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Comment by archagon | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. In my opinion, casual CS/TF2 is the “real” game and competitive is its weird mutant offshoot. But I guess the majority of gamers today prefer hardcore competition and ranking over just dicking around and having fun.

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Competitiveness and skill-based matchmaking is what killed multiplayer gaming for me. It used to be you were good at a game or bad at a game, and you could always tell yourself you lost matches because too many really good players happened to be on the other team. Now there are only two options: you play better than you did yesterday and you win, or you play worse than you did yesterday and you lose. I despise that constant pressure. I want days when I get rofl-stomped by a team of demi-gods, and, dammit, I want to occasionally be the one doing the stomping. That just doesn't exist anymore. You're playing with a bunch of people who are about as good as you and if you don't try your hardest you're going to lose every time.

Seems like you want exactly the opposite of what everybody else wants. The biggest reason why people get frustrated with games is when challange is eithet too big too small.

I like the element of randomness. I hate knowing that every time I lose it isn't because they were better than me, it's because I didn't try hard enough. I play games to have fun, not to push myself to the limit every time. What precipitated my mostly giving up multiplayer was when I noticed I was forming my habits around winning and it was working. If my room lighting was good, if I drank coffee before a match, if I played during the right hours of the day, I won. When I started avoiding using the bathroom because having to pee made me more alert, I knew it wasn't worth it anymore. I like games, not sports.

Well if you chill a bit in the system your rank will naturally go down and you will get worse opponents. Many people do that.

Its much better system than one out of 5 games being balanced. Not sure where the problem is… maybe you dont like about yourself that you are actually competitive? I mean i played esports on pretty high level and i am pretty sure not going to a bathroom to keep you alert is not a thing. Sounds like pretty serious urge to win.

Good thing is i think one can learn to be less competitive, enjoy it more and it makes people even better. You can work with this and not make it all out competition.

During TF2’s massive popularity in its first decade, “everyone” wanted fun, casual shooting. The audience for social shooters is vast, but for some reason competitive play gets all the focus today.

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