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What keeps you from joining the next level of competition in your games?
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This thread is not about elitism or competitive gaming being a sport or lolnerds or lolcasuals or scrubs or anything of the sort.
A lot of people play multiplayer games at a non-competitive level, they just want to have fun with some friends, and that's cool. I dig that; I do that, too.
But on the other hand, a lot of people play multiplayer games with the intent of competition: they practice, they think, they experiment, they may even watch videos or look up strategies. However, a tiny, tiny amount of those people actually follow through and join competitive play.
This is what I wonder about. If a person is playing a game and they've invested time and effort into becoming good at it, what keeps them from taking the next step?
I have a few basic theories, based on people and situations I've encountered in real life. But my sample sizes are just too small for me to get a decent picture of what people actually think about low-level competitive gaming, which frustrates me.
Time. Some people must feel that playing in tournaments is a huge time investment, when for many it isn't a lot more than what they might already be spending on the game. A typical local fighting game tourney might cost each player a weekend afternoon, plus travel time. For an FPS, a few hours if they schedule a some warm-up and late arrival leeway, but they wouldn't have to leave their house. For an RTS it's about the same.
Money. This problem is rare, because tourneys are cheap. A local fighting game tourney will usually max out at $10 a head, plus maybe a $5 venue fee. That's being generous, because most are in the $5 range. Until they've reached a much higher level, online FPS and RTS tourneys are usually free to join.
Sucking. I hear this one a fair bit, but I think it's the easiest to get around. Everyone sucks when they start playing, and everyone loses their first tourney. Often badly. There's no shame in losing, only in giving up. There are plateaus that a player will hit where the only way for them to move up is to play with better players, and the best way to do that is to get involved in a local scene or find an active, competitive scene to be a part of. It's also often the case that a reasonably skilled player won't be the worst player at a tourney, even if they're new. That's something they'll never know until they try.
Community. This one seems the most valid to me. Competitive communities can be cliquish, especially for established games and series. A local scene might have a core group of players who've been playing with each other for years and years, and an online community might have a bunch of initiation hoops to jump through before a player gets accepted, especially in team-based games, because that's when clans get involved. Getting into an established clan, or establishing one, can be a pain in the ass, which is why most don't last very long.
Here's the thing, though: most players are just people who are trying to have some fun by playing a game they enjoy in a setting they enjoy. Namely, a competitive setting. Many of them have been the outsider, or the new guy, and can sympathize, and most are cool dudes anyway. There are assholes in every group, and as the groups get bigger the assholes are more abundant, but, especially online, the assholes are usually just people who like to say things, and have no real connection with actual competition.
This is all really generic, but I think I've covered the major walls keeping people from joining in more actively.
Not every player who plays competitively has absolute aspirations for the top spot. Most treat it as any other hobby. There's a huge gap between travelling cross country to a major tournament and showing up every few weeks to a 30 player local. Not everyone tries out for WCG, or drags their computers to large lans. But everyone who attends any sort of tournament or gathering is playing an important part in keeping alive the competitive scene of a game they enjoy. With very few exceptions most competitive games have a finite shelf life, and their competitive scenes dry up quickly. People tend to abandon ship as soon as they think there's a leak, or there's something else on the horizon.
If you enjoy a game and think it's worthy of competitive play then you shouldn't leave it up to other people. Contact your local scene, and if there's isn't one then try and get something started. If you're taking the time to get good, and if you enjoy competition, then get involved. Find skilled players and stick to them like glue. Join an online tourney, or just play around on some competitive servers. Don't be discouraged if you lose; ask questions and try to learn more about what went wrong.
Before this becomes too preachy, I'd like to bring it back to my original question. What keeps you from joining more competitive play?
A lot of people play multiplayer games at a non-competitive level, they just want to have fun with some friends, and that's cool. I dig that; I do that, too.
But on the other hand, a lot of people play multiplayer games with the intent of competition: they practice, they think, they experiment, they may even watch videos or look up strategies. However, a tiny, tiny amount of those people actually follow through and join competitive play.
This is what I wonder about. If a person is playing a game and they've invested time and effort into becoming good at it, what keeps them from taking the next step?
I have a few basic theories, based on people and situations I've encountered in real life. But my sample sizes are just too small for me to get a decent picture of what people actually think about low-level competitive gaming, which frustrates me.
Time. Some people must feel that playing in tournaments is a huge time investment, when for many it isn't a lot more than what they might already be spending on the game. A typical local fighting game tourney might cost each player a weekend afternoon, plus travel time. For an FPS, a few hours if they schedule a some warm-up and late arrival leeway, but they wouldn't have to leave their house. For an RTS it's about the same.
Money. This problem is rare, because tourneys are cheap. A local fighting game tourney will usually max out at $10 a head, plus maybe a $5 venue fee. That's being generous, because most are in the $5 range. Until they've reached a much higher level, online FPS and RTS tourneys are usually free to join.
