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What is the main issue with regards to multiplayer? Single player gamers wanted...

Wonko_C

Member
I'll put a overexaggeration here but it's how I feel about it sometimes: In CoD/Fortnite/Overwatch/whatever all you do is run around in the same arenas over and over and over, while in Super Mario you only go through each world once by scrolling left to right and they're all different from each other, so which game lets you see more?

But it's not like I dislike multiplayer, Last year I have clocked 1000+ hours on PSO2 way more than any other game from that same year, and I expect I will do the same with NGS.
 

Bryank75

Banned
I usually have a designated multiplayer game.... recently it was COD MW, I loved the multiplayer in that.

However I prioritize single player as it is the most rewarding and constructive use of my time and the experiences on PlayStation in this area are excellent IMO. So it just fits my needs as a gamer.

I used to spend lots of time in Destiny in 2014 and 15 and later years but less and less as time went on but 2014 didn't have as many games (particularly exclusives) and so Destiny really filled that time up and although I met lots of great people and loved the raids and trials, now I realize what a waste of time it was.... none of the time I put in mattered, I have nothing to show for it, same with D2.
 

Tesseract

Banned
selections of beliefs or courses of action among various options or timelines is still the name of the game in every online shooter i play, including fortnite and apex

it comes down to values and preferences, balancing what's intuitive versus rational, combinatorial or positional at the individual and organizational levels without fatiguing yourself or falling into cognitive traps

the best fortnite players are cognitive machines who analyze the battlefield and commit to the right moments at the right times (do you think john wick is john wick because he's fast and accurate or because he knows when and how to strike the enemy?)

some people are more introverted but tbh i think the extro types need to learn when to shut the fuck up and engage the systems established by the developers

coin always has two sides tho, quieter types gotta learn to communicate
 
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Magog.

Banned
You basically nailed it. I'll also add that multiplayer gaming distracts devs from making single player games. Rockstar is an Infamous example and also any game that shoehorns in a multiplayer mode at the expense of an unpolished single player campaign.
 
For me gaming is an intimate affair. Like reading a book or watching a movie. Having other people meddling in this experience feels wrong. Like an unwanted visitor making himself comfy at your house.

I do not personally consider multiplayer games a real part of gaming. For me, they are a gimmick, a novelty that grew too big. A competitive sport in a digital medium at best.

They're fine on their own. Just let me experience my stories
 
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MrS

Banned
Moriarty's aversion to MP games is because he's shit at them. Same reason he's won't play Souls. Doesn't want to be confronted with the reality that he sucks at modern games. Not that that should even matter, of course.
 
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edbrat

Member
The mp gaming I've enjoyed is cooping and a bit of PVP in Soulsborne titles, straight up Mariokart GPs, and Overwatch tho I've not played that in some time and my god it was a struggle to find non-excrement to play with. It's a big time investment to understand the "meta", making sure you know what's going on and even if things are going fine with anything involving chat or teamspeak you need a thick skin bc people can be hideously terrible. If you're not in the mood then what's the point of having to deal with that when you're trying to enjoy yourself and unwind, life is too short and there's other stuff which can scratch that itch.
 

johntown

Banned
For me I am very selective about my multiplayer experiences. Many of them feel too similar. Another problem I have is finding people on my skill level. I am better than average at FPS games and I hate losing. Trying to find other players (close to my age) that are decent at FPS games is not easy.

Time is another big issue for me. I really only have time to game on the weekends unless I take a vacation and I just don't have the time anymore to dedicate to learning maps, best gear etc. and be able to play all the single player games I want.

If the right type of multiplayer game come out though I will play it. I like sci fi shooters and most of the ones that come out for multiplayer are not good. I love the first Destiny and if something like that comes out I will play it.
 

Susurrus

Member
A few things.

I like the progress in single player games, there is an end goal. If it is a multiplayer coop game with an end goal, it can be fun though, such as Ratchet & Clank All 4 One where we could hop in and out of playthroughs seamlessly or just play together. I liked that. Playing versus match over and over, not so much, I play a few rounds and get bored. Especially when it is the same type of gameplay, like yet another shooter.

Another reason, is to be competitive and not get your ass handed to you for all of eternity, you have to get good. This makes sense of course, and there's nothing wrong with needing skill, hell that's a good thing and definitely has its place, that's why most sports exist. Problem is, I don't have the time or drive to sync into these competitive games. With a job, school, and family, my game time is limited, and as of which instead of making moot progress over and over trying to get good, I'd rather experience a single player adventure, playing one of the many games on my backlog.
 

BigBooper

Member
It's hard to play multiplayer games casually. If I don't play a game for a month, but they still match with people at my old skill level, then I end up getting killed instantly.

