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Single vs Multiplayer games?

Cellmold

Wake, See, Sing, Dance
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Mar 23, 2012
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Simple question: Do people prefer Single or Multiplayer games?

When I was younger I used to love multiplayer, the competitive side, the engaging with others from all over the world and being pitted against each other in an arena of skill.

However, as I got older I started to see how pointless multiplayer was for myself. All it ever did was frustrate and anger me, it made me arrogant and ignorant and I despised myself more and more the further I got into it. There are many different genre's of game, of course, but I played lots of different ones.

However the same problem would arise, I would look for something I could make unique to myself, some play style or build or even just my actions in game, eventually however it would always be rendered moot, useless or copied.

And then I realised that it is all about efficiency, effectiveness and what the end product can produce. People abuse and abuse until they get the most powerful or effective methods worked out....then once they have been nerfed due to imbalances, they then move onto the next....and the next...and so on.

This frustrates and irritates me in the extreme, there is very little in the way of freedom or individuality in multiplayer games. It's generally all built up around group conceptions. If the majority claims something is overpowered....it is overpowered with little consideration to how valid this actually is. A large amount of the time people's self-interest becomes so wrapped up in their abilities at these games that they become delusional, they can no longer understand how they could be beaten and in their arrogance they call foul.

Of course many complaints are legitimate, but just as in real life the legitimate complaints are always drowned out by the delusional ones.

I also loved video games in my childhood because it was a way for me to get away from the world, I could go online and play with those who could be considered similar to myself. On the fringe. But now gaming has suddenly gained in popularity and now the world wants in on it.

This just pushes me out. Im sure there are plenty of issues with this decision and in fact my current rage makes my point far less articulately than I would like, (not to mention I try not to act on intense emotions because of the inaccuracy that is bound to be ripe within anything created by it), but Single player is mine, it's no one elses. No one else is dictating how I should or ought to play, no one is sitting there over my shoulder and balancing the game 'for the good of the community' or so they claim.

It's the purest example of selfish individuals using the group as their excuse.

So what are your reasons and why?
 

Such Irony

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Simple question: Do people prefer Single or Multiplayer games?

When I was younger I used to love multiplayer, the competitive side, the engaging with others from all over the world and being pitted against each other in an arena of skill.

However, as I got older I started to see how pointless multiplayer was for myself. All it ever did was frustrate and anger me, it made me arrogant and ignorant and I despised myself more and more the further I got into it. There are many different genre's of game, of course, but I played lots of different ones.

However the same problem would arise, I would look for something I could make unique to myself, some play style or build or even just my actions in game, eventually however it would always be rendered moot, useless or copied.

And then I realised that it is all about efficiency, effectiveness and what the end product can produce. People abuse and abuse until they get the most powerful or effective methods worked out....then once they have been nerfed due to imbalances, they then move onto the next....and the next...and so on.

This frustrates and irritates me in the extreme, there is very little in the way of freedom or individuality in multiplayer games. It's generally all built up around group conceptions. If the majority claims something is overpowered....it is overpowered with little consideration to how valid this actually is. A large amount of the time people's self-interest becomes so wrapped up in their abilities at these games that they become delusional, they can no longer understand how they could be beaten and in their arrogance they call foul.

Of course many complaints are legitimate, but just as in real life the legitimate complaints are always drowned out by the delusional ones.

I also loved video games in my childhood because it was a way for me to get away from the world, I could go online and play with those who could be considered similar to myself. On the fringe. But now gaming has suddenly gained in popularity and now the world wants in on it.

This just pushes me out. Im sure there are plenty of issues with this decision and in fact my current rage makes my point far less articulately than I would like, (not to mention I try not to act on intense emotions because of the inaccuracy that is bound to be ripe within anything created by it), but Single player is mine, it's no one elses. No one else is dictating how I should or ought to play, no one is sitting there over my shoulder and balancing the game 'for the good of the community' or so they claim.

It's the purest example of selfish individuals using the group as their excuse.

So what are your reasons and why?

I always play single player for two reasons. The first is the bolded above. The second is that I suck at video games so I know I'd lose big time if I did multiplayer. It just makes me feel more inadequate.
 

Cellmold

Wake, See, Sing, Dance
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I always play single player for two reasons. The first is the bolded above. The second is that I suck at video games so I know I'd lose big time if I did multiplayer. It just makes me feel more inadequate.

I wish I had been able to see this myself when I was much younger, would have saved me a lot of money, wasted time and effort.
 

Fluffywolf

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Mostly multiplayer (But there's been a few single player games I've really enjoyed. But those are rare. (Arcanum/Dragon Age: Origins, not counting old dos games.)

