More of a conclusion on each point for me... THEMES: I don't care if a game plays goofy, I'm never thinking this is real life or anything close to it, but a game looks 100% more appealing to me if it sticks to what makes it unique. COD for it's different eras of warfare, Left 4 Dead for being a zombie universe with varying mutations, Helldivers with fighting for democracy and eliminating bug/robot threats, and many other strong themed games. Typical dude lineup right there lol. SOCIAL: I'm not expecting a game to be purely social, but it's the right hand man in any ONLINE game. Without social elements (such as something as simple as game chat) can be what makes games more competitive since that's what most will be playing for at that point. Online games got spicy when plenty of people were talking with each other either trash talking or becoming another tally to your friend's list. This will always be the biggest missing piece for me. Probably the best example I have seen today of this is GTA RP. I've enjoyed seeing all these characters created and put out there on the internet (shoutout spaceboy, stacks, hutch, and more in that space). COMPETITIVE: I don't mind all these crazy "movement" kids or whatever we think is someone trying to be really good at a game, looks cringe for sure, but by no means do I think it ruins the game. I always expect REAL sweats, there always needs to be these kinds of players to balance out the environment. That's what I think is bad here, the balance. Too many people always trying to maximize everything. I think this is mostly affected by the last point with social elements in games, but also the Internet is always playing a part.
Part of the problem with the blending of so many elements is fan feedback being taken too seriously. Sometimes listening to fans is good, especially when there is widespread outrage (Helldivers PSN for example), but when it comes to deciding on new content: Fans are dumb, they don't know what they want. Most people don't think beyond "I like chicken, and I like chocolate... Put em together!" which is where a chef has to tell you no because that idea sucks. Likewise, most people would probably vote for a John Wick vs James Bond crossover even though that would be stupid and make no sense. Same thing with games. People would vote for magic wands in Battlefield if given the choice. Couple poorly thought fan feedback with greedy execs and you have a recipe for putting Pickle Rick DLC in everything. Games these days feel like they were designed by 8 year olds. "And then we'll put in Spiderman, and a pink bunny skin, and Master Chief, and the Predator, and ninjas, and pirates, and, and, and..." It is painfully ironic that this eagerness to make everything wacky and unique has the opposite effect of making it more bland and samey. The OG Black Ops had more soul in both campaign and multiplayer than most games now. I also partly blame Discord for game lobbies feeling so empty and silent. it's almost too good (technically speaking) in a way, and everyone jumped right on the bandwagon. So now everyone is just stuck in their own little cliques and if you want to join in you are under the thumb of some of the cringiest, most power-tripping, easy-to-offend mods in internet history with literally no recourse for abuse of power. It really is true: gamers these days would not have survived an OG CoD lobby.
Tf2 is still around. Since the bot ban it's now better then ever. I feel super connected while swearing and making offensive jokes back and forth with randos.
You also have to be careful of saying a curse word now, you can get banned or kicked from MP lobbies by just saying, fuck, shit, or damn. It's why online lobbies are silent, especially in the newer CoDs too because "AI" is monitoring the voice chats. You now have people staying in voice calls or party chats instead.
This. Also games do not encourage social play. When Halo Infinite's MP released I got in and was baffled at how corporate and dead the menu and matchmaking. I'm sure they may have improved that, but it made me turn back and never play again. It's not just that modern games don't encourage socials, it's that they're actively trying to prevent it. Rare are the games using VOIP now. And I remember thinking this would be the future of gaming lmao
It's so annoying how cursing is being villanized now like it's the 1930s high society or something, it's the 2020s now who cares if someone swears like come on
@@unoriginalperson72 yes but I'd say it's less bc it's being condemned more than before, moreso they're trying to appeal to the largest demographic. Not that it actually works well, more as something else to brag about so that more white catholic moms (a group that's been around for a while, clinging to traditional values) buy their kid COD bc they heard there isn't swearing, (why swearing is worse than emulating shooting ppl is a whole other can of worms) and the kid will ask for money to buy skins or BPs, and ofc for the game. Tldr yes but there isn't more demonization, there's more pandering to those who do demonize
@@gameboyadvancedsp6727 Because it is just advertising for the sake of advertising. Each game only exists to make money, and so they put as many profitable features in the game as possible. Sure games suck now, but the money still flows. From the perspective of gaming companies, there is no problem.
I miss games like Gears & killzone where the MP feels like an extension of the game's world. We had teams be factions from the story with cosmetics all in universe, allowing for both immersion and easy to identify teams.
We seriously need more people talking about this. All AAA games are beginning to lose their identity to obnoxious colorful skins and celebrity cameos that have no place being in them. It makes every game feel like just a soulless ad that tries to sell you stuff and nothing more. It's one of the many reasons why I don't play modern games anymore. They have no soul.
You know what's even worse The fact that this will never change we're gonna have even more collabs and more ip dumps As long as people keep buying them it won't go away
"Vote with your wallet" is something people still do not understand and I'm actually speechless about the fact that it seems so fucking hard and complex to just not buy a game and do something better with your lifetime.
@@llLoWangll The problem is the general masses are fine with gulping down the slop. I feel like it's only people who have been playing for 10-20 years who really get how far games have fallen, and that's not the entire market.
Game nowadays try too hard to be funny and goofy like modern COD, when COD in the past was just naturally funny because people did really stupid stuff in serious soldier uniforms and maps.
The reason why people are not that social anymore in online games is because you risk getting banned for saying anything that the devs deem "nasty". Getting banned for language was simply not a thing 10+ years ago. If you didn't like what someone was saying you had the block and mute buttons and that was it. Now the devs feel like it's their moral obligation to ban "nasty" people.