I also don't like it for the reasons you listed. I can't think of anything that would make me get into them more.
 
I loved multiplayer stuff when I was younger and had lots of time. I also mostly played with friends, and even for online stuff like Starcraft, Quake, and Counterstrike, the Internet was still young and rather small. You didn't have all of this pro-gamer Twitch eSports shit where you're always being exposed to thousands of people who are wizards at the same games you play. Going to be honest, but the existence of a pro scene makes me less interested in playing. I might be in the minority, but it feels like every multiplayer game has some kind of metagoal where you have to get legit good at the game compared to the rest of the world and I've got no time or interest for that.
Second post nails it


Time and friends, as I got older my time is much more limited and most of my gaming friends don't do online. With single player games and quick resume I can get 5 or 10 minute sessions in no problem.
 

JimboJones

Member
It's great getting into a good multiplayer game you enjoy, especially if you get friends in on it. I don't think single player games can come anywhere close to the fun or camaraderie when you get the mix right. But it does have downsides in that it can end up sucking up all your "game time" and some of that is just to keep up and not get rusty, then it can start to feel like a chore.
Plus eventually they start meddling with it, add something you don't like or a friend doesn't like, you leave or friends leave, or the casual population dwindles and your left with the super hardcore, doesn't feel the same and that's that.
 
Quiters. I hate winning and losing because of uneven teams. Also hate it when lobbies are impossible to find because they are not favorites so less people play them. I had both of these problems playing ranked in cod wwii. How can you play against the best when it's 2v4 and then sit there for 20 minutes searching for a match?
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
I burned myself out on MP years ago playing Halo and Gears of War a lot. Give me a nice SP game with a decent story and good gameplay any day over a MP game
 
I can sometimes enjoy MP. I used to be in love with Counter-Strike. The reasons why I prefer SP are far too numerous and game-dependent, though.

For me the social aspect of MP is the best aspect and it's why if I go for it I gravitate towards more co-operative experiences. Even when I was into Counter-Strike the game required the most actual team work of any MP game at the time. I had to feel like I was having fun with pals, made a lot of friends doing stuff like Raids in Destiny.
 

Aenima

Member
The only multiplayer games i can tolerate are pretty much Co-Op only. PvP was only fun when i was younger playing with groups of friends. The games i enjoyed playing in multiplayer in the last years has been:

Monster Hunter World (co-op)
Final Fantasy XIV (co-op just for dungeons/ bosses/ raids, everething else solo)
Genshin Impact (co-op just for dungeon farming, everething else solo)

99% of the games I buy are single player games.
 
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Rubik8

Member
I can’t be competitive because I have a real life. That sort of takes the fun out of it for me.
 

laynelane

Member
Your second reason fits me. I prefer having a story to delve into when I play games. On the other hand, I don't mind multiplayer in my games - for example, Souls games. But multiplayer only games seem repetitive and boring to me.
 

iQuasarLV

Member
Glad to see I am not alone in aging out of the MP scene. I suppose its like food. Some things just do not taste good as you thought it did when you were younger.
 

Aion002

Member
One of the things are: Playing mp with friends is one thing, playing with random people is another and it can be a terrible experience that goes from awful team mates to a toxic environment.


Most gamers that dislike mp games simply can't play with friends most of time (life gets in the way), so they rather play SP games that are sure to entertain them.


MP only games are repetitive (yes, each match is different, but the actions are the same and the stages too), if the gameplay loop doesn't satisfy the player enough, there's no reason to play it, while a SP game can hold the player attention in multiple ways (story, characters, customizations...) and has the assurance that there is an end to the game, while the mp only games are basically a loop with close to zero progression.


Finally, most older gamers got in to video games not just because of the gameplay, but because of the interactivity, exploring worlds, making choices, creating characters and "living" a story... Most SP games (and MMORPGs) are a combination of these aspects, while games like Fortnite or Apex Legends are mostly and primary just one thing, one single loop over and over and over... Which is fine... But eh..

A dumb analogy in why I respect sp games a lot more than things like fortnite:


MP only games are like eating fast food, you might enjoy it, but is just cheap unhealthy fast food that is not memorable.


While SP games are like eating in a unique restaurant, the food might end up being terrible, but is a different experience so you will remember one way or another.
 
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AJUMP23

Member
I play single player games for the story and the experience.

I play multiplayer in order to spend some time with friends.
 

lachesis

Member
For me, gaming was always solitary experience of playing games in my way, and on my own pace... and social games are a bit tiresome for me. I guess being an introvert, gaming is something that I do to get away from exactly that... so I guess that's why I really only play single player games. Usually story driven, something that I can beat and move onto next experience.
 