Single player games don't keep me interested for very long.

At the moment I'm fragging in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. I really needed a mindless game for a change, it's pretty nice.
 

sprinkles

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I like multi when there's room for skill to make up for an otherwise tight method base (Quake 3, TF2 to some extent)

Quake 3 is especially good since they have officially endorsed strafe jumping (the Quake Live version even has a tutorial course on how to do it) and being good at that as well as trick jumps etc allows variance in play styles and can make it anyone's game - camping the rail gun for example is no longer efficient because the opponent will run circles around you and pick at you with rockets until you have no armor and are forced to leave, and then they might get there faster than you.
 

Randomnity

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I like single player and co-op (vs AI) games more or less equally, depending on my mood, since they're very different experiences. Single player is more about the actual game and co-op is about the social experience since those tend to be very easy.

I'll play competing multiplayer games too if the game is fun but I don't tend to like them as much. It can be fun if it's team vs team, though, or non-interacting games that are really just parallel single games (ex: tower defense and similar)

I just bought starcraft 2 this week since it was on sale for 20$, just to play the custom games. I don't like the actual game. It's too stressful to me - I don't like that degree of multitasking/churning out rapid actions.
 

Fluffywolf

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I like multi when there's room for skill to make up for an otherwise tight method base (Quake 3, TF2 to some extent)

Quake 3 is especially good since they have officially endorsed strafe jumping (the Quake Live version even has a tutorial course on how to do it) and being good at that as well as trick jumps etc allows variance in play styles and can make it anyone's game - camping the rail gun for example is no longer efficient because the opponent will run circles around you and pick at you with rockets until you have no armor and are forced to leave, and then they might get there faster than you.

Strafe Jumping. :D

I never played Quake 3, but it sure brings back memories of Action Quake 2. Jumping from one side to the other with a quadruple strafejump in Urban 3, pew pew, Your team Won! :D

I actually quite like COD: Black Ops 2, because like AQ2 it is quite fast paced. Not something you see in most FPS multiplayers.
 

sprinkles

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Strafe Jumping. :D

I never played Quake 3, but it sure brings back memories of Action Quake 2. Jumping from one side to the other with a quadruple strafejump in Urban 3, pew pew, Your team Won! :D

I actually quite like COD: Black Ops 2, because like AQ2 it is quite fast paced. Not something you see in most FPS multiplayers.

Yeah. It bugs me how the modern FPS tries to go all realistic and limit your actions. Yeah, that's great if your'e going for the immersive experience of playing a soldier in a fight, you're not going to be rocket jumping or flying around or flick shooting in real life. It also kind of levels the playing field in some way, but takes away the room to truly excel competitively. You're effectively weighted down by imposed limitations.

 

Eckhart

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It depends on the game really. Some games have a very good single player part so I enjoy them a lot. Some games have a very good multiplayer part so I enjoy them a lot.

A lot of the good old games had only a single player mode or only a very rudimentary multiplayer mode (which no one plays anymore in most cases) so those are mostly the games I still play on single player. Newer games have only rarely a good, long, replayable single player mode (the remake XCOM Enemy Unknown is a good exception for example). Nowadays it is often happening that you have games which offer you a very short single player which is kept very simple and the main part of the game is just the multiplayer mode. Dawn of War 2, especially Chaos Rising and Retribution, is a good example for that.

The thing is a good multiplayer game gets me stuck to it for a longer time in row than a single player game, because the different enemies and the community keeps you motivated for a long time. I played Dawn of War 2 in multiplayer for a few years for example. On the other hand, I probably didn't play the original single player game X-COM for that long without a break, but it is a game that I returned to every now and then and might still return to in 5 or 10 years. Dawn of War 2 I will not return to in the future anymore for sure, because the community will be dead (is already nearly).
 

sprinkles

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I never could get good at RTS games.

I'm fine when I only have myself to manage as in an FPS, there's people I can't win against but I'll at least get frags which can be annoying in Quake Live because it throws me into the top tier where the pros are which makes me like a little fish and then I get kicked back down and kill everybody and get thrown back up to top tier in like three matches. But in an RTS I'm like 'NOOOOO you're killin my dudes! Go away!" :<
 

_eric_

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I very much prefer single player and co-op games, however, competitive multiplayer is definitely a lot more fun with friends, even if they are just people you meet in the game and add them to your friends list.
 

jcloudz

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i love multiplayer games. its more of a challenge dealing with other player, that human element is fun to work against. i usually choose a central role where i can help the other players shine, something where there is a lot of coordinating and mobilizing the group or team in execution of a task.

i love psychological games you can play in games.


im also good about creating harmony in a group, to get the job done
 

sprinkles

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i love multiplayer games. its more of a challenge dealing with other player, that human element is fun to work against. i usually choose a central role where i can help the other players shine, something where there is a lot of coordinating and mobilizing the group or team in execution of a task.

i love psychological games you can play in games.


im also good about creating harmony in a group, to get the job done

That's why I like to play medic or pyro in TF2. A good medic can make a good team into a juggernaut. Even though the medic means that one person doesn't fight as effectively, it can make other people on the team many times more effective which makes up for that.