I don't really think that's the reason at all. Just because people can't spray slurs around doesn't mean that it affects socializing all that much. It doesn't. What it really is is discord/party chats overriding or discouraging interaction with randoms on your team imo. Of course, some games like Valorant take it way too far and ban people for light trash talk
It does, because people say """""slurs"""""" all the time with their friends. Humans have a toxic side and that's fine. You should be able to express that within reason, and the internet, where nobody is getting hurt, is the perfect place to bleed off that negativity.
i remember the early days of Overwatch: was only casual mode,no hero restrictions,and randomly people will just pick only 1 hero: everyone mercy, hanzo etc, youtubers pop up very funny videos thanks to this,like Reinharth teams dancing with the shields and so on. They took that stuff away shortly after. why? because people complained that casual matches should be a preparation for ranked matches,so role queue was introduced there few months later
That makes no sense at all. Casual is for goofing around and trying out stuff while honing your skills, while Ranked is a serious competition against other people.
@@Shionoid sadly thats how it went. i still remember the quote from videogamedunkey on overwatch: "they forced roles in matches because blizzard doesnt trust their own community to learn how to play the game"
The most important aspect worth talking about is how Competitive games are. Too many AAA Games are designed with esports and grinding in mind. Now, live service games need to be perfectly balanced, but always pumping content to unbalance it. Now, losing a game means you missed out on a skin. Now, stopping to type and chat can cost you time or health or progress.
I really miss the old lobbies that could stay together for hours. I had about a month of absolute joy meeting up with the same goofballs in World at War, slowly coaxing the sweaty dude who jumped in to embrace the flame thrower and the one-liners until everyone is having a hilarious time.
I vividly remember making a new friend almost daily back when halo 3 custom games were at their peak, I was playing daily and almost every single game everyone had a mic and were talking. It’s saddening how games are nowadays when it comes to communication.
It’s the same thing with MMOs sadly. I used to meet people and make lifelong friends constantly back in the day. Now most people are silent ‘cos they’re already cliqued-up on Discord, or the few people actually talking in-game are usually very rude or elitist. 😩
If you have the money you could try out VR, in games like Pavlov Shack and Breachers almost the full lobby has their mikes in. It is helped by the fact that the quest 2 which the majority of the market owns has a built in mike.
I think TF2 is like one of the last remnants of this kind of multiplayer enviroment from the past that is still semi-popular to this day. When I play it the players still range from "tryhards" to "filthy casuals", new to a longtimers and it just feels like it used to back a decade ago. No battlepasses or ranks to climb. People just play it for the sake of it. Especially on community servers people can get quite chatty too. There is no moderation, you can say whatever you want and share some deranged pictures. Modern games have much more strict moderation so sometimes people are afraid to say anything in the firstplace. Sure you might run in to some bad apples but I take that freedom over that bureaucratic nightmare.
I thought the same thing. Tf2 is a thematic game too, everything you see, its fitting the game world. There is place for experimating too, you can make weird loadout with weapons you didnt try and make them work. Huge impact on teamplay too, in most gamemodes, coordinated and diversed team mostly wins
The fun has been optimized out of multiplayer games. And the publishers take advantage of that with predatory microtransactions. Take a look at Apex Legends with it's battle pass changes.
not entirely fault of the corps tbh. Think about it, new gen of gamers comes and has to face the older veterans who have been playing for years. To have fun they to be able to compete so they get better faster than the past gen. That repeats again and again to the point we now have 14 year olds with skills we could only dream of before. Of course corps take advantage of that by selling ways to "accelerate" the whatever grind the game has to compensate the grind lost by the more intense competition. Other than that things would have eventually ended this way too, even if the gaming industry hadn't moved in the past 10 years.
this is why i got into milsim titles while not necessarily "casual" they foster a much more intense focus on teamplay and are thus far more rewarding at least in my opinion
“You wonder why single player games have been on fire while online games have been much more sporadic and pumping out more failures than successes.” Looks like people are starting to get the memo that gaming isn’t dying. It’s just multiplayer gaming that’s dying. SINGLE PLAYER FTW!
It’s not even multiplayer that’s dying, it’s just the players are so split between so many mp games that get constant updates. It makes the games too tumultuous for many and they don’t want to even interact with the space any more. It’s why some mp games do better than others, like battlebit where there’s nothing too different between updates that you don’t feel dissociated as much as other games. The issue is games that don’t have constant massive updates are often old, like tf2 or the other tf2 so it limits the impact they have in the eyes of shareholders that do not play games
To me Its kinda like supply and demand in parallel to the gold rush. It’s a case of too many scummy mofos selling expensive shovels and we’re now at the point where everyone is packing up and going home because the gold ran out weeks ago and the shovel sellers are the only ones left and have too many shovels and pans than they know what to do with. You can see it best with 343 and halo. They’ve shat the bed and the whole IP is redundant and has no more good faith because of their greed and deception
I got banned from online play on a game I used to love for a couple weeks for being "toxic" when I asked people on my team if they enjoyed playing the game, or enjoyed telling others how to win, because they were upset with me not having a positive K/D. I then realized I am simply not one for modern Comp-Multiplayer.
Been saying since early 2018 that Fortnite was the death of the industry. Add on all the other issues with gaming, this was the finisher. Late 2017 I saw so many people playing Fortnite that never played games and I was I guess somewhat okay with gaming becoming “mainstream”, by the time Spring 2018 rolled around a lot of other games lost a lot of players to Fortnite and as a result new games have had to copy that style and heavily casualize their gameplay. When you add in the social aspect dying, it’s honestly a shame.
The fortnite model normalized slop. It encouraged developers to hide their scummy practices and make you think they were fair. It’s one thing to have a bad game that everyone calls out as such, it’s another to have a bad game that nobody will tell the truth about
Here is the thing fortnite itself is fine yes it has its problems but it’s mostly fine but when other games started copying it then fortnite has become a problem cuz nowadays it’s just different flavours of fortnite
@@DISSOLVED-lol Problem is this is basically just the corporate mindset for games. Remember back when everyone was trying to copy Call of Duty? We had a big influx of edgy generic military shooters in the mid 2000s. Then followed every company trying to copy PUBG which kicked off the battle royale craze. Now it seems like they're trying to copy both Fortnite and bits of Overwatch as well. Most of these big companies just latch onto a passing trend like leeches in hopes of getting free money by having a preexisting concept do the work for them. Apparently, it's painfully hard to be original nowadays.
