This kind of behavior is exactly why I don't put myself in a position to play any sort of MOBA in a multiplayer environment. I stick to Demigod at most, and that is a singleplayer affair to me. Overall, IÂ have a very basic rule for my behavior. If I'm getting frustrated to the point where the game isn't fun, I'll stop and do something else.
I used to get frustrated and grumble an awful lot, complain about mechanics, about how they were "stupid" and "unfair" but over time I've gotten to the point (partly due to having seen so many different games and being able to see what works and what doesn't) where I can see merits for design decisions I didn't think about before.
I do think "hyper-competition" is a core component of why we have this kind of behavior. We see people who argue that if they aren't winning, it isn't a good game. I believe a close game is a good game, there have been spectacular losses that were a blast to play through to the end and I just wish more people could see those in the same way.
Hearing and seeing people play League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, DOTA 2, and other hyper-competitive games almost every day, I watch as they get frustrated over time, I can hear them get more and more angry each time they happen to have a loss, or something didn't go right. Rarely do I hear someone owning up to a mistake they made, with over three quarters of the time, problems get blamed on other people. I've had some people even threaten each other with violence (to which has resulted in one or two people being thrown out and told to cool off), I've actually witnessed a physical fight as a result of certain people taking these hyper-competitive games too seriously.
Have fun first, win when it works. The drive for "World" and "Server" firsts has only thrust this issue into the MMO spotlight. The constant focus on min-maxing and perfect execution always causing some sort of commotion.
Call of Duty has the same problem with that hyper-competitive streak. People do stupid human things (which is to be expected since they're human), and they explode in frustration since what they expected to happen didn't come to be. They explode over latency problems, they get angry over randomly assigned teammates who may or may not work well with them. I constantly try to argue to people who play Call of Duty, or any game that uses matchmaking, that part of their game is indeed chance. Bullet Spread, Latency, Teammates. These are all random elements added to the game.
We had this strange explosion of focus on personal performance, KDR KDR+A being the pedestal that people focused on all the time. What's strange is that people don't actually remember that for every kill you make, that's a death for someone else. 1.0+ is a good ratio for non-objective games, yet some players are SO uptight about getting more than 3.0 in each match (otherwise they're horrible.)
This whole post has kind of gone to a bunch of different topics stemming from this, but they all culminate into what makes it hard for people to actually play in multiplayer games these days.
I used to get frustrated and grumble an awful lot, complain about mechanics, about how they were "stupid" and "unfair" but over time I've gotten to the point (partly due to having seen so many different games and being able to see what works and what doesn't) where I can see merits for design decisions I didn't think about before.
I do think "hyper-competition" is a core component of why we have this kind of behavior. We see people who argue that if they aren't winning, it isn't a good game. I believe a close game is a good game, there have been spectacular losses that were a blast to play through to the end and I just wish more people could see those in the same way.
Hearing and seeing people play League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, DOTA 2, and other hyper-competitive games almost every day, I watch as they get frustrated over time, I can hear them get more and more angry each time they happen to have a loss, or something didn't go right. Rarely do I hear someone owning up to a mistake they made, with over three quarters of the time, problems get blamed on other people. I've had some people even threaten each other with violence (to which has resulted in one or two people being thrown out and told to cool off), I've actually witnessed a physical fight as a result of certain people taking these hyper-competitive games too seriously.
Have fun first, win when it works. The drive for "World" and "Server" firsts has only thrust this issue into the MMO spotlight. The constant focus on min-maxing and perfect execution always causing some sort of commotion.
Call of Duty has the same problem with that hyper-competitive streak. People do stupid human things (which is to be expected since they're human), and they explode in frustration since what they expected to happen didn't come to be. They explode over latency problems, they get angry over randomly assigned teammates who may or may not work well with them. I constantly try to argue to people who play Call of Duty, or any game that uses matchmaking, that part of their game is indeed chance. Bullet Spread, Latency, Teammates. These are all random elements added to the game.
We had this strange explosion of focus on personal performance, KDR KDR+A being the pedestal that people focused on all the time. What's strange is that people don't actually remember that for every kill you make, that's a death for someone else. 1.0+ is a good ratio for non-objective games, yet some players are SO uptight about getting more than 3.0 in each match (otherwise they're horrible.)
This whole post has kind of gone to a bunch of different topics stemming from this, but they all culminate into what makes it hard for people to actually play in multiplayer games these days.
