Be Excellent To Each Other

Yes, but how will anything new be brought out if every game is a rehash of Call of Duty?

It's not every game though, is it? There are plenty of games about that aren't Call of Duty.

Judging by E3 (Xbox at least), it was all FPS and third person shooter, is the argument I think.

I'm pretty sure the new Mario game for the Wii-U is going to have an XP system with perks, unlocks and killstreaks.

I thought the argument was that there are a lot of developers jumping on the bandwagon of the next big thing. CoD's successful MP mechanics, used as the example, has been copied in every FPS in recent times simply because developers think that's the only way to get players playing their games. There's nothing wrong with a good FPS though there's just a redundant lack of new ideas for them at present.

Edit: With FPS' there probably won't be many new ideas until the next gen, of consoles at least, when the 'big idea' will be massive player counts. Count my words. Every game will have 32/64 player counts in their MP.

About fucking time. Pity you'll need to buy the 64 Player Premium Pass or something... maybe individual bullets for your gun?

EA have talked about that exact thing.

That's fake. For a start, it has a massive red dislike bar and only a few "likes". Second, it was posted a year ago and I've never even heard about it - if it were real, this would've kicked off big fucking style. Finally, half of the comments say "this is fake, you idiots!".

I'm pretty certain it's not fake. It's from a stockholder's conference call that they let press listen in to. It's also John Riccitiello's voice.

no but how many different ways can soldiers kill soldiers in mp. Just change the time from ww2 to future.

Doesn't have to be soldiers... I'd play multiplayer Spy vs Spy.

For a start, you have the difference between CoD stye near instant death where (lag permitting) the person who first sees the opponent wins to Unreal Tournamentesque actually needing to fight your opponent to win a battle (and to leave yourself in a good state to be in a position to win the next, what with non autorecovering health). Or CoD Style samey realistic weapons to Unreal Tournamentesque broad range of weapons with different uses for different situations that you can swap to when said situations arise. You can chuck in fun things like the various Crysis suit things (I assume they did this in Crysis multiplayer, anyway), or you can make your people shit grendades upon death and cause a certain amount of annoyance. Or maybe helicopters that spew attack dogs.

People don't want that. They want to kill someone who had no idea they were even there, using a wall penetrating auto-aiming rapid firing one hit kill sniper rifle. Gulf of Oman is so popular in BF3 because it features huge tower blocks under construction... with no stairs, so without a helicopter nobody can get up to you to stop you. If they manage to hit you from ground level DON'T WORRY! The sniper class can deploy a mobile spawn point to reappear back up their in their inaccessible lair. They then put on the "noob punisher" dogtag, the most popular one in the game, because the only thing better than killing someone who couldn't defend themselves is killing someone who's inexperienced.

That's what it's all about: empowering fuckheads. Gone is the varied and useful arsenals of Quake and Unreal. Instead you are rewarded for killing with an AI controlled, nearly unstoppable gunship helicopter to help you kill even more. Exciting duels and running battles? Pah! Each fight is over in a split second, often (but not always) the person who fired first winning.

The game itself isn't fun. That's why it's propped up with unlocks and perks and other shit: to give you a reason to keep playing when you're not enjoying yourself. You are convinced that if you can just unlock that ability or weapon that seems to keep killing you, you'll even things up and stop suffering so many cheap annoying deaths. Consider me with the air radar unlock in BF3. I suffered the infuriatingly bad air combat thinking it would make it possible for me to concentrate on my opponent and not the terrible interface.

I have not played BF3 so I can't comment on how unbalanced it is.

I know on MW3 you start of 'normal' and through challenges and XP you can unlock mods and more guns, so it encourages you to play more.

How else would you get folks to commit time to games, if there was no reward?

By making an intriguing and balanced game that rewards skill and practice with matches against skilled and practiced opponents?

That is the hard part, unless you did MP from day one of the game release and put 100+ hours in, you are going to be lest behind.

MW3 I have had my arse handed to me many times, as my enemy knows the map better or their guns are slightly better. I am getting better at this.

For BF3 I am not sure what to suggest.

Or what needs changing to balance out the games.

Having fun isn't a reward?

Not to every one.. Hence we have the cheevo system on the xbox and trophy on PS3...

You're always given the best Assault Rifle first in the MW series. Just some of the useful perks are unlocked later on.

If you're getting your ass handed to you a lot, then the people you are playing with either know the maps better than you and are being sneaky, or they are better players. Playing the game more helps with this, and overcoming adversity is rewarding.

