video game rant: whats the point of winning?

[Outlaw]

whats the point of winning in video games now a days? first let me say im one of the most competitive players you will ever play against, I hate losing and I love to win. But whats the point of winning? Why should I try to win, what do I gain to win? What do I lose if I dont win? NOTHING you get all the same amount of xp for winning as you do losing so why should I care if my team wins or loses? To me getting a good win / lose ratio means nothing why does it not matter because who the fuck can see that you have a good win / lose ratio who is going to look up your stats in check?


I can only think of one game that gave me a competitive edge and made me want to win and made me furious when I lost.. halo 2.. by far the best competitive game ever made! Why was it so great? Easy TRUE SKILL RANKING!! this stupid number beside your name that let you know what lvl skill you wore, it meant every thing to me, it made me want to win every single game I played so that number would go up, if I lost my skill ranking would drop.. this gave incentive for players to try there hardest, and this game did it so dam right, I wish halo 2 never died off.


But that game died and I found something else to fuel my competitive edge, that was MLG.. MLG brought so much to table adding all the competitive elements into any game, it gave me what I needed to care to win.. I started playing cod on there many ladders, I played that shit religiously I had over 72 days log in hours of straight MLG matches.. why was this so addictive and why did it hook me to play the same game for years, one reason a beast ranking system, getting xp from games won and losing xp from games lost. When I played these matches I got such a rush from playing it gave me a reason to be the best player out there, and gave me a reason to try every single game.. every game I played meant that If I won my team would raise the ranks in the ladder and my self as a player gained xp from games won and was put towards my MLG rank.. it actually meant something to lose.


I blame casual gamers for this method of ranking to be lost, funny because now my self am a casual gamer.


Thats my half finished rant, im bored im typing.. why do you want to win? What makes you want the ?W?. if you managed to read all that with out going 'wtf?' thats win in its self haha.

my MLG profile if you wana look at my team cards ther on the right side of the page lol
http://gamebattles.majorleaguegaming.com/profile/outlawtrigger

 

[Vengeance0058]

Ah Halo 2...the good ol days. As for win loss ratio...I really should stop caring sometimes. A) All the humble bundlers and other noobs. B) Who cares?

 

[HeatSurge]

I never care for win/loss ratio in a team game with pubs (like the BF series).

The true measurement of dick girth and what gets my respect is 1v1 in arena shooters, a la Quake/UT and like you mentioned above Halo 2 probably would fall in this category. Sadly, that kind of gameplay has mostly died in the last decade or so... it's being kept alive in VERY niche projects like Warsow is one that I know of, and that "thing" Quake Live. IMO, a 20-40 kill 1v1 in one of those is still the ultimate test. No bullshit classes with unbalanced weapons or loadouts, no bullshit maps with spawning problems, no predictable movement paths, no OP vehicles, no teamwork and depending on other people. Just you and the other guy, with the same capabilities.

That being said, playing those arena shooters is extremely stressful and demanding - and that's probably why they're not as popular. People might disagree, but to be good at BF:BC2 or COD takes a whole lot less than to be good at Quake 2 IMO... It's easier, caps what you can do vs what a noob can do, and FAR more forgiving of mistakes, so it's more popular. It also helps that due to the limitations of your in-game capability, it's much harder for someone to expand your anus to the point where you're wondering how big of a cavity are you really capable of having - something which is quite common in arena shooters when you meet someone who is actually good.

So yeah, Fatal1ty may have been a lisping fag, but he was damn good. Just look up some of his matches.

 

[RainMotorsports]

The problem I have with 1v1 matches is that I have to piss once in awhile and 30 minutes to a kill just... kills me. Playing my favorite CSS mod server once it got down to 2 people I could go down the street and get something to eat and have a chance of the round not being over when I get back.

I have been looking for a game that gives me the experience I had with my first multiplayer FPS. My intro to MP FPS was F.E.A.R. No ranks, no unlocks, a handful of players and no record of anything. If you want to find the point of winning I say start with something that at the end of the day, month, year won't tell you how you did or give you anything to show for it. If you find it pointless then you don't like gaming or pure competition. Competition is in the moment to me. I remember thousands of my kills, the situation and what made it happen.

I play for the team experience. Nothing is more fun to me than the experience of trying to accomplish something. Even if we lose the war we won a few battles together and that is fun. When playing with people you know in small numbers the 1v1 rivalry that occurs inside a multiperson game also drives me. Finding, outsmarting and killing the same person over and over in an environment with other enemies and team mates is fun. Its cool to hit the top of a leaderboard but the problem with that is no matter how they rank skill or experience the leaderboard will never accurately gauge players. Especially when there are hackers on it.

I am not a competitive player and I am very bad at CoD, passable at BF. I hate Counter Strike with a passion due to it feeling like a game made in 1998. I have trouble playing older games I did not grow up on and no matter how much they tweak CS in new releases it still in general is purposely built to play like CS. Not having played shooters back then I missed out on a ton of experience and the gradual comfort that probably would have come from playing it. But then again BF3 killed my ability to play BFBC2. In BC2 you could not strafe while running, in BF3 you can and now I have a bad habit. Sucks because the early days of BF3 i played BC2 still and I got MUCH better and then all of a sudden MUCH worse. I had actually hoped CS:S was going to replace FEAR for me since its similar but FEAR played like Far Cry 1, CSS plays like CS.

I am here for the fun not to win. But winning sure is fun!