Kagey K

Banned
I’m going to come at it from the other side.

I can’t replay single player games, the AI is the same the story is the same.

Once I’ve watched something, I’m good. If it’s great I might come back to it a few years later, but I’m not going to watch it in and out for any length of time.

With a MP game, the layout of the map might stay the same but the enemies are in different places and with different skill levels.

Knowing that I just killed a person instead of an AI makes me feel better, because I trust there was no computer manipulation, and I beat them based on skill.


Look at SF2, AI characters could pull off charge moves that humans couldn’t, and it made it feel cheap, vs humans I could play against.

There is no substitute for a human enemy, if you want to judge your skill in a game. Moving from checkpoint to checkpoint to trigger movies doesn’t make you a skilled gamer.

There is no, Youtube walkthrough that is going to teach you to beat me, but it will show you how to beat the sissy games pretty easy every time you run into a puzzle that takes you more than 10 secs to solve.
 
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NahaNago

Member
The only multiplayer game I ever really played was ffxiv and honestly I just liked the feeling of the world having other live humans going about playing the game. I never really got in to the dungeon raid like stuff . I'm just not in to competitive stuff or the git gud things, maybe in my younger days I would have joined in but I just want to experience the world and it's story.


edit: honestly fell off after the remake and finally renewed my subscription and bought all of the expansion. I'll be getting back in to the game after this aunt delivering trip to Florida.
 
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Kagey K

Banned
How the fuck are you also scared of people in games, but you come here to get ripped apart by people you don’t know instead?
 

cireza

Banned
In order :
1) Having to play with people
2) Having to wait to play
3) Multiplayer is by definition repetitive and offers poor value for my time
4) I don't get any enjoyment out of : losing to better players than me or destroying players that are not as good as me
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
I like both.

Single player games are great, you can relax properly and some of the stories are just as good as any book or movie you can read.

Multiplayer games appeal to me because anything can happen. It’s unscripted. When something hilarious happens in Sea of Thieves, when you hit a blind noob tube headshot in MW2 from across the map, when your sniper bullet reflects off a surface and headshots your team mate from across the map in Halo, or when a stray Warthog wheel flies across the map and splatters you... it’s just beautiful chaos. I like the rush of performing well too, but the greatness comes from the madness IMO.
 

Bragr

Banned
In Europe, you always get some french or german motherfucker who leave their mic on while they eat, talk and listen to music, so you have to listen to some cunt piece of shit that makes as much sound as a sawmill, making the whole game unbearable. It's even worse than Fortnite kids or League of Legends kids. You either have to play solo or with friends, playing randoms is a complete shitshow.
 

Bragr

Banned
You wouldn't believe how little games some game journalists actually play, guys like Colin should never be judging games. I remember when IGN hired Greg Miller, and he only had a vita, and recently he talked about how he hates games on the PC. The guy barely even plays games. It's like a music journalist who only listens to music that features the banjo. His opinion won't mean much to music in general.
 

Tschumi

Member
It's just generally not a place for part timers, people who don't want to give away their night's sleep for a win
 

ZoukGalaxy

Member
I don't want humans in my game ruining my immersive experience ?

So, no, no fix possible.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
One is sports

the other film/book

This is good.

I think the industry needs to, is going to, meld the two.

Sea of Thieves X Eve Online X Day Z.

Let players be protagonists in an emergent story rather than watch protagonists in the developers story.
 

junguler

Banned
i don't want to feel rushed playing a game, if something happens in real life i need to be able to pause the game and go figure it out. also multiplayer games have expiration dates on them and even if the developers doesn't take the servers offline, the player-base is always going to shrink and after a certain point if that game doesn't have bot support you are not going to get in a match at all.
it might be because of my age too, i just don't have the passion to compete with other people at all and just want to relax and enjoy myself playing a game at my own pace.
 

Fbh

Member
I don't hate multiplayer but I vastly prefer single player.
I might sound silly but Multiplayer games to me feel like that....games. Single player games are more like an experience I guess. I know "experience" is this buzzword that everyone hates but I don't know how else to describe it.
They combine all the elements I like (gameplay, worldbuilding, exploration, level design, story music, etc) in a way that you just can't in a multiplayer setting.
 
I prefer multi-player games to playing alone any day. Minecraft Dungeons, Diablo 3, Streets of rage 4, World of Warcraft, Destiny 2, Borderlands 1,2, 3, The Division, Gears 1,2,3,4,5, Halo 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Ghost Recon Wildlands. The list goes on an on. All of those games were made infinitely better by playing them with my friends over alone. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. I actively look for new multi-player titles I can play. Bring em on!
 

kyussman

Member
My main issue with multiplayer is people shooting me before I get the chance to shoot them....which results in an endless death loop.....not fun!
Seriously though,as I have gotten older I've lost any interest I had in multiplayer(and I never really had that much tbh),....the only franchise I ever enjoyed the multiplayer of was Killzone because the support class was really great for...well,supporting,lol...I could finish top of my team in a match by playing good support and feel I was really helping my team get wins without having to rely on getting kills.
 
