We’ve posted a lot in the past about online multiplayer. Everything from awesome moments of pwnage to griefers to foul-mouth bigots and the racists who love them. But as I was playing Call of Duty: Black Ops on Sunday with my brother, something new occurred to me to ask the wise veterans of the GamerSushi community (that’s you guys and gals).
Team Deathmatch can only take you so far. Sometimes, the urge to work together, to be a part of something greater than yourself rises from somewhere deep inside you and you find yourself playing objective games…with strangers…online. You can probably see where this is going already, but I saw some of the dumbest things of all time on Sunday.
During a game of Domination, people running past enemy flags, instead of stopping and capturing them. Not an enemy in sight and they can’t be bothered because apparently they still think they are playing team deathmatch. Then, during Search and Destroy, you get people who defuse or plant the bomb while standing up, in plain sight. No crouching or going prone, or hiding behind the box to maybe buy yourself a few more seconds of precious time. Just morons.
And the icing on the cake for me was when you die and you can watch your teammates play while you wait for the round to end. You get people camping and sitting still when time is running out, practically forfeiting the round. Also, I guess some people had ADHD, because if there is even one moment where they can’t shoot someone, they switch weapons, just to have something to do. Switch back and forth and back and forth and oh look, an enemy just shot you in the face while you were playing with yourself.
Whew. Sorry. I had to get all that out. So those are my complaints. What are some of your biggest annoyances from teammates while playing online? This is a safe zone: no one will hurt you here. GO!
My biggest annoyance is with search and destroy, when people continually pick up and then drop the bomb. Just defuse it for christs sake. And every few rounds, they trip up and wait to long and it blows them up, costing us the round. When that happens i explode with hatred.
Worse than the noobs are the people who start cursing over team-speak. It only causes stress for everyone else on the team.
Noobs are always a pain, but I’ve stopped taking games so seriously. Sometimes, it’s just a kid who’s borrowing this game from an older family member. I’m not gonna start chewing out people I don’t even know because they did badly. Instead, I usually send them a private message: “Don’t worry, we all have our off games.”
It’s far better than sending hate-filled threats over a game that we’re probably going to stop playing in a few years. Do we really want to spend that time angry at strangers over petty things?
I know this is supposed to be a place where we blow off steam. So for me: I really can’t stand the bigots, racists, and haters who get all hot and bothered over 1 match on multiplayer that didn’t go their way. I could care less if we win a match, so long as I did my best and had a good time trying.
@ Glebe, I deleted a friend for doing that lol. Dumbest thing ever, “act like a professional you’re a level 45 for God’s sake!” I said before hitting delete.
As someone who plays nothing but domination, this problem occurs all too often. I’ve half carried teams before (there’s usually ONE other teammate who’s playing domination and not TDM).
Battlefield Bad Company has teamwork in spades (I’ve chronicled me and my friend’s escapades manys a time so I’ll leave it at that). The whole BF3 taking over CoD worries me to some degree: What if Rush or Conquest have too great an influx of these idiots? I don’t think I’ll be able to take fighting whole teams of No-Scopers (another hate of mine) or… actually a whole team of No-Scopers would be great: We’d destroy them! Bring on the noobs!
I have some comments on BO. So the main group I’ve gamed with for years, Eddy would know who, only play Domination. I dont like normal so I play hardcore. In domination, they put the win as #2. We win usually, we went on a 64 game winning streak, but they play for kills. So Im not surprised to see that. It was like Halo CE for PC, people treated CTF like slayer unlimited. Next, the weapon switching thing. I think thats reminiscent of what I saw in CSS. People would always be switching weapons. I think its a habit. But agreeing with you here, in a game like BO, its a bad one. It always ends in death.
The thing I hate are teammates who just dont seem to get the game. Im talking about the guys who do the aforementioned and camp in a corner, not concerned about the team, the win, or anything but their box of view. Winning as a team is important. Your claymore camping spot is not really doing you good. I really dislike playing FFA and having people all camp. Come on guys, move. Usually moving makes it easier to win.Next I really dont like people who just dont get how to play or adapt. Seeing someone go 2-17 doesn’t always mean they are having a bad game. Even if you are, you should at least be more even. Some people just seem like there is a 5 year old with no reaction time behind the controller. Thats defiantly a type of teammate I do not like to have on my team. I want team player as well. If you suck, but you are trying. Hey, props to you. I want guys who know what they are doing and at least try.