Sucking. I hear this one a fair bit, but I think it's the easiest to get around. Everyone sucks when they start playing, and everyone loses their first tourney. Often badly. There's no shame in losing, only in giving up. There are plateaus that a player will hit where the only way for them to move up is to play with better players, and the best way to do that is to get involved in a local scene or find an active, competitive scene to be a part of. It's also often the case that a reasonably skilled player won't be the worst player at a tourney, even if they're new. That's something they'll never know until they try.
Community. This one seems the most valid to me. Competitive communities can be cliquish, especially for established games and series. A local scene might have a core group of players who've been playing with each other for years and years, and an online community might have a bunch of initiation hoops to jump through before a player gets accepted, especially in team-based games, because that's when clans get involved. Getting into an established clan, or establishing one, can be a pain in the ass, which is why most don't last very long.
Here's the thing, though: most players are just people who are trying to have some fun by playing a game they enjoy in a setting they enjoy. Namely, a competitive setting. Many of them have been the outsider, or the new guy, and can sympathize, and most are cool dudes anyway. There are assholes in every group, and as the groups get bigger the assholes are more abundant, but, especially online, the assholes are usually just people who like to say things, and have no real connection with actual competition.
This is all really generic, but I think I've covered the major walls keeping people from joining in more actively.
Not every player who plays competitively has absolute aspirations for the top spot. Most treat it as any other hobby. There's a huge gap between travelling cross country to a major tournament and showing up every few weeks to a 30 player local. Not everyone tries out for WCG, or drags their computers to large lans. But everyone who attends any sort of tournament or gathering is playing an important part in keeping alive the competitive scene of a game they enjoy. With very few exceptions most competitive games have a finite shelf life, and their competitive scenes dry up quickly. People tend to abandon ship as soon as they think there's a leak, or there's something else on the horizon.
If you enjoy a game and think it's worthy of competitive play then you shouldn't leave it up to other people. Contact your local scene, and if there's isn't one then try and get something started. If you're taking the time to get good, and if you enjoy competition, then get involved. Find skilled players and stick to them like glue. Join an online tourney, or just play around on some competitive servers. Don't be discouraged if you lose; ask questions and try to learn more about what went wrong.
Before this becomes too preachy, I'd like to bring it back to my original question. What keeps you from joining more competitive play?
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Also, if you think pro RTS's don't require serious time, you obviously haven't seen the pro Korean leagues.
Same, but in rural Vermont. There is dick all going on here.
That said, I spent a lot of time getting good at Soul Calibur 2. It was the first game that I spent a great amount of effort learning crazy shit like analyzing frames, and ways to fuck with my opponent's head. I played a mean Talim. But I never wanted to compete. It wasn't that I was afraid I'd lose, or that I couldn't afford it, I just didn't want to. It may have largely been because of the community, but the idea never interested me.
There is a huge, vast, ponderous gulf between Korean pro gamers and your local online round robin. Which I think I addressed, but maybe I didn't. I follow the OSL and watch a few Proleague games. I'm familiar with how they work.
That's not what I'm talking about in the op at all.
To reiterate, there is not much of a difference between your average tourney player and your average hobby player, aside from one attending tourneys. It's not a job. It's a couple hours a day at most, and often less than that.
If it's a question of location, I can dig that. But it's also something I tried to address. There's a good chance that you live somewhere that's pretty inactive for whatever game you're playing. But that doesn't mean you can't try a little. Without arcades fighting game scenes don't just magically appear.
And for fps and rts being remote wouldn't even have that great of an impact. Maybe. For example, Europeans and North Americans routinely scrim and have tourneys for rts games and dota, and often the players on the team don't live near each other.
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My ideal setup is someone with whom I am even with, winning enough for it to be fun, but losing enough for it to feel like a challenge. That's why I stopped playing SSFIV, because I couldn't beat any of the guys who play here on a consistent enough basis for it to be enjoyable----and I'm not willing to do boring shit like figuring out the tricky timing on a bunch of combos just to be competitive.
My school once did a Super Smash Bros Brawl torunament with a small cash prize. Me and my two best buds entered. I lost first round because I went against one of the best players at the school. But that wasn't so serious because I knew my friend would win, which he did with Mario. I just wanted to have fun which I did.
My last uni semester, however, there was an anime convention there. There was a Tekken 6 tourney which I prepared for. I got some practice in beforehand, maining Lee. There were twelve people, so there were three rounds or something. I didn't lose right off, managing to even perfect one round. I chatted it up with the Bryan player I went against until my next round, which I lost. But it was close, and against the guy who ended up winning the tourney with Lili. The prize was like a 360 controller and a netflix gift card or something, not bad for a free tourney.