Moriarty's aversion to MP games is because he's shit at them. Same reason he's won't play Souls. Doesn't want to be confronted with the reality that he sucks at modern games. Not that that should even matter, of course.
A typical gayms journalist, imagine my surprise.
 
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Griffon

Member
MP games with automatic matchmaking are fucking awful. Everybody knows they'll never see their teammates ever again, a toxic shithole with strangers.

Games with a server browser in which you can chose where you go and have a prefered server to hang out in, that's where you'll get to know new people and even get to make new friends.
But the sad truth is that eSport competitive matchmaking is what makes the most money for publishers. Gamers stay isolated and don't make new friends, and their relationship stays mainly with the game's publishers and the DLCs they sell.


Fortnite solo queue is essentially a better Mega Man.
LOL. Spoken like a true zoomer. Those two have nothing in common.
 
They just get boring very fast to me, especially once I get the hang of them and there's not even the challenge to overcome.

Decently made single player games however, with a narrative to follow, a steadily increasing difficulty curve, and regularly varying game play, are just infinitely more fun to me.

Even the repetition in single player games is usually easier to cope with, since it's for a specific goal that will then lead to opening up further avenues of progression.

I tried Fortnight recently. Played 5 matches and it had already stopped being fun.
 

Mojoraisin

Member
Some mentioned lack of progression in MP games as a problem. That it’s wasted time. I have hard time understanding that complaint. Tell that to chess players, football players, ice hockey players or any other person loving a sport. It’s the same damn objective and playing field every time - the beauty lies in _that_ one game and getting better. Every game is different. For some reason this insight has been increasingly lost.

Forced “progression” in multiplayer games has destroyed a lot of that emphasis. Now people play to unlock weapons and trivial shit instead of helping the team. Back in the “good old days”, remembering my wolfenstein days, people played the objective and to win THAT match. All guns were unlocked from the start. *shocker*. It was enough. If teams were uneven a vote was called to scramble teams and 90% of the time it passed. Even if it meant you and a friend ended up in different teams. Now most people care about k/d ratio or unlocking a huge pink dildo wobbling around on top of your helmet. That is where I think a large part of the problem lies.

I totally understand people hating mp games - but I still love it. Less than before but if more people would be in the moment and play as a team - I think it’d be more enjoyable for everyone. No single player game lets me experience the same rush as a really close mp game. And I love single player experiences. :)
 
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ACESHIGH

Banned
Where do I start... This list is not ordered by importance:

1 - MP game design creeps into Single Player games making a diluted experience. I am sure Gotham Knights won't be as good as the Batman Arkham games. Avengers was a massive failure when they could had a great single player game. If I want to be the Batman, I want to explore at my own pace not have "Gamer_ffwerfg34256" as Batgirl jumping around or waiting in a stupid lobby. I dislike MP games because they threaten SP ones. Look at Valve, the guys made some of the best SP games of all time. Now they just need to update CS and Dota 2.

2 - Most multiplayer games are competitive vs collaborative and get the worst out of people. Example, DayZ or several survival games. What if I want to build a great community alongside others instead of killing everyone on sight? Most multiplayer games end up being like this and I hate it.

3 - I grew playing single player games or local MP by the time PC multiplayer games like Counter Strike were popular (in Cyber cafes, as broadband wasn't a thing at home yet) I was already 14 year old and played several of the best single player games of all time: Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Doom, Quake, Soul Reaver. My taste in video games was already defined. Yeah I could play a couple of rounds at CS but going to those loud and stinky Cyber cafes wasn't my cup of tea.

4 - I am almost 34 years old and work a full time job and do other activities, although gaming/music are my main hobbies. For that reason I typically game at night. Coordinating a multiplayer session with my friends takes time. Learning a MP game is a huge time investment.

5 -My favourite type of MP games are fighting and Arena Shooters. I am from South America, and FGs are not that popular here, much less on PC. It takes AGES to find a match in the most popular fighting games. Picture something like Fighting Ex Layer... Japs should cut the crap and make crossplay mandatory across all platforms. Oh and Arena Shooters are dead.

6 - Cheaters. I'd love to play GTA Online and RDR online but can't stand their long loading screens and cheaters

7 - Lag, disconnections and other internet issues.

8 Last but not least, I look for INMERSION in games. And for the most part Single Player games provide that.
 
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