Something I'd like to add, maybe it's with the games I used to play, but back then FPS felt more like sandbox than now. By that I mean you had an objective and you could get to it by any mean. May it be vehicles, map interactions or some wacky loadout. Nowadays maps are restrictive, linear rather than vertical. They don't have interactions or "roof you weren't meant to get on". Weapons are balanced to the point you can't play for fun, they have to be used strategically unless you plan on losing without having fun. You can't really custom loadout because you have a selected hero who doesn't have the two gadgets you wanted this season. The weapon you liked got nerfed 3 years after the game released. Halo was peak for it. Battlefield 3-4 embraced that as well. Winning was the goal but what really made playing the game worth it was the road to victory. Nowadays losing feels like I wasted time, because none of the gameplay mechanics are actually engaging. The only goal is to dominate and out sweat the opponents. Battlebit kind of opened my eyes to this when I realized you could put C4 on recon drones & vehicles. When you could level the whole objective's building. When they allow a stupid amount of players to get on the helicopter's rope for a hot drop. I miss this. Gameplay wise we've polished the "feel", yet somehow in 2024 we have even less map interactions than a decade ago (and even further back).
Don't forget mod freedom as well. Yesterday I tried CoD4 _(2007)_ multiplayer. There are still some people out there and you should see how many custom maps, weapons, mods, skins and gameplay modes there are. Damn, I even found a server with noclip cheat available. We were flying around and shooting each other while passing through buildings. It was so frickin absurd but gave opportunity to players for creativity. Like, I can create a server with no damage fall + infinite ammo + 200 fov and game doesn't mind. I can play like this with the people who join to my server. There 400+ custom maps bro, this game still does have a community thanks to these.
@@DarthErdoğan Lmao yes! This is also pretty much what I was referencing. This type of stuff makes the game last for YEARS without needing any kind of post launch support. I always believed that after Halo 3 - Reach most games were gonna have some equivalence to Forge to let players create and share maps & gamemodes. Pair that with vehicles and more advanced control modules and you've got the recipe for eternal fun. It's no wonder games like LittleBigPlanet worked so well. Show the players what's possible through a campaign and then let them go wild with their creativity. Even as you say, just being able to have custom lobbies with stupid rules and cheats makes the game so much more replayable. It's like CSGO, I most have spent as much time surfing as I did doing actual ranked matches.
The whole no one talking thing seems to be more of a mainstream games problem, I talk to random people all the time on arma, squad, and hell let loose.
It’s definitely more mainstream, hence me mentioning a lot of indie games will understand this and usually blow up because they are built to be played with friends and/or strangers. The problem with indie games is that they are hardly built to last long. Arma, squad, and hell let loose is an entire different side of gaming that fits the mil-sim genre. It’s great seeing them going stronger than ever, but they are definitely niche af. I love them though!
@@Gherkins or the experiences. To this day i remember some rando tell me. "You will be famous one day, i believe it" Now I can't even remember what i played yesterday and what level i am.
you should have definitely mentioned how modern games actively discourage being social now by putting restrictions, recording voice chats,ai voice recognition, banning words, cracking down on any amount toxicity. I dont know many people who would risk losing their 70$ game (even more when u count all the skins now a days) just so they could talk to people in voice chat its just not worth the risk
I tried mentioning it a little bit. I didn’t talk about many details because I’ve already dug into this topic several times before on my channel and didn’t want to keep rehashing it. I’m sure I tagged it onto the end screen, but I have a video called “When Video Games Used to Be Social” that goes deeper into this topic.
It's really sad. Being "toxic" as it's called nowadays is not even an FPS or even video game thing, people are just like that, there is "toxicity" everywhere in the world. That is human. And now the mainstream audience actually believes in the metrics that define "toxicity" - suddenly, basic trash talk now means you're a fundamentally flawed human being who will never get anywhere in life. It's always the older audiences too that spout their bigoted nonsense views of how social aspects in games "should" be. Just the other day, I was wondering why spectators couldn't talk in match chat (or any chat really) in Overwatch anymore. People in the forums came up with the most absurd things I've ever heard that justifies why removing an entire method of (optional - you can mute text chat) communication was the best course of action, and then proceeded to call for match chat to be removed "next". It's a cultish-like behaviour that quite frankly is extremely pathetic and sad. People would bend over backwards than be exposed to one ounce of their so called "toxicity", and it's sad. I fear for the day that simple kindergarten words like stupid are censored, and communication is restricted only to pre-determined Club Penguin phrases.
Honestly, I’ve been saying this for years. That tryhards ruin games. You can never just “sit down and play” anymore, you have get ready for a sweat feast like no other. You can’t unwind at all because Mr.xXMILFLORDXx doesn’t know when to calm down. People like you said, never change loadouts anymore, it’s just the same old meta weapons or setups with little to no difference in between. They turn off new players from joining a community by just being so damn sweaty, no one wants to play a game where they have to try hard 24/7.
Yep I was looking forward to the finals and Xdefiant but those games were overtaken by sweats in a couple of weeks. No fun shooters to have fun in anymore.
no, try hards always existed the reason there so many now is because of terrible matchmaking, your forced to play the best is because matchmaking forces you to play against the beast. thats why you see so many post (the best loadout in x) the best yata yata yata) its not a fault of some rando, its the whole industry
It's because of SBM, you're always going to be playing against people that are exactly as good as you so you either sweat and barely win or you don't and get completely swept. Not too mention most games don't have lobbies carry over between matches or let you talk to the other team so there is never any time to develop a repport with the people in the lobby.
