Why is the state of competitive fps games so bad?

[SkiNNyBane]

It literally is. I combined daily entertainment (playing with my friend) with ez money. I don't have children and am not married. How is that unrealistic?

I mean given that you guys actually think the game is good maybe some of you need a boost? I will actually bother to do 1-2 more boosts just for shits and giggles.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

 

[Average Manatee]

Significantly less emphasis on map control, movement, health/item management. Not as bad as the new shit but not at the level of Quake/Unreal Tournament. If CS was where the degeneration of competitive FPS stopped there wouldn't be as much complaints IMO.

Quake and UT have almost no team play / team tactics compared to CS. I don't think there's a comparison there. For me that's already a big point in favor of CS.

Team play in these games is there to fill in for a lack of competitive gameplay. Quake/UT/etc don't have it because they don't need it. If games like CS/Overwatch/MOBAs didn't have people on your team to yell at every 5s they wouldn't be playable games.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Jesus Christ lol at the retards defending and even praising Overwatch.

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

Overwatch is too slow, its like being on a low battery segway and the floor is 3 inches of tar

 

[abija]

Slow, no-skill, zero focus on movement game and a no-skill hero: https://gfycat.com/BlindWarmBluet

 

[SkiNNyBane]

Slow, no-skill, zero focus on movement game and a no-skill hero: https://gfycat.com/BlindWarmBluet

Ok of all the heroes in the game like cree, widow, tracer you pick this fucking casual shit as your example of skill? rofl dude you suda mentioned your a console peasant or some shit and be done with it instead of pretending to be fps veteran.

Any legitimacy you had is completely undermined here.

___

Actually I don't wona shit talk without explaining myself otherwise its just low effort bullshit.

Doomfist has all the marks of casual hero design. Abilities/primary/movement are either aoe or require little precision, high hp, easy escape. Yea he is much better then Winston in that regard but you can still run around wiht 100000 dpi/sensitivity and frag people.

 

[Mastermind]

i don't play overwatch but it's obvious the people calling it low skill are all posers. if it was low skill they would win every tournament. in fact most people here could try to play it full time and still never get to the top.

 

[unfairlight]

You tried Rainbow Six Siege?

Pay 40 euros for a game where you have to grind for around 100 hours to get all the characters, all the while supporting Ubisoft. Fuck off and die, all R6S shills need to die. I don't know how the fuck this shithouse game was ever even mildly accepted even though it does all the shit that SHOULD be hated in AAA gaming.

 

[RoSoDude]

i don't play overwatch but it's obvious the people calling it low skill are all posers. if it was low skill they would win every tournament. in fact most people here could try to play it full time and still never get to the top.

A game can have a low skill floor and yet still have a decently high skill ceiling. Overwatch is one such game. Moreover, the game hinges towards tactical over mechanical skill (like the MOBA games from which it draws some inspiration), which is not inherently a bad thing, but does mean that if I were to play it I'd almost certainly end up bitching about some bullshit "no-skill" character killing me with a turret or giant AoE attack. I'd also argue the result is more simplistic than either Quake or DOTA, losing rather than gaining from the genre mashup.

For my part, I'm unable to make myself give a damn about any competitive FPS that doesn't have a high skill floor. Tribes is my all-time favorite, followed by Quake -- if there's anything that illustrates the sorry state of competitive FPS to me, it's the fact that barely anyone even knows about Tribes. Game was so far ahead of its time that the whole industry decided it could never be that cool and gave up entirely. Hopefully Midair won't be dead on arrival, as it actually seems pretty true to the classic formula:

 

[abija]

You need to find a better term because skill floor for most PvP games (tribes and all shooters discussed here included) is very close to 0.

 

[unfairlight]

Hopefully Midair won't be dead on arrival, as it actually seems pretty true to the classic formula:

Midair is really good and the developers are great people but it has a low playerbase, which is expected since it doesn't have a marketing budget.

 

[Cross]

i don't play overwatch but it's obvious the people calling it low skill are all posers.

This stuff is disgraceful:

 

[RoSoDude]

You need to find a better term because skill floor for most PvP games (tribes and all shooters discussed here included) is very close to 0.

Pshhhh, what a crock of shit. It takes hours of practice to be even vaguely competent at the movement and dueling in Tribes or Quake. It's not on the level of a fighting game in terms of mechanical complexity (is that a PvP genre you'll dismiss as well?), but the basic skillset required is far beyond just W1.

EDIT: goddammit that was supposed to be W + M[ouse]1. Leaving it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

i don't play overwatch but it's obvious the people calling it low skill are all posers. if it was low skill they would win every tournament. in fact most people here could try to play it full time and still never get to the top.

