong with that. But it's not a competitive game and it's not going to "dumb down" the competitive scene because of it.

 

[Zhukov]

The level of wank in this thread is getting pretty extreme.

"People keep playing Call of Duty and having fun. How dare they?! Waaaah!"

Thing is, I don't actually see how any of this is CoD's fault. CoD does X. People apparently like X. X sells like crazy every year. Other developers try to imitate X.

Not CoD's fault if other people are trying to copy it to hell and back. If people prefer to play X to whatever you're into then stiff shit. They're supposed to drop their preferred game and pick up a Quake clone because you want them to?

If there is a demand for whatever games you consider to be "true competitive shooters" then those game will be made and played.

Oh, this is my favourite part:

I know there are some reading this who "oh well if he was good enough he wouldn't be there in the first place," I'm not looking for that response I'm giving examples of how I think Call of Duty has dumbed down the competitive area of the shooter genre.

Paraphrase: "You mean positioning plays a huge part in winning at Call of Duty? No no no, I don't want to hear that. I'm talking here, and I just want to hear people agree with me!"

 

[CannibalCorpses]

How can you dumb down a genre that is basically point and click, i win? First person shooters are the lowest common denominator in gaming and coming anywhere but in the top 3 in a Call of Duty match shows a complete lack of skill and failure to understand multiplayer psychology. I played Battlefield 3 multiplayer for the first time last weekend...i managed to come 3rd pretty much every match against way higher level players. The problem isn't the games that come out but the fact that lots of players never learn anything from what they do...how many times must you repeat the same mistake before you realize that your method is wrong?

The real problem is that most gamers are completely shit at games, have no real understanding of how trial and improvement makes perfect and have no empathy for their opposition who basically telegraph you their intentions 10 minutes before you have to deal with them. Ooohh, bad guy...Charge!!! Kill 1 guy, die, repeat...wow, look at the guy at the top of the leaderboard, he must have cheated to get 50 kills with only 4 deaths

That small skill gap you speak of between top and bottom is a massive fucking chasm but is so carrot-like in it's appeal that any 'ole donkey thinks they have a chance of getting it. Kill streaks rewards rarely win you a match, getting the kill streak itself is usually the winning blow.

No, the competitive side of the shooting genre will never be dumbed down...it's already scraping rock bottom

 

[w9496]

It may dumb down the competitive side of things but outside of MLG I'm not certain many people would use the word to describe the game. The game itself is easy to learn and the concept isn't hard to grasp, and players go down in so few shots that new players feel awesome because they don't have to spend a year learning how to play.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

 

[nuttshell]

As others have said, the popularity of demanding competitive FPS's is allready very weak.
I don't think CoD is the ultimate reason. Shooters for consoles are, imho. The buiseness that actively dumbed the shooter genre down to playable levels on low framerate, high reaction-time monitors with joypads. I'd love to see a new Quake with more weapons, more maps, more modes, more mechanics and better graphics but it doesn't seem like anyone seems to care enough to make a big enough investment for something like that.

 

[Lightknight]

I'm sensing a shitload of elitism in this thread. Since CoD is actually being played competitively in gaming tournaments all over the place, does that not infact mean it's competitive?

Exactly.


To the OT, You can't really dumb down mechanics of a shooter. Not unless the game aims the gun for you and tells you when to shoot. The games looking "samey" is not a legitimate complaint as something that would "ruin competitive shooters*. Not when the current look is realistic. You're never going to see leaps in graphics and AI like you did over the past consoles so I'm not sure what changes you're demanding they make.

I'm also not seeing any other shooter that's doing it any better. It's clean and efficient mechanics. Perfect for competition. If you have a problem with COD's style then you may have a problem with shooters in general or just ones pursuing realism.

 

[tranceformat]

It just looks like with every "dead" fast paced highly competitive FPS (Quake,Natural Selection,Warsow perhaps,Painkiller,Unreal Tournament etc.) that the PC "hardcore" fast FPS games are altogether perishing,along with any real chance of any new fast paced FPS ever reaching the popularity of other AAA FPS games,either on PC or console.

It's not interesting for new players to hop into a say,a Quake Live match and just get dominated switching from games like *sigh*(not anything against it,hating this seems old and overdone now) CoD or even the new Crysis games and such.Seems like more and more kids dismiss keyboard+mouse gaming in favor of easily accessible,neatly presented somewhat easy games on consoles with a swift "no thanks grandad" and it's understandable.Tribes Ascend isn't easy.You can't have 90% LG in Quake by playing for a few hours.You won't hit those airshots by activating a killstreak to do it for you.Consoles are looking like the way to go for newcomers to the genre,where they are matched with people equal in skill,not veterans who have been playing fast paced games for years.It's all about the equipment,the perks,the gun attachments.You don't start with the same weapons and the same character stats as everyone else on the server,so it's more about "I had the better situational equipment for this scenario,therefore at this point in time I won" not individual skill.

Perhaps games really are largely about the spectacle now,not the gameplay neccessarily.Which leaves me to wonder,how come moba games are so popular? Surely this aversion towards challenge isn't unique to just the shooter genre,so how come there are still people who enjoy the occasional(or daily) teamfight against other skilled players?