You’re dead wrong Whenever something exists that allows people to be better at something than other people. Some will come about who are better. Maybe single player is more suited lmao Git good scrub
I think it's because of that SBMM stuff, you're exposed to the sweats more, you have to be similar to them to win or even just play as opposed to less strict matchmaking where it could be anyone and any type of people and the flow of the game would be different. I don't even mind tryhards and sweats, I become one at times. Sometimes I'm just proficient at a game enough where it would be weird to play casual because I'd be acting in a way and sometimes sweating is just fun, not in like a ragey way but more like a sports kind of way. I'll use TF2 as an example, a mode like Payload, people usually just play casually for 90% of the game blowing each other up until the cart has almost reached the final checkpoint and everybody just goes ham and it's like Stalingrad. TLDR; It's less tryhards that's the problem, but more so the systems that expose you more to them and to games where you have to become them to even survive and thrive, like SBMM.
The reasons I can think of for not doing vc besides "muh introverted" are the following: -Some people are really soft and easily triggered. -Community guidelines are so sanitised (to cater to the people above) that people fear getting perma-banned over "mean words". -It's so easy to exploit chat rooms that you can hack/doxx someone just by being in the same chat as them (this doesn't mean it WILL happen but that you can't trust anyone anymore).
Ahhh yess the majority of people don't like going on a game to relax and have fun, only to be met with lobbies full of *checks notes* a bunch of casual racism, homophobia and other disgusting stuff that hasn't been acceptable for like 15 years minimum the second one is just capitalism incarnate, as said before, the majority of people don't want that, and the best bet for money is to appeal to the majority, and they overcompensated in pursuit of the bands and hacking through a chat system Heyyyy Ubisoft how are ya? It's been a while gods you fucking suck!
@ThaMxUp For racial or homophobic slurs, etcetera, the report button exists, it was a thing since Black Ops 2, something that you could easily report, if the developer or studio doesn't ban them, that's on them.
@@vruxdrossgaming well it's obvious that only having the report button didn't satisfy the majority of the gaming population, so putting TOS in place that discourages people from doing that in order to preserve the majority of their player base and income was a calculated decision to maximize profits, again if you don't like the trends of the industry, take it up with capitalism
I used a big fan of multiplayer games and i always the liked the idea of playing with strangers when i was young but the more i grow up the worst the multiplayer gets
Recently I bought MW1, MW2, BO1, BO2, along with a handful of games from the 2000s, and early 2010’s and noticed immediately that I was having way more fun and had so many social interactions that I would never have in most newer games I played
Fun fact, theres a fighting game with a halo spartan (i forgot the name) that exists and you can play as, but its not master chief, it was a whole new spartan who got thrown into another universe by something that happened- and she only shows up on an abandoned frigate. Shes canon in halo too meaning someone at bungie took time to write entire lore for a whole character just so they can exist in another universe. Now look at other games today, just slapping them anywhere Edit: oh, also look at halo mcc now on its multiplayer, you see No One Talking on old halo games
That was one of the Dead or Alive games, back in the day Bungie and Team Ninja has a pretty good relationship, Team Ninja actually helped out with I think either Halo 2 or 3’s netcode, so Bungie let them use a Spartan in Dead or Alive, and as a tribute Bungie created the Hayabusa Armor for Halo 3, a reference to Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden which is another Team Ninja franchise. The thing is, the Hayabusa Armor wasn’t just some cheap out-of-place skin, the helmet crest was ripped directly from Ryu’s design but that was about it, it believably looked like something a Spartan would wear, a lot of players would mix and match pieces of the Hayabusa set with other armor sets and it didn’t look out of place, it had its own lore of being one of the few armors not made by the UNSC’s Materials Group and was instead made by a private contractor, and if you got 1000 gamerscore in Halo 3 (which required unlocking every achievement in the game before the Heroic and Mythic Map Packs were added) you got a unique version of the Hayabusa chest piece that had a katana on the back. THAT is how you handle a crossover.
Back then Crossovers were better An example was Payday The Heist which had a crossover with Left 4 Dead. A heist was released for PC only, it was the 'No Mercy' heist where the players enter the Mercy Hospital from Left 4 Dead and get blood samples in the ICU from a patient infected with the Green Flu
Fun gets essentially killed Fun is the ability to make your own games inside a setting, that's what e.g. quickscoping match is. Fun doesn't mean to always win - EVERYBODY wants to win these days. But sometimes the MOST fun is NOT aiming for the win, but for goofy actions and stuff, experimenting, seeing what is possible. The game is what we make of it, it's easy but most people are blind to it
I've been playing arma reforger which is a military simulator game but everyone seems to always talk on proximity/radio and have a good time laughing and doing silly stuff. I honestly think the classic server browser and being able to join in and leave whenever, the lack of matchmaking makes it so so much more enjoyable. I really recommend that game if you're looking for a good time, even if you're not a military nerd. on official servers you can totally make friends that will help you understand the gamemode n all.
I've had so many moments where we just met up with enemies and started hanging out and talking Allchat text chat and Crossplay between Xbox and PC also really makes people more laid back about it I think
@@FlickazSwag it's the milisim community that still is alive unlike those dead soul players that playes cod,bf. I play squad and the community is awesome.
Honestly at this point I play 90% singleplayer and multiplayer game I play if it has battpasses then I usually don’t even start playing ( not including helldivers 2)
The funny thing is that I find battlepass uninteresting. It basically has you pay to artificially engage with the game. I shouldn't have to "grind" for stuff, I should just be having fun playing the game itself...
This is why I’m thankful games like TF2 are still alive and kicking. What other game can you convince strangers to run around with frying pans as “The Pan Man?”
@ThatOneDoomFan3 I mean yeah you can, but like in real life most people will hear your racism and look down on you, if not just kick you from the match. As they should with garbage.
Game devs are the biggest sheep in all media. They cannot and will not risk money to create unique,singular experience. All games must follow popular trends. If a multiplayer game has bright colors, all muat do that. If they have crazy cameo skins, all must do that. Devs genuinely believe if Siege ir COD or BF dont adopt wacky operators and abilities that people wont play their game. They have exactly zero faith in their games standing onbtheir own merit.
