Why is the state of competitive fps games so bad?

[abija]

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

 

[Deflowerer]

I have friends in med school who are top tier ranks in dota, ow.

How is this possible? I, too, have friends in medical school who don't even time to masturbate (figuratively) because of the hours and hours and hours and hours they commit to studying for exams.

I have a friend doing math PhD who also clocks in quite a bit of hours into DOTA.

The whole argument posted above that "nobody got time for that" is false. Actually, all these multiplayer (even competitive) are actually played mainly by people who devote time ONLY (or at best, close comparables) to that game. These games are a) social and b) fit into small chunks of time, so you can easily clock in a lot of hours over a year while just playing DOTA during lunch break or something. They're perfect normie games.

It's all about time management anyway. If you can overcome the desire to shitpost in RPGCodex and procrastinate, you can do a lot of stuff.

 

[abija]

That's cause phds are usually a breeze if you don't need to have an actual job too.

 

[Delterius]

ITT i learned that nuking my account is like having mastery over time itself

 

[Catacombs]

That's cause phds are usually a breeze if you don't need to have an actual job too.

A postgraduate degree is just a ball and chain in paper form. Sure, you MIGHT get a higher-paying job, but you'll inevitably be stuck with paying back the hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt you accumulated.

I am aware some phd programs come with paid tuition. I'm mainly talking about masters and doctorate degrees.

 

[SkiNNyBane]

Can we tone down the cringe level a bit by not talking about PHDs when both of you have no fucking clue what your talking about?

 

[abija]

Yeah stick to cringing about how great and competitive fps games used to be when you were 10 years old and clueless.

Catacombs: not every country has higher education setup as a racket. We had a decent number of free spots (state sponsored) and even if you didn't qualify masters was like 1000€/year and doctorate close to 2000 (no idea how it's now but I guess nothing changed much since it would have made the news).

 

[Catacombs]

Catacombs: not every country has higher education setup as a racket. We had a decent number of free spots (state sponsored) and even if you didn't qualify masters was like 1000€/year and doctorate close to 2000 (no idea how it's now but I guess nothing changed much since it would have made the news).

I'm sure it's cheaper abroad. I'm mainly talking about the racket that is the U.S. collegiate system.

 

[DraQ]

gamepad.jpg

 

[Deflowerer]

Catacombs: not every country has higher education setup as a racket. We had a decent number of free spots (state sponsored) and even if you didn't qualify masters was like 1000€/year and doctorate close to 2000 (no idea how it's now but I guess nothing changed much since it would have made the news).

I'm sure it's cheaper abroad. I'm mainly talking about the racket that is the U.S. collegiate system.

I thought PhD are pretty much come with a full-ride scholarship? At least all my friends who attended PhD went with full scholarship.

 

[Average Manatee]

To expand on this to answer the specific question asked: A good game will become competitive within its community, and possibly somewhat beyond. But if the game doesn't appeal to the casuals, there will never be a market to elevate the game to proper "esports"-level, and the big shots with the big money won't give two shits about it. Nevermind that gameplay-wise the game is the Second Coming of Christ.

It's that age-old idiom of the entertainment industry: Appeal to the lowest common denominator to get the highest possible revenue.

With the singular exception of the original Starcraft, I think it's safe to say that all games on esports-level are casual tripe by design.

Agree, but aren't fighting games doing decently still? Not sure if you could count them as either good esports or "proper esports" but they are definitely still closer than ASSFAGGOTS at the former.

 

[abija]

But fighting games have plenty of casual appeal. So do "hardcore fps" games tbh, they just got terrible devs. What overwatch qp or non competitive cs offers you can very well provide in a quake or ut clone. Hell ow has that arcade ffa deathmatch, which is quite shit due to the way heroes are designed, still pulls tons more players than QC.

 

[thesoup]

UT4 is great, but it's on hold because fortnite battle royale took priority because casual shit modes like that are all the rage now.
Which is ok in the long run. Because unlike QC, UT4 will NEVER get moba or br features because epic is covering those markets with other games.

QC is just trash.

Anyway, like Thorin said, a game like Quake can't be no1 anymore. It was no1 when casual trash didn't exist, when it was basically the only competitive fps and it was overtaken by cs pretty fast. It can have an ok niche market like QL did at best.

 

[abija]

Sure, not number 1, but a game like Quake/UT done (and promoted) right could have a LOT more players. Also, when Quake/UT were at their peak, "competitive" playerbase was a minority, vast majority were playing "casual trash" mods.

UT4 is not great, it's not even good, it severely lacks direction and focus.

 

[Average Manatee]

But fighting games have plenty of casual appeal. So do "hardcore fps" games tbh, they just got terrible devs. What overwatch qp or non competitive cs offers you can very well provide in a quake or ut clone. Hell ow has that arcade ffa deathmatch, which is quite shit due to the way heroes are designed, still pulls tons more players than QC.

My point is that fighting games manage to have casual appeal while not needing to dumb down like RTS and FPS did. You look at fighting games at the point that was the golden age of competitive RTS/FPS and they had way less special moves, less characters, less weird and experimental mechanics than modern fighting games. At least IMO from what I can see, I don't play them.