Mostly if it's a game I like and am somewhat good at and it's close by, I'll likely check it out. For me, it was fun being in it, and more fun to even not get eliminated right off. So yeah, for the most part these happen few and far between, and I'm not so keen as to go searching for them. But when they show up I go for it.
Also, with my friends and brothers, it's pretty much as competitive as any tourney. xD
Between my PC, DS, PSP, Wii and twice-weekly board game nights, while working in the day and doing other stuff on weekends with friends, yeah.
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I play games for fun, Modern Warfare 2 is frustrating enough as it is, without facing an entire team abusing OMA and the various bullshit strategies.
It's not that the game community is bad, but that other communities I'm a part of make it so that I need to spend my time elsewhere. Age can be a big part of this, as you have more responsibilities as you get older, and you want to use your time to keep good contacts with multiple groups. I have friends that play games, friends that go to bars, friends that love football, and friends at work. I'm not willing to cut out those other people (that are important to me) in order to play more games. At the same time, I'm not going to go to more football games and bars and stop playing video games online. Those groups ask the same general question of "How come you're not more dedicated to this?" and I give them the same answer. I'm totally cool with that and I like the balance I have, but that's how I see it.
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I mean the amount of time I've invested in pokemon is insane and I'm not even close to within the same breath as top tier pokebattling
Also RNGing is stupid and retarded and seriously no fuck RNGing, such a major pain in the ass
For Pokemon for instance you basically have to know how to RNG when battling competitively, which is such a hugely complicated thing to do that I don't even know where to begin to describe the difficulty inherent
Fair or not, I think of tournaments as full of guys like that.
I can dig that. Most competitive players I know are the same. They don't make money playing games; it's not their job. It's a hobby. They play a few hours a night, maybe an afternoon if they get some extra time and feel the urge. They also play other games, go to movies, go to concerts, go to bars, play other games, whatever.
It shouldn't be surprising that it's easy to make friends playing competitive games, though. You're in the same space with a bunch of people all doing something you enjoy. Most of the time they become friends and do other things together as well. Going to a tourney or a gathering is essentially spending and afternoon hanging out with some friends, except you're also playing a game.
Some games do take a lot more time than others, but that's a choice you make. I know nothing at all about competitive pokemon, so I can't make a comment on it, but a lot of other games gets slapped with the work label when it's not appropriate.
You'd be surprised. Not everyone goes to a tourney with the explicit goal of winning in mind, it's just that some people have more fun playing games at a competitive level and enjoy hanging out with other people doing the same thing.
I've been going to tourneys for years, and I've never cared about winning or losing.
That's understandable, and burnout does happen for most players, even the really competitive ones. Everyone moves on eventually.
But if you're not having fun then there's no point in playing.
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But if you're enjoying yourself with it, then I suppose I can't find too much fault in that.
So my answer is a much simpler: no interest in it.
all three of those times i have stopped due to either time investment required or due to cliquish or elitist communities
i would have played competitive melee, but the community didn't seem to gel with me at all, so i stayed away
so i would agree mainly with your community point
That's a stigma I've been trying to address.
You don't have to sacrifice anything else in your life to play in tourneys. The majority of people who do have perfectly normal(ish) lives. It doesn't take 5 hours a day, every day, especially if your goal isn't only to win, but to just have fun in a competitive environment.
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But goodness knows I would be happy to attend Pac-Man:CE tournaments if they existed, 'cause you know free money and all.
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That's probably unrealistic,
It'd be really cool to see that as a side event somewhere.
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Oh, no doubt having a tourney featuring games like Pac-Man:CE, Geo Wars 2, and DeathSmiles would be very cool, but between a family, my day job, game development in my spare time, and playing games for fun, I don't have a huge desire to take on the role of tournament coordinator. Online leaderboad competitions might not be as neat, but they're a whole lot more convenient.
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The only multiplayer game I really like enough to keep coming back to is Phantom Dust, and having to worry about a metagame larger than one person would destroy the ability to create off-the-wall crazy decks. I don't think there's exactly a big community for that game anyway.
and the community was a bunch of always facetious jerkbags, for the most part
comp q3 (cpma) was actually really fun, sure the people weren't the nicest, but once you learned a map you just moved on to the next one
there was practice to be had, but if you had good aim and could learn maps fast, it was surprisingly easy to get into
Eh, it that stuff can be a bitch. But you kind of have to be in the right period of your life for that. Nobody sticks with it for that long unless they hit it really big. It really helps if you have some local friends you can clan with, though. For instance, I knew shaGuar growing up and he spent just as much time in net cafes with friends, before he actually hit it big. If he hadn't had the successes that he did, he'd probably have just played more Diablo 2 with the rest of us, since he sucked at Quake. Cool kid, though.
So unless you're 15, or have natural talent, I can see why you'd back off. Thing is, if there was a stronger base of willing players for pickup leagues or whatever then you could still play semi-competitively and manage a day job.