Supply follows demand. People spent money and encouraged this behavior, if nobody spent money on Fortnite or crossover skins or battle passes or loot boxes we'd be fine. Yet here we are.
Crossover skins in any game is usually a funny thing like saying "It's Peter Griffin vs Goku while Iron man watches with Kratos and Rick and Morty from far away.", but that just loses it's humor because it's just the norm, you can still make the joke but then when everybody's desensitized by it they just continue on with their day with their crossover skins. It really makes me miss when crossovers were something incredible and actually cool especially when they were somewhat fitting into the game. I think the last time I genuinely cared about a collab or crossover was Fortnite getting Dragon ball, that was a while ago, after that, I knew they can get anything inside of it, so I stopped caring and being surprised.
The social aspect is why I love VR. Mics come default with most headsets, and the the immersive nature makes people feel more in the world, and more willing to talk. Pavlov and Onward are personal favorites, and almost every lobby has more people with mics than not. Gorilla tag and Contractors are much the same. Compared to PC games, there is a huge difference in people who are willing to chat.
I was playing a game (SCP:5K) with a microphone and was talking to some “CoD vets from the 2000-2010s” and we were talking about how bad the games are now. It was genuinely funny and just nice to see others think the same
I have no problem with some games being goofy and having all kinds of whacky stuff going on, but also some games that have a grounded theme and art style and actually stick to that theme and style. I started losing interested in Seige when they started turning it into an anime soap opera with stylized operators and drama "lore", and the recent call of duty games have pretty good theme and style on launch, but the post-launch stuff gets wild. I just believe a game should stick to it's theme. Killing Floor is a great example of a game that keeps it's theme, but then does fun and whacky events like the summer festivals or christmas events that change the look of the monsters and have themed maps, but these are also just EVENTS. Limited-time themed events that still stick to the original aesthetic of the game, but mix things up with a seasonal flair. Also about social gaming aspect: I still play plenty of games that have the social aspect. They just aren't AAA games, though I still do have a lot of fun with randoms on Counter-Strike 2. Surf servers have been mega chill with lots of chat going on in voice, with people of all ages, and lots of laughs.
I remember I had to actively remove people from my Xbox 360 friends list because I was meeting so many cool people in game that my list was filling up so frequently. Today I might as well be playing against bots no one speaks and my friends list almost never gets anyone added to it.
Rarely do I ever make a comment but this video has perfectly expressed my feelings towards modern multiplayer gaming. I’ve felt this way for a long time but could never really find the right words or points to explain myself. The most I could explain was when you compare modern micro-transaction filled games vs older more “serious” games, that knew their identity, it’s like soul vs soulless. Incredible video and I hope a future game dev sees this and considers it as a sign of action.
I fully agree on that topic. I barely remember talking to someone INGAME. Everyone is either shy, doesn't have a mic, or simply put doesnt want to talk. Yeah i'm that type of a guy who really enjoys talking to people, and right now, it's really hard to do that. I only talk to people in discord, and I miss the times when you could meet a good person just through a game... Ah randoms, no one knew them good but gosh darn it we had fun
Something I've been thinking about when it comes to the whole "games have gotten too sweaty" is the idea that modern games are far more "complex" leading to a higher skill ceiling. I've been a COD player since I was a little kid and after revisiting and thinking back on some of the older CODs (MW2/3, BO1/2) they are very simple in comparison to newer CODs. That clip you show at 8:29 where the player is moving at mach 5, doing circles, and healing all at the same time is something that would be impossible in older cods. The movement speed in BO1, which I've played recently (still 1 or 2 full servers on Xbox), means that if someone sprints left to right on your screen you can easily track them given a fast enough sensitivity. Compare that to MW2019 where there's not only sprint, but tactical sprint, which you can refresh with either the stim equipment or by slide canceling twice. Not only that, but you can jump to preserve your momentum (which you can do in older CODs, but you have less speed and jumping in some of them will kill your move speed when you land) allowing you to move at mach 5 while you bring your gun down (having the gun high up being the supposed downside to tactical sprinting). This leads to people with enough practice to practically fly across the map and your screen, while using the best weapon in the game (kitted out for more speed, with little downside of course). In a game like BO2, whats the sweatiest thing you can do? Besides camping, which I would call cheap as opposed to sweaty, the sweatiest thing would be running the MSMC or the PDW (considered the best SMGs in the game, but IMO really they're just the most versatile) for good speed and damage with C4s and maybe stuns or shock charges. Max speed is gained with both lightweight and conditioning equipped and even then, you can only move so fast. If you get caught with your pants down there's no sliding left-right into a tac sprint behind some cover, it's just a 1 on 1 gunfight with you at a disadvantage. I didn't dislike learning and using the movement in MW2019, especially when playing warzone where that movement is necessary to cross areas where snipers are watching. But that's the thing, I had to LEARN the movement in MW2019 to be competitive with other players. What's there to learn in BO2, for example, in regards to movement? All there is is diving, sprinting, crouching, and prone, as well as use of perks that enhance sprint speed & duration, and I guess also a perk that makes you mantle and bring your gun up faster. No hidden tech and all of the things listed have clear upsides and downsides (downsides for perks being that you are using up a slot that could go to another perk that could be better depending on the situation). Though I'm only talking about movement, the same could also be said of the weapons and attachment systems in the newer CODs, where it used to be 2 attachments MAX (3 in BO2) its now 5 standard, with each attachment doing some good things and bad things at the same time, but the game doesn't precisely tell you how much of either (numbers please, not symbols or bars) and there are at least a dozen options on each attachment slot. This isn't a cry that the mechanics of newer games are "too hard" to understand, they're not. It's not particularly hard to watch a youtube video or conduct experiments on your own to find the best loadout. However it's taking up too much of your time for something that's supposed to be fun.