I think one last thing to mention was one DarkLight523 mentioned. People who are foul mouthed. Peopel who are just plain jackasses while playing are horribel teammates. Also in this category can go people who listen to their music loudly and dont mute the mic and those who you can hear screaming at their kids. Be nice when you play and if you shouldn’t be playing, go pay attention to your kid.
People who always try to quick-scope/no-scope/trickshot are a big pet peeve of mine. Another one is teammates who will say in the chat that “You suck” and stuff like that, 1. it’s a game, get over it, 2. everyone makes mistakes or slips up every now and then. That thing people do when defusing the bomb is unbelievably frustrating for me. My largest problem is loudmouth little kids who do nothing but try to pass off as tough guys because “they’re cool”.
That’s why I only ever play team objective games with my friends now. Otherwise, I play team death match. If I do feel like playing with people as a team, and none of my friends are busy, I’ll just play some Battlefield (I have never been enraged at a teammate in these games).
Most people online really get on my nerves.
I love how all the things you described happen EVERY SINGLE GAME.
I think the moment that solidified this whole thing was when I was playing MW2 (CURSE YOOOOUUUU!) a few years back. I was playing Domination, and I let slip one my naivete: “Uh, you guys know we’re playing Domination, right? Why is nobody capping?”
Then some guy around my age says “Dumbass, nobody plays for the flags.”
Meanwhile the enemy team had us spawn camped. Ya know, like every game I play.
I understand that CoD is a TDM game and that no amount of bombs or objective points will assuage the insatiable communal bloodlust, but it’s infecting innovation in other games. The general community of FPS gamers, at least on consoles, must kill and must only kill alone, never working together to capture an objective. Not even team up to hunt enemies. I guess they all get impatient. This is why I drink…I mean play L4D still. L4D is one of the few games where folks stay together…in Campaign…usually. I don’t play Versus anymore unless I have an urge to vomit on people (I’m actually beast at being an efficient Boomer, although my Hunter and Smoker skills have atrophied). I hope that a new niche for more mature shooter players opens up so that us old men can enjoy enthralling adventures of cooperative accomplishment in actually well-designed combat spaces, while those rascally whippersnappers shout their racist and vulgar mantras.
I suppose Xbox Live has a policy where players with the gamertag “L337 Commando” are stuck with crappy teammates whenever they try to play an objective game. TDM teams are fine, but objective; noooo. I kid about the conspiracy, but not about the suckiness. That’s mostly in CoD, but in Halo Reach I’m matched up against folks way outta my league in skill and rank if I play too many games of Arena or any Objective-based games. It’s like Bungie is forcing me to only play for a certain number of games per day.
I think that in order for the general despondence about shooters being nothing but recycled blood-bathed corridor-crawlers (copyright, please) to dissipate, we’ll need a popular game that incentivizes (is that a word?) teamwork and intelligence under fire. I suppose Left 4 Dead was on the right track, but it didn’t have enough content or malleability. In other words, there were too few campaigns at launch, there was not enough variance in combat, and only the basics were covered in terms of weapons and equipment and traps. I believe that a Left 4 Dead-esque game — which strictly emphasizes teamwork, has variance in terms of combat situations and game-modes, plenty of equipment to allow players to have a choice in their combat style or strategy for a campaign or mission, and some ways to reward players for being intelligent or having contingencies when fighting hordes — could really be popular and give players an option other than generic shooters. There’s still potential in the shooter formula; all it needs is some care in the design, the right moment to stand out amongst the rehashed garbage, an effective marketing campaign that highlights the essentials of the game instead of setpieces or cutscenes, enough content at and after launch to keep the community playing and hopefully even creating their own content, and a subtle yet malleable yet intriguing story to give the game and its universe life and let custom content or new stories fit easily into the universe.
I believe that there will always be annoying teammates, but there can be ways, either by targeting the cooperative niche of gamers or through the option for stricter and more accurate matchmaking and/or player profiling, to satisfy the players who want to have a fun and fulfilling experience online.
I have been playing video games online for over 7 years. My friends list is pretty short (around 8 people), until I discovered a website that lets you find people with similar playstyles to yourself. This has really made my playtime online much more enjoyable.
Take a look at the site yourselves, it has helped my alot.
http://www.gamermatchup.com