Again, there are a few factors for games like those. It really, really helps to have actual people you know playing with you. All the nicest competitive dota players I knew had that going for them. Helps keep a layer between you and the real idiots.
Now CPMA, like the other Quake/Warsow games, benefited from ingrained muscle memory. Once you learn your movement you'll never forget it, even if you fall out of practice. But since aim is such a big factor for fps, and natural talent is such an important part of aim, there are natural barriers for most players. But still, fun is fun.
But the same rules applied; all the good cpma players I know became friends, and most of the Quake players I know had consistent real world competition and friends to play with. In fact, I'm still good friends with most of the Quake players I grew up with, even though I could never get into cpma.
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Also, hi5 Shadowfire! I used to live in rural Vermont as well.
I mean, there really isn't going to be much competition surrounding Audiosurf or Trauma Center. Leaderboards, but those don't really count.
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I would love to compete in the EA NHL series, but in the end I think the glitchers kill any hope of that. I would really like to play against the developers more than win any championship.
As for tournaments I have been in, I was in the Street Fighter IV Gamestop tournament last year. I made it to the second tournament and got smashed by an E. Honda player who was an obnoxious little douchbag. I think that kind of keeps me away from that scene.
In the end, I would rather play with Penny Arcade folks and have a ridiculous amount of fun dicking around than being competitive and playing against silly geese.
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So what happens is I'll go there one day, and do pretty well. But weeks down the road when I can finally go again, I'm getting reamed because everyone else lives a block away and can play as much as they want. ):
So maybe that day I will catch up on all the new tricks only to come back a week later and repeat the cycle. You could see how that would make tournaments hard, especially for games with no online play and already niche communities like hokuto no ken or arcana heart.
Mostly, it's the time thing. I like to play a variety of games and don't want to invest the time required to be anywhere near competitive. I'm no longer a poor college student who has to play CS:S because I don't have anything else. I also don't live with gamers anymore so I can't constantly refine my skills in every single new release.
On the other hand, I mostly just like dicking around in games. I may have a main in a fighting game, but I'll play using several other characters, oftentimes the joke ones. That gets a bit old if the people you're up against aren't reciprocating and only pick whatever character they're best at. Same for shooters with goofier levels or weapons that serious gamers avoid.
It's worse when games are poorly balanced and the competitive play devolves into who can use the three top-tier characters best or top the K/D ratio on the two levels competitive players deem as worth playing on.
Fair enough with regards to Starcraft, but what I still stand by what I'm saying.
You can talk about how you don't really need a time investment to get competitive at games, but that's simply not true. In short point, these are the points that strike me when I think about getting competitive at games.
- I don't want what I play to become practice instead of fun.
- I don't want to play a single title which excludes me the time from playing all the other stuff I'm interested in.
- Ultimately, like Hoz said, there's far more productive uses I could be putting my time to.
Gaming's supposed to be a free time, wind down thing. I play plenty online, but only because it's usually more fun than playing singleplayer. That's pretty much why I'm part of this community. People here tend to like games but they don't obsess over making it any sort of hardcore thing. If I jump on the TF2 server, it's not a 6v6 match up with a precise ratio of soldiers and no spies. If someone busts out a hoe-down or just generally bizarre antics, it's not like people are going to start screaming at them for letting the team down.
Also as others have said, most "hardcore" online communities who treat games as serious business tend to be full of jerks. Heck, when a tournament comes around here, TF2 can get fairly catty if you visit the thread. Even then, there's still more an interest in playing for fun.
Magic: the Gathering: The community seems to be nice, but the main barrier here is MONEY. Also, there comes a point in deckbuilding where the themes I want for my decks really isn't feasible and shall remain in the "shits and giggles" level of competitiveness. I have no problem spectating in tournaments though, they're pretty cool.
Street Fighter 3: Third Strike: Lack of an organized community. There's only one place I go to to play a good match, and while I've come across the same old faces over and over, there weren't enough interest for anyone to put out a tourney or anything.
DotA: I found the higher level gameplay too tedious.
I disagree with this. IMO most of the differences that people call "talent" when it comes to aim are the product of how people approached the problem when they first started. Most of my friends who are bad at FPSes just use terrible mental algorithms for moving the mouse - and I'm pretty sure they could be taught so that you would think they have "good" aim without it taking that long.
I got into video gaming in the 1980s (C-64 and the original NES) and at least part of the motivation was to escape the enforced competitive environment in a lot of other areas of my life. I was one of those kids whose parents had them in every activity under the sun (skiing, skating, hockey, basketball, piano, band, etc) and they all had competitions of some sort, which I never enjoyed. Video games were my escape from that, so even today I find the idea of a video game competition to be anathema. I seldom play console games online, never touched the Arena in WoW, and stay far, far away from DotA style games.
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