I don’t really play it anymore, but Hell let loose has a lot of people using mics and gives you that old school lobby feel. Plus it doesn’t have bizarre crossover skins
I remember when I was playing search and destroy back in Black Ops 3, I asked myself *"why is nobody talking like they used to?"* I did some research and found out they allowed party chat in the search and destroy game mode. Previous COD games didn't allow that so you couldn't have an unfair advantage talking to your alive teammates while you where dead and I thought that wasn't very fair. I knew from that point on that the fun of voice chat was slowly coming to an end.
What do you guys think? For me, I mainly miss how I could just hop into a game and immediately start chatting with someone. It was always interesting hearing what other people could be getting up to as well. Being able to take that in-game communication and turn it into an abundant amount of things: a custom game lobby, a rivalry wanting to rematch, 1v1 sessions, trolling others in the game, etc. This was always the main thing for me and the MAGIC of multiplayer games. Without this, really why do you even play in the first place?
I think you really hit the nail on the head in this video. Most video games of the AAA variety always seem to copy each other instead of trying to innovate.
The fact i missed out on multiplayer games back in the 2000s-2010s (up until 2020 basically) upsets me because i never got the chance to experience the best time of gaming lobbies. But as a person who has experience in modern games, games too Safe now. One bad word and you're banned- cant make jokes or people get too mad. The world itself takes everything too serious and literal. even as a serious person myself, i make jokes and take them, It's fun having less serious people around, That's why trolling was a big thing To counter serious people initially, now you can't even do that anymore. No one wants to talk to anyone but their buddies anymore and no one wants to relax with random people because of the modern gaming industry trying to tear us apart with half ass releases and identity politics. It makes people go back to their old roots and i personally have done so myself. I want to go back to worlds that focused on storytelling and pushing the boundaries of technology, not agendas and forced politics about race/gender/or whatever is currently going on to sell shit products made by college students to gamers.
I'm sure it's all well and good when you're the one trolling or shit talking, but the only thing I've gotten out of social interactions in multiplayer has just been slurs, insults, and calls for me to kill myself, it's why I *don't* play multiplayer, and I'm far more content scrounging around for old PS2 games at my local bookstore.
In VR Shooters, like the one I play Contractors VR, the magic of socializing in a mic-filled lobby is still very much alive! Although the games are still sometimes filled with sweats.
@@Skrenja that might explain why I had so much trouble in PvP. Thankfully I mostly just play the COD zombies mods; where the worst issue is just players using glitches to give themselves an advantage, or little kids mic spamming and shouting obsenities and profanities at one another. :D
What you say in “The Joy of Video Games” chapter of the video is so accurate. Big fan of your channel, especially when what you are saying is so sadly accurate 😕
@theWheezy This is why me, my friends and so many people were so enthralled by Achievement Hunter in their early days. At the center of it, the theme of their content used to be just a group of friends hanging out and playing a game. This got even better when they made their own games out of the mechanics of the games they played. We need to reestablish this genre - hopefully it is not just my nostalgia - I think more channels like that may change the status-quo of the gaming market if people are shown the other forms of enjoyment games-media can give us. Afterall, as you said, you can only be engaged by the mechanics alone for so long. Humans, as a rule, are creative and interested in problem solving. That sentiment needs only be nurtured and sometimes the best way to do that is to have fun with something. This is why leisure is so important for people, that is, if it isn't over-induged which is counter-productive. We wouldn't create or be serious about the quality of a project or the media (or the qualitative lack there of) if we didn't enjoy or, dare I say; love the medium. Very well reasoned video, nice work.
While I do believe this may have the downstream effect of improving the quality of the gaming market by shifting the demand away from current products to those of better consistency and that allow more player to player interation, there is a caveat to this idea: The environment of RU-vid is vastly different to my example of when Achievement Hunter was in it's prime. The monetization that many people seek (rightfully for the effort and dedication they have for their channels) is the antithesis of 'Fun'. When money enters the equation it, by definition, stops being a leisurely activity. Midroll Ads, Patreon, 'like, comment and subscribe,' and RU-vid TOS problems/mismanagement/incompetence additionally inhibit the atmosphere of leisure. At least, it does if that is the direction you persue and you wish to adhere to the wishes of the RU-vid Algorithm, fickle as that is. One would have to have the up front principle of engaging only with fun and if they persue any monetization at all it would have to be as unintrusive as meaningfully possible in order to preserve that quality in the media they create. It's a really tough line to walk, I'll admit, but that is what makes it worth doing and, in my philosophy, absolutely nessecary if we wish to improve things with what little influence an individual has. It is achievable, do not despair.
I agree with you 100%. I quit playing COD because they brought Vanguard in the mix, and people were just going nuts with the new (old) guns from Vanguard, and they were just to OP. I literally went back to BF4 and fell right back into my gaming community.
These reasons have drove me towards more “tactical” or “mil-sim” games because to be effective in them it requires a level of communication, which in my experience has led to more classic experiences and finding a group of randoms just having fun. You’ll always have negative interactions here and there but such is life. Some of the games I main are Squad, Sandstorm, and Ready or Not.
Social anxiety. That's always stopped me. OG Xbox live as a squeaker and getting made fun of as a kid and my anxiety disorders made my attempts dwindle over the years. I talked back on original Xbox lobbies, because you couldn't make parties, and if you wanted to talk with those one or two friends, you had to talk in public chat. I suppose it was easier with friends. I could just let them do most of the talking. But I never could loosen up and feel comfortable like later on when in parties on 360. Occassionally, even in the 360 days, we'd encounter someone who'd get invited to chat in our party. And there were a few new friends I made this way, but again, it was almost always initiated by my irl friends I played with. But I do remember having some good times with a Brit, and Austrailian and a Canadian, as well as a couple of fellow US Midwesterners. Those times are long gone now. I only have one of the friends from back then, an irl friend I've known my whole life, and he's much more busy than I am. He bought me Helldivers II. I love the game, and I wanted to play it more when he wasn't on, but even in a not sweaty, co-op environment I still get nervous, even with non-verbal social stuff like emotes, and just actions and behavior. Even text chat is something I avoid. It's something I'm actually on disability for, as social anxiety has wreaked havok on my life in other areas. I'm trying to overcome it, little by little. I talked via text to a guy I spent a few missions with in a Helldivers match, it felt good. I felt accomplished, even for something so tiny. I want to break free from this much too intense fear of social interaction to enjoy this hobby, especially in co-op games. Forever Winter is a game that I've recently been fascinated by, and I miss having a group to game with like in the past, that would be set for diving into something like that. I'm hoping that by the time that game gets an early access release, or a beta or something I can push myself to try and find some people who I can get into it with. That's what's been on my mind lately. The talking in this vid of... talking... and communication brought this out. I usually don't comment very often, even if it's perhaps the easiest way to communicate on the internet for me... A random one off comment, one that's perhaps too long for many people to read anyway. It's almost like a sleeper comment, there's less chance anyone will read through it, and less likely for it to be engaged with. But ranting aside, I just... suck at social and wanna be more social, for the sake of the game, and personal enjoyment I guess.