The pyro on the other hand is counter to that. As a pyro my main goal is to mess up the medics ubercharge most of the time. You can't kill the invulnerable opponent but they are still effected by the air blasts and you can knock them out of range of the charge and then harass the medic and cause confusion.
 
G

garbage

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When given the option, multiplayer. I tend to like the fact that I'm doing something with friends, but I also like some games for their own sake.

I also don't tend to like playing against a bunch of strangers in multiplayer games; it's more enjoyable with friends. Perhaps because there's less focus on the game itself and more on the experience?

I like co-op games, or at least competitive multiplayer games with a handicapping feature. It's boring to win all the time and frustrating to lose all the time, and I often play games that not everyone is familiar with--or that, sometimes, I'm not familiar with.

--

One frustrating experience was with Tribes: Ascend. Good game that I was playing with a bunch of friends and with strangers, but once I played a few games I got enough "experience points" (or whatever) that I was locked out of the 'newbie' servers and had to play with the bigwigs--well before I was 'ready.' I liked the more casual experience, so it wasn't fun at all after that.
 

Poindexter Arachnid

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For immersive gaming, I prefer single player. For simple kick-your-feet-back-and-have-some-empty-fun, I go online.

It truly depends on the game. For instance: I recently bought the God of War saga for the PS3 and I remember how entertaining a well-developed single player campaign can be. They don't make "single player" games like God of War III anymore--now the focus is online competitive play (which is a shame, in a way).

Which brings me to my next point: The majority of modern games invest in online multiplayer and neglect the single player element. It is there, but they shamelessly push the MULTIPLAYER!!! Microsoft is especially guilty of this. Online can be fun but it is limited. I also don't like pitting myself against a bunch of xenophobic, sexist, racist children who talk smack into their little microphones. A community element is something that has been lacking in video games since the death of the arcade, but now that we have it this is what it has been reduced to. Or "MLG" players who take getting the high score as serious as a heartattack. Kick these people in the face.

I also don't like to have to download giant gigs of updates and patches and "DLC" map packs that take hours (even days) to download. Sometimes it will even corrupt the data of the console. I'm currently having this problem with Battlefield 3--I recently purchased that one to play online exclusively (the campaign is crap) and have spent the past five days downloading all of the above. And come to find out that I can't even play it online as the recent 2 gb patch times out and creates errors with my PS3 data.

Lame-sauce.
 

1487610420

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I never could get good at RTS games.

I'm fine when I only have myself to manage as in an FPS, there's people I can't win against but I'll at least get frags which can be annoying in Quake Live because it throws me into the top tier where the pros are which makes me like a little fish and then I get kicked back down and kill everybody and get thrown back up to top tier in like three matches. But in an RTS I'm like 'NOOOOO you're killin my dudes! Go away!" :<

Try C&C series to leverage the gap [tho 4th is more akin to FPs, with less base micro].
 

1487610420

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I never could get good at RTS games.

I'm fine when I only have myself to manage as in an FPS, there's people I can't win against but I'll at least get frags which can be annoying in Quake Live because it throws me into the top tier where the pros are which makes me like a little fish and then I get kicked back down and kill everybody and get thrown back up to top tier in like three matches. But in an RTS I'm like 'NOOOOO you're killin my dudes! Go away!" :<

Try C&C series to leverage the gap [tho 4th is more akin to FPs, with less base micro].
 

sprinkles

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Try C&C series to leverage the gap [tho 4th is more akin to FPs, with less base micro].

Yeah, Red Alert was one of the few ones I was half decent at. I had a pretty good tech rush to tanks and would even pull off a rifle rush against slower players just to be sarcastic.

Teching in that game isn't as hard though because most stuff isn't used so you don't have to build most of it, it's just getting to tanks first and spamming with maybe some harvester destruction on the side to keep them behind on econ.
 

1487610420

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Yeah, Red Alert was one of the few ones I was half decent at. I had a pretty good tech rush to tanks and would even pull off a rifle rush against slower players just to be sarcastic.

Teching in that game isn't as hard though because most stuff isn't used so you don't have to build most of it, it's just getting to tanks first and spamming with maybe some harvester destruction on the side to keep them behind on econ.

Pwn4g3
 
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