I find playing MW multiplayer to be very enjoyable, and certainly a lot more fun than FPS games where you find an opponent and do the dance of a thousand sidesteps for half an hour.

And this is what annoys me. It's fine for people to dislike the CoD and BF systems. But to accuse people of 'not understanding fun' because they do like them (and clearly, millions of people do) is pretty insulting, frankly.

Here, here.

Where?

Errrrr... something is very wrong if enjoying yourself isn't rewarding.

Not really, I have not got 100% cheevos in all but 1 game (Skyrim, which I really enjoyed playing).

But there are a lot of folks, as Craster said, enjoy the games they way they are, and will be every variant and play them to death.

Once the cheevo system was implemented, has there been a game that does not have them now?

What we were saying is that without cheevos or unlocks, "fun" and "enjoyment" are apparently no longer sufficient for people to want to play a game.

Or that cheevos and unlocks are, themselves, fun?

On top of this construction site where we can't be shot. Bring your respawn generator thingy.

If anything, that just demonstrates that these types of game aren't less fun (or not fun) because of unlocks and rewards but rather because the people playing them go out of their way to find cheats and glitches since people are, fundamentally, cunts.

Edited: because I can't string a cogent sentence together apparently.

Real men play Dark Souls.

And they enjoy dying in it.

I am not saying that. Look at the breadth of games we have on this forum.

For example
You that play for fun regardless of cheevos
Alberto who likes to get 100% Cheevos

The rest of us somewhere in between.

We play games in different ways, they way we all like different cars/food/drink.

It's ironic, as Meaty used to be the biggest achievement whore ever!

You did, but okay.



The way you put it before, games weren't/aren't fun enough without an XP/unlock system.



Dimrill, you mean. We've both gone off it a bit, not least of all because they seem to be less and less about encouraging fun little challenges and ways you might not have thought of playing, and more about encouraging you to (again) grind through the XP system.

You maxed Frontlines in under a week.

Or, to use the actual word: "reward".

For some, it's about the destination; for others, it's the journey that's most important.

Well no, that's the way you put it.



The thing is - it's not fun for you. But it is for other people. So play something else.

If it came across that way I am sorry, but I did say I play games for fun not cheevos...

Some folks want that reward.. people are motivated in different ways..

He said "how else do you get people to want to play if not unlocks?", I said, "make the game fun?" and he replies, "no, having fun isn't a reward to everyone."

What else was I supposed to think based on that??



The point was: how many people are still playing because of the XP/unlock system as opposed to the actual shootery?

If people find the XP system fun that's great for them, but it's missing the point when it's more fun than the shooting men game it's meant to supplement.

Create a Barbie's Princess Castle game with levelling and perks to find out.

Errr... you could think what was actually said!

having fun isn't a reward to everyone != games aren't fun enough without an unlock system.

I think people would still play shooty games without them (look at ArmA for example), but what about something like WoW?

Who cares? I for one look at the people who play the same thing over and over chasing high scores and am completely bemused - like the Pinball game, as an example. But there are loads of people who get tons of fun out of it. More power to them.

WoW (and games like it) are an interesting case, It's all about progression, there is always something else to do with your character, to get a bit better, to get more gear, to get another level. Do those count as rewards? I'm not so sure, as they are the fundamentals of what the game is and is built around, not additional unlocks added to keep people playing the core game. The core game is the character progression.

D3 is an even better example, a game that effectively has very little in the way of gameplay and a short story, yet people are likely to be playing it for years, as it has been built with the gear collector in mind.

I quite liked the multiplayer stuff in the CoD games I've played. Kill 500 people with a shotgun and get something, and so on and so forth. I also liked the points and unlocks that it gives out, especially because I'm no Curiosity, and it makes me feel rewarded and I'll have another go as "only 5 more kills with Y to unlock X".I find that more fun than not having it, as I would have thrown it away in frustration for being rubbish really soon.

Yes cod has weekly and daily challenges, which could be knife someone in the back or use 5 grenades..

Totally. I like the "hey, try doing it this way" aspect of it. Keeps it from getting stale.

I didn't even try and do them, if I got one by playing the way I played I was just happy for the xp to level up quicker.

I can see Metals point as well.. If you power up too much it can unbalance the game.

How is best to do that, lock games to rank bands or something?

THat would stop friends playing together. For example; bobby, zaphod, curio playing together, want to play with MaliA who has worse stats, the game would block them, or put everyone in the lower skills group and they'd win all the time or put malia with the better people and he'd have no fun.

Perhaps you can have a group section, which allows this, and a section for a single user logging on. dunno!