 

[abija]

My point was you can easy do that in fps too, just need competent devs.
Also, competitive FPS never had a golden age, now it's at the highest level it has ever been. For example is easy to notice in quake pros how far from their potential they are because there never was a decent scene to play in.

 

[Average Manatee]

My point was you can easy do that in fps too, just need competent devs.

Can they? While still having casual appeal? I see no examples.

Also, competitive FPS never had a golden age, now it's at the highest level it has ever been. For example is easy to notice in quake pros how far from their potential they are because there never was a decent scene to play in.

I'm not talking about the skill of the players, I'm talking about being a game that the wider community is interested in. The forefront of the "esports scene" is degenerate ASSFAGGOTS and will probably soon be some awful PUBG shit with team deathmatch. The golden age is when the actually good competitive games of the genres were at the forefront of the competitive scene rather than major tournaments being dominated by casual shit.

 

[Siveon]

Fighting games do not have mainstream appeal. The lack of any real cooperation or team based gameplay means that getting into the game requires a lot of self-motivation and learning to get into. Look at all the most popular online multiplayer games, they're all team based to some extent. PUBG, Overwatch, CS:GO, TF2, LoL, WoW, etc. This is also why solo competitive shooters like Quake 3 fell by the wayside in favor of team based FPS. Being in a team, means it's a lot easier to have someone to help you out directly. With a fighter, the best you could do is have someone take your controller. A lot of fighting games lack content for someone on their own, with a high barrier of entry.

Most people who play fighting games regularly, have probably been doing so for a while.

 

[Average Manatee]

Fighting games do not have mainstream appeal. The lack of any real cooperation or team based gameplay means that getting into the game requires a lot of self-motivation and learning to get into. Look at all the most popular online multiplayer games, they're all team based to some extent. PUBG, Overwatch, CS:GO, TF2, LoL, WoW, etc. This is also why solo competitive shooters like Quake 3 fell by the wayside in favor of team based FPS. Being in a team, means it's a lot easier to have someone to help you out directly. With a fighter, the best you could do is have someone take your controller. A lot of fighting games lack content for someone on their own, with a high barrier of entry.

Fighting games still sell millions of copies and everyone from the most casual to top tournament players are playing the same 1v1 ruleset. Don't know how you can't call that mainstream appeal.

I agree that most competitive games seem to prosper based on shitty team-based mechanics because modern snowflakes can't handle losing without being able to shift blame to someone else, but fighting games seem stable with constant AAA releases nonetheless.

 

[Siveon]

Fighting games still sell millions of copies and everyone from the most casual to top tournament players are playing the same 1v1 ruleset. Don't know how you can't call that mainstream appeal.

I wouldn't call it stable. Considering SFV sold poorly for one of the most popular fighting game franchises, Tekken 7 is doing better (which is saying something), and the next probably AAA would be Injustice 2.

When I look at the best selling games this year, I see one game: Injustice 2. A game people most people play for the story. For Honor doesn't really count because it's also kinda team based.

 

[Average Manatee]

A quick search says Tekken 7 is selling over 3 million, while SFV is still well over the million mark. The genre is getting multiple AAA-level titles a year and not really running out of steam.

Compare that to RTS. Basically the only name is Starcraft 2, a game with such a long wait for it and a hype level only exceeded by Half Life 3 and Nintendo games. Yet it's expansions, released with a several year gap in between them, didn't sell even what Tekken 7 did. In all the intervening years dozens of fighting games sold millions more. Or compare to non-degenerate competitive FPS. It... doesn't exist at all in AAA form as far as I can tell.

Sure, people play story and single player. That's always been the case. I doubt most people playing Quake or Starcraft 1 were playing online. Even single player fighting games are way closer to what the competitive ruleset looks like than single player FPS or RTS.

 

[DakaSha V]

The type of games that are currently in, are not the games of your childhood, so the "state of competitive fps games is bad".

Bullshit

 

[razvedchiki]

Play red orchestra 1/2.

 

[abija]

Average Manatee
First you need to define what "non-degenerate competitive FPS" means because CS and OW are both competitive and AAA (not sure how RS:S is doing sales wise but I think it made more than injustice so you can add that) .

(do you have the number of sales for SC expansions ?, seems wierd to not reach 3 mils when they hit 1+ in 1 day)

 

[Average Manatee]

Average Manatee
First you need to define what "non-degenerate competitive FPS" means because CS and OW are both competitive and AAA (not sure how RS:S is doing sales wise but I think it made more than injustice so you can add that) .

CS was inadvertent casual trash while OW was designed to be casual trash (or rather TF2 was designed to be casual trash while OW was designed by people who thought TF2 was too hardcore). I don't even know what RS:S is.

(do you have the number of sales for SC expansions ?, seems wierd to not reach 3 mils when they hit 1+ in 1 day)

I found http://accustatistics.com/blizzard-entertainment-statistics/

Assuming WoL hit around 3-4M that means the expansions hit around 2-2.5M.

Not a great source I'll admit. Still the fact that Blizzard didn't trumpet the overall sales numbers and instead only mentioned the 24/48 hour stuff tells me that they had a pretty quick drop off.