While I do not deal with social anxiety, you commenting about not wanting to talk because of how awkward it is rings true with me. Hell, I have quite a few (internet) people in my friends list but have since stopped talking to them once we stopped regularly playing because I felt like that would be bothering them. I still remember actually seeing one of their faces, a young man who probably lived with his parents or housemates. He was well older than me, but he never commented about it. He has since gone silent for over three years by now, and two comments under his Steam profile are people wondering where he went. This was also quite a rant like yours, I guess I just wanted a reason to divulge on something I never really would have a reason to in the first place. Hope you do good in life.
Main reason I ditched PvP shooters and replaced them with Co-Op PvE horde shooters is because I can actually make dumb and funny builds and not feel penalized because everyone else is using the meta. Like, in Payday 2 I got a crit/dodge 50 cal sniper build that can one-shot the tankiest enemy in the game if I get lucky. In Deep Rock Galactic I like to use upgrades that increase my firerate and then use the right overclock to maximize them In Darktide I've maximized my Zealot's melee speed and just whack everything with an axe, balance be damned. In the PvP shooter XDefiant I tried making a hipfire build, but immediately faced that there's no exploration of builds in a game where everyone only uses two overpowered weapons and tries to be the next 'pro-gamer' for tik-tok clips. I miss the old days where I'd put a 4x optic on a mediocre SMG in Battlefield 4 and actually somehow was able to make it work. Mainly because most people didn't take the game too serious, and we all had fun.
The gaming landscape has changed a lot since the late 2000s. People were still learning during the original MW era, and now more people are just sweaty in nature since then.
It has been a long time since I've had a positive social interaction with a perfect stranger in an online game, and that was back in The Division 1, in the release year. Interacting with strangers in games now looks more like my most recent experience, attempting to play in a public Lethal Company lobby with a friend, and the first person we meet starts out with "Black people.", before demanding to know how many hours in the game everyone in the lobby had, and constantly berated us for "wasting his time" for leading him to empty loot rooms. It's like someone is out there teaching these people to be insufferable as possible
Loved this video. Hope more smaller titles like XDefiant foster the communities of fun and custom games like the good ol days. That's what makes games last years and years, the real atmosphere
Lol. Ubisoft isn't going to do that. Immediately 3 days after the release, there's already tryhards quickscoping you as soon you seen them on your screen. And there's already players with God like aim while your team has dementia and you having to hurt your back carrying all of them.
My only complaint about Helldivers II not having weapon skins is that I can't paint them the same color as my armor. Other than that it should stay the way it is.
I think the reason I've always leaned toward mil sim games with VOIP like squad, arma, Hell let loose etc. is because we communicate and form bonds and during the match and enjoy it to the fullest. We might never talk again but we made it so fun for each other in the moment
the point about "joy in video games" is subjective in my opinion, to me the joy in video games comes from being as sweaty as possible, getting better every day. However for others it may be to just have fun with friends
You and I had a very different experience with BO2 MP... For me, that game was the beginning of the end... But I also remember jumping back and forth between MW3/BO2 and all forms of Co-Op modes... we didn't solely play just the one game and that made all the difference IMO. And while getting play of game in 2019 was addicting... I found myself chasing that high every time instead of slowing down to maintain that streak for the chance of landing that 8X kill feed.
Man bro, as a 30 year old...I remember those sweet days of playing halo 2 / 3 online for the first time with friends and how unhinged and goofy fun the lobbies and people were. Even how hilarious but nostalgic the mics sounded. Such simpler times People don't even talk anymore, only games I see people talking is Rainbow Six Siege and that's about it.
all the things you mentioned about sticking to a theme is EXACTLY what i love about the cosmetics in Hunt: Showdown Even joke skins like the Red Shirt, who literally has a target on himself, fits the games theme there are a bunch of skins that are based off of content creators, I only learned that after I saw their post about a new one releasing, turns out there was already a bunch of them but nothing really stuck out as "this is x streamer's skin" I honestly think every skin fits into the game's world and keeps you immersed and these days it feels like a breath of fresh air
This is a very well made video! Your point on theming was probably the best made one imo, I think you did a good job clarifying what you mean by seriousness!
Back in the 2000s I used to make friends in servers, join clans, and some of those friends I am still friends with. That never happens anymore. I have been playing DCS World the past 8 months and I do appreciate that it takes itself and the community seriously. There is actual community around it. The modern gaming landscape is dismal.