When real human beings are involved things are always bound to get super difficult at some point but that doesn't mean Overwatch wasn't designed to be as low skill as possible. You could have an FPS with one gun and a square level and some freak with super-human reflexes is going to make it hard but that doesn't mean the game ceases to be retarded.

 

[Lyric Suite]

How would you know a fps played by bots is a shitshow, nobody even bothered with proper AI in fps.

You really like talking shit, do you.

Unreal 1 had excellent bot AI which was actually one of the catalysts for developing the stand alone multiplayer add on that eventually became UT, and that AI has been replicated in many user made bots for Quake any other traditional shooters. Obviously playing with bots will never be the same as playing with real human beings but that doesn't mean nobody has ever tried making good AI for their bots.

 

[SkiNNyBane]

A game can have a low skill floor and yet still have a decently high skill ceiling. Overwatch is one such game. Moreover, the game hinges towards tactical over mechanical skill (like the MOBA games from which it draws some inspiration), which is not inherently a bad thing, but does mean that if I were to play it I'd almost certainly end up bitching about some bullshit "no-skill" character killing me with a turret or giant AoE attack. I'd also argue the result is more simplistic than either Quake or DOTA, losing rather than gaining from the genre mashup.

For my part, I'm unable to make myself give a damn about any competitive FPS that doesn't have a high skill floor. Tribes is my all-time favorite, followed by Quake -- if there's anything that illustrates the sorry state of competitive FPS to me, it's the fact that barely anyone even knows about Tribes. Game was so far ahead of its time that the whole industry decided it could never be that cool and gave up entirely. Hopefully Midair won't be dead on arrival, as it actually seems pretty true to the classic formula:

I find myself for the Nth time finding your posts on point.

 

[SkiNNyBane]

i don't play overwatch but it's obvious the people calling it low skill are all posers.

This stuff is disgraceful:

Hit detection was only overly large for projectiles (by design) and while it was bullshit the game does not suffer from those problems anymore. It has been patched a long long time ago. There are plenty of other problems to complain about but this is not one of them.

 

[abija]

Pshhhh, what a crock of shit. It takes hours of practice to be even vaguely competent at the movement and dueling in Tribes or Quake. It's not on the level of a fighting game in terms of mechanical complexity (is that a PvP genre you'll dismiss as well?), but the basic skillset required is far beyond just W + M1.

Yeah but that's not skill floor, that's some arbitrary level where you think someone is competent. What you probably qualify as skill floor applied for less than 1% of quake/ut population in their golden days.

Unreal 1 had excellent bot AI which was actually one of the catalysts for developing the stand alone multiplayer add on that eventually became UT, and that AI has been replicated in many user made bots for Quake any other traditional shooters. Obviously playing with bots will never be the same as playing with real human beings but that doesn't mean nobody has ever tried making good AI for their bots.

You ever spectated bots ? That excellent AI was barely serviceable. And that's where AI development stopped in fps, at serviceable. They stopped where the work on a RTS AI barely starts. Not that I blame them for it, makes perfect sense.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Development never "stopped". It's that it is impossible to make an AI that measures up to a real human being, period. It's not that they didn't try. It simply cannot be done. And the level of sophistication of those bots is on the same level as that of an "RTS AI". It's all basic scripting, nothing more. Which is all that AI can be and will ever be.

And i'd say those bots were more than "serviceable". They could certainly put up a challenge, especially if you were out of the loop of the competitive shooter scene and they were pretty good as training fodder.

BTW, by all means, show us your great Quake or UT abilities. Demonstrate how playing those games required no skills. Walk the walk or shut the fuck up.

 

[abija]

Your logic and reading comprehension are below the level of fps ai. Why exactly would I need great ability to demonstrate how playing those games required no skill?
Anyway here's the only time I could play on the steam account since last QC patch and wanted to check the new duel ladder: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/218495015. Bad aim, worse movement, result?

 

[TheRedSnifit]

You need to find a better term because skill floor for most PvP games (tribes and all shooters discussed here included) is very close to 0.

Pshhhh, what a crock of shit. It takes hours of practice to be even vaguely competent at the movement and dueling in Tribes or Quake. It's not on the level of a fighting game in terms of mechanical complexity (is that a PvP genre you'll dismiss as well?), but the basic skillset required is far beyond just W1.

EDIT: goddammit that was supposed to be W + M[ouse]1. Leaving it.

I think you guys need to agree on a definition of skill floor here. For the sake of not getting into an Overwatch argument, I'll use TF2 classes to define mine:

- The Soldier is easy to pick up because of his splash damage weapon, but unlocking his full kit requires a ton of time spent practicing aim and rocket jumping. Low skill floor / high skill ceiling.
- The Heavy is easy to pick up because all you need to do is aim. At higher levels Heavy play is mostly just slowly strafing back and forth while praying that the enemy misses. Low floor / low ceiling.
- The Scout is harder to pick up because he has low health and relies entirely on his mobility to survive; at high levels he's probably the most powerful class. High floor / high ceiling.