Same thing applies to games that are primarily multiplayer but also have campaigns. Last time a COD campaign had a theme is... Black Ops 2 I think? While I did thoroughly enjoy the gameplay and aesthetics of Modern Warfare 2019 and Cold War's campaigns there wasn't really much of a message to either of them. They both had villain factions that you fought for no reason other than because they were trying to kill you. The relationship between heroes and villains is what has always defined the series. Without a strong villain with a set of established backstory, beliefs, and actions we fail to care about them. Take Khaled Al Asad (I think I spelled that right) from Modern Warfare 1. He's the leader of a coup who summarily executes the democratically elected leader of that country. This is an action with a simple motive behind it. Power. But Al Asad isn't the main antagonist. He's a pawn. A distraction. A tool that's been used by the main villain. Zakhayev. A villain who has a history in the arms trade, who wishes to see Russia reclaim the perceived glory of the Soviet Union through conquering the free lands it occupied. And embittered by the West by the attempt on his life. A strong villain with an established goal and motivation behind that goal. Now let's look at Gorbrahni from Modern Warfare 2022. He's a former major of an unspecified country (Iran) whose goal is to destroy the United States for killing a general of that same country. But we never see the relationship the two had with one another for the revenge plot to make sense. And furthermore, he abandons his role as a major of the Iranian Armed Forces to join a terror group from the previos game that no longer has a leader figure to represent it, and as such has no identity in this game. In fact, Al Qatala isn't touched on at all. You'd think after achieving their goal of removing foreign power from their soil once Barkov was defeated and Russian troops withdrawn that they would have settled down. But no reason is given for their prominence in MW2022. Back to the point, Ghorbrani's plan is to team up with the Mexican cartel to sneak three cruise missiles into the United States to attack Washington DC. Which isn't a very good plan because DC has very strong air defense systems that would knock those out of the sky, rendering the attack meaningless. The cartel subplot also shortens the time the story has to actually focus on the main villain, making their story feel rushed as a result. And finally Shepherd. In Modern Warfare 2 General Shepherd is a general who leads combat in person, commanding the Rangers in brutal fighting to take a city, and who also commands Task Force 141. He is established early on as a charismatic leader, the kind of person you trust to make the right call, no matter the consequences. It's also established he ascribes to a very heavy-handed approach to problems. "Since when does Shepherd care about danger close?" Then, his backstory is established as being in command of the raid on Al Asad, that ultimately culminated in a nuclear detonation that killed 30,000 US soldiers and countless civilians. This isn't the moment that radicalizes him, but the response by the American people, who didn't show the same anger as him. This is never used as an explicit antagonistic motive until the moment he turns on you once what 141 knows becomes a threat to his plan. His beliefs never change, and neither have rhe means he's willing to use to achieve them. The only thing that changes is who he uses them against. He is, in many ways, a foil for Makarov. Both are ultra-nationalists that call themselves patriots. Both believe their countries should be the dominant power of tje world, and both are willing to sacrifice their own allies to achieve their goals. It reflects the criticism of the villain back at us, the players. Because what we call fascism and ultranationalism in other countries we call patriotism here. It shows that we are not immune to the ideologies of the villains, and that we have to look inward to recognize these problems in our own country. Because we're not a perfect country. We aren't immune to criticism, or scrutiny. We are human, and we have to be able to recognize that. Modern Warfare 2022 Shepherd is a character who betrays 141 because that's what it says in the script. There's no commentary about following orders or belief. He just decides it's time to stop for some reason. MW2023 doesn't have a campaign to criticize. With Gulf War, sorry, Black Ops 6 (Gulf War was a.much better title), slated to release soon I'm rather skeptical we'll get much in the way of characterizing the enemy forces. More than likely the commentary of the game will boil down to three lines of dialogue where chemical weapons are mentioned. I don't expect anything meaningful.
I'm so glad I stumbled upon this video, I had been feeling this way for a while but only was directly conscious of it when Fall Guys was getting big. Cheaters were so bad that you would have more lobbies with cheaters than without them, not caring about having fun or anything just wanted to win crowns. It got so bad to the point that the devs had to adopt 'Easy Anticheat'. Then after that people started doing speedruns strats and everyone in the lobby would do the same thing, taking the same paths with the exact same jumps instead of holding people or goofing around or actually enjoying the game. Once a very unserious and lighthearted game like Fall Guys became an unfun sweat-fest, I knew something was seriously up with multiplayer games.
I think this is why I like Hell let loose and squad so much, the mic use may be an issue in that game that ruins the fun, but when everyone in the squad is talking and working together its some of the most enjoyable multiplayer gameplay I've experienced in a long time.
There are certain trends that certainly lead to this state in gaming. For example, certain games outright disabling text chats in order to get more favourable (read: lower) age ratings, or specifically disabling the chats _with opposing team_. Also the constant use of FOMO to force active players to grind for new content rather than encouraging experimentation... Though with experimentation, a lot can depend on the community. There are many that will absolutely welcome and support any playstyle choice, and then there are some who will yell at you for playing anything off-meta...
If i could make my own fps game, it would basically be a love letter to action movies like mission impossible, the expendables, a team, Rambo, john wick, etc. where it feels like you're fighting against other action heroes. This would strike the middle ground of being grounded but allowing cosmetics
Cod MW and Gta v are The most famous games ever , why ?????? Its because of toxicity we could say what we want and have fun , idk about girls but for boys a game without toxicity is not fun its rather boring when you can get banned for saying fuck , This is the reason most players in games like Valorent are women , guys dont enjoy them because of the lack of (Toxicity) What kids today call (Toxicty) We used to call fun back in the day , Unless Games Bring back un restricted chats where you can say whatever you like its never gonna be the same anymore
Insurgency Sandstorm is one of my favorite fps right now because it still has an aspect of realism and it’s one of the only games where people actually use voice chat.
I think fighting games still have that old feel if you beat somebody’s ass they will be salty or try to learn from you some of my best friends I met playing ranked match in tekken and Street Fighter
Man Guys remember the Halo 3 days? You hop into a random Team slayer match or Whatever and someone randomly asks "Hey does anyone wanna play some Custom Games?" Than all of a sudden you're in a lobby full of random people all playing Fat Man or Griftball or Ninja School....that's what They have taken from us.
Oh great, people chase "edgy" games out of the market, so cartoony ones come to take their place, and they don't like it anymore. Talk about "Until it's Gone."
War of Rights is one of the best games where the community role plays all the time, and the game is very historically accurate and realistic to the American Civil War. So many people are using proximity chat, and it's amazing.