SO. I'd say Quake's skill floor is pretty low, because it's not really that hard to achieve baseline competency. You don't need to be a bunnyhopping, rocket jumping madman to do decent in a pub. Whereas with Tribes, even playing at a basic level with other shitty players requires a decent amount of time getting the movement down if you want to have any fun at all, so it has a high floor.

Regarding Overwatch specifically, it's accurate that a lot of the most powerful classes have are low floor / low ceiling. Like, being THE BEST Mercy is still kind of difficult and there’s still ways to grow and become a literal perfect Mercy, but being a good Mercy is pretty easy and the hardest part of the hero is finding someone who is good enough to play at higher levels and actually wants to play her and will have fun for the entire season.

 

[RoSoDude]

You need to find a better term because skill floor for most PvP games (tribes and all shooters discussed here included) is very close to 0.

Pshhhh, what a crock of shit. It takes hours of practice to be even vaguely competent at the movement and dueling in Tribes or Quake. It's not on the level of a fighting game in terms of mechanical complexity (is that a PvP genre you'll dismiss as well?), but the basic skillset required is far beyond just W1.

EDIT: goddammit that was supposed to be W + M[ouse]1. Leaving it.

I think you guys need to agree on a definition of skill floor here. For the sake of not getting into an Overwatch argument, I'll use TF2 classes to define mine:

- The Soldier is easy to pick up because of his splash damage weapon, but unlocking his full kit requires a ton of time spent practicing aim and rocket jumping. Low skill floor / high skill ceiling.
- The Heavy is easy to pick up because all you need to do is aim. At higher levels Heavy play is mostly just slowly strafing back and forth while praying that the enemy misses. Low floor / low ceiling.
- The Scout is harder to pick up because he has low health and relies entirely on his mobility to survive; at high levels he's probably the most powerful class. High floor / high ceiling.

SO. I'd say Quake's skill floor is pretty low, because it's not really that hard to achieve baseline competency. You don't need to be a bunnyhopping, rocket jumping madman to do decent in a pub. Whereas with Tribes, even playing at a basic level with other shitty players requires a decent amount of time getting the movement down if you want to have any fun at all, so it has a high floor.

Regarding Overwatch specifically, it's accurate that a lot of the most powerful classes have are low floor / low ceiling. Like, being THE BEST Mercy is still kind of difficult and there’s still ways to grow and become a literal perfect Mercy, but being a good Mercy is pretty easy and the hardest part of the hero is finding someone who is good enough to play at higher levels and actually wants to play her and will have fun for the entire season.

I'd mostly agree, and your point about Tribes is primarily why I claimed it has a high skill floor (higher than Quake I'd say). You'll futz around for hours before you can begin to scrape by.

The reason I'd say Quake has a higher skill floor than many FPS games is that you won't stand a chance without basic movement and aim due to the importance of pickups. Yes, any idiot can shoot rockets, but if they can't even survive long enough to acquire them, they'll be completely impotent. Considering that the chaingun and gauntlet are rather weak and that the plasma gun, lightning gun, railgun, grenade launcher, and even the shotgun take a bit of skill to use properly, it's hard for a rookie to do anything but go sharply negative against even slightly more advanced opponents. If you come from other shooters you might not have such a hard time, but that's because Quake's design underpins the FPS genre and there's a large amount of carryover. I think you have to define a skill floor in terms of how punishing it is to someone without any related experience, as otherwise there's no standard at all.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The skill floor is high because people actually knew how to play back then and the situation is even worst now, after so many years. When i got into UT/Quake back in the day i considered myself to be a good FPS player, merely because i could play all the single player FPSes at max difficulty. Needless to say when i got online i got massacred mercilessly, until i started to improve. Scrubs didn't survive in competitive games. The only spot for "baseline" players was the bottom. And you either got gud or you just quit eventually.

 

[Maggot]

How would you know a fps played by bots is a shitshow, nobody even bothered with proper AI in fps.

You really like talking shit, do you.

Unreal 1 had excellent bot AI which was actually one of the catalysts for developing the stand alone multiplayer add on that eventually became UT, and that AI has been replicated in many user made bots for Quake any other traditional shooters. Obviously playing with bots will never be the same as playing with real human beings but that doesn't mean nobody has ever tried making good AI for their bots.

The guy who did the skaarj AI for Unreal made reaper bots for Quake. If you want to check out good AI in a multiplayer game take a look at Quake 3 CPMA bots on 100 skill for AI that actually move around the map properly and grab items.