[For her Monthly Musing, Elsa discusses the enjoyable difficulties that you can only get in an online multiplayer environment. Promotions are continuing throughout the month, so go ahead and write up a blog on our topic while you still have time. -- JRo]
I'm a huge fan of online FPS games. One of the reasons I love online gaming is that there is always a challenge. There is always someone out there who's better than me... always someone who will kill me, win the game, or provide a challenge. There's always "that guy". You know the one. The one that you start a dancing duel with - and in the end you're lying there on the ground grasping your trusty shotgun, with them doing that teabag thing over your dead head with their non-existent genitals, but imbuing that sense of utter defeat and humiliation.
Difficulty in a game is rarely determined by the game, but instead by the players. For me, this is a truer sense of difficulty. It's not a false difficulty of simply giving me more A.I. enemies with more hit points, or giving me ineffective weapons or time constraints or other programmed challenges. Instead it's the difficulty of facing an opponent who is equal. It's another person, sitting in their living room or bed room ... clenching a controller in their sweaty hands.
It's not even the one on one challenge ... there is also the difficulty challenge of teamwork. In many of today's FPS games you can be an awesome killer of potential teabaggers, but still lose the game if you don't work with your team and have a coordinated strategy. The current points systems in games are also changing to accommodate this teamwork. Racking up massive numbers of kills may not enable you to place first in your squad anymore. Its the players doing the repair work, or taking objectives, or healing their teammates that often place first. If you are competitive and want that MVP status in the game you have to use strategy. You have to have several loadouts, you have to gauge the game, your current teammates, and your current opposition. The difficulty level in online gaming is always fluid and requires constant adaptation. It rarely becomes repetitive or boring.
I still enjoy single player games, though generally I enjoy them in a different way. These are my "relax" games. I tend to choose the easiest mode and like to run through them feeling as badass as possible. These are the games where I get my ego stroked - be it the single player campaign of a shooter game or a lengthy RPG where I generally play as a tank class and get to slice and dice my way through hordes of critters with my awesomely huge +4 damage sword. These single player, offline adventures are where I go to regain my sense of zen, my feeling that I am in charge, that I CAN save the world.
Multiplayer is where I go to be challenged, to encounter a difficulty setting that makes me invent new swear words. While multiplayer is also filled with very true technical issues like lag, cheaters, hackers, disconnect issues, server issues and game balance problems - it's also a place where I can encounter imaginative challenges of the kind that could never be imagined by mere A.I. or even by the developers. Last night while playing MAG, our squad spawned with a vehicle on the right side of the map. We're supposed to take out a barricade and a gate in order to get our vehicle over to the left side of the map to help out the rest of our platoon... but this is a mere "technical difficulty". There's a hill with rocks and trees, but with determination it's possible to bump the vehicle up over the hill, through the trees... and over on to the left side of the map. It's not a huge strategic advantage... but it's unexpected... and stupid... and fun. By the end of the game, we finally managed to get our stupid vehicle over the hill and where we wanted it. If we'd continued driving, we could have had a submersible APC like the one pictured here:
A.I. follow the rules. People don't. People are capable of overcoming the game's technical limitations to create inventive solutions. In Warhawk people used to balance on a plane's wing and have the plane gently lift them to high sniping spots that were never meant to be used. By working together they overcame some of the game's limitations to enable play in a new way. People were inventive enough to put land mines on their jeeps... then kamikazi their jeep into a group of enemy players, usually blowing up several of them, often at a time when they were taking an objective. In MAG, it's not unusual to see humvees with their mini-turrets in unusual places... including the ingenious solution shown below which allows the gunner a higher vantage point to mow down enemies.
Playing against real people, those crazy, imaginative, competitive idiots - this is the type of difficulty challenge I love. It's a generally a fair fight as I have every opportunity to do exactly what my opponent does. I can use the same weapon and the same armour, the same strategies - though people will continually come up with things that make me stop and stare and say "I wish I'd thought of that!" ... usually while I'm being teabagged.
Contest:
7:00 PM on 03.11.2011 | 
I don't disagree with your blog's thoughts, just the label. Difficulty, to me, is something that adapts to you and or that you can overcome with tactics/skill/etc. Online gaming always has someone better or some cheap tactic, so you don't really get the chance to surmount it.
For instance, COD is a fucking joke for me. Every now and then I'll lose, but I almosy always have 14 more kills than deaths and a huge score for capturing points. Maybe I've just gotten good, but I don't see it as a true difficulty.
I do like the spontaneity of it, though.
It's not always fun to go out and dominate every round either. You can't get better if you don't get challenged. When I started playing Black Ops multiplayer, i was regularly around 3 kills, 10+ deaths, but now it's the opposite.
To me, a lot of single player difficulty lies in perfection. I like SHUMPs, platformers, thrid person action games like the DMC series, and those games can be hair pullingly tough! A lot of those games persent the player with situations that seem impossible on the first attempt, become survivable with enough tries, and soon with enough practice and experimentation become triffling. Its all about refinement and techique.
Multi-player, its all about wrangling and adapting. People are so unpredictable, the games move so fast. You have to go in with a gameplan ("ok, I'm going to sneak behind that shed, climb up the fire escape, kill their sniper and take his place") and be ready to abandon it the very next second ("Shit! A tank just knocked over the shed! Did he see me!? Can I put C4 on him?! Can that sniper see me now?")
There will always be particularly effective strategies and better and worse classes, characters, weapons in multi-player games, but in a good one, there is never a "perfect" way to do it. Sometimes you and your team will be the king-shit steam rolling over the opposition, sometimes you will get schooled over and over again by some cyborg welded to his controller. You never know!
Fun blog!
Anyways great blog!!
@Andy... if you like Battlefield, maybe you'll consider Homefront (on the PS3!). It seems that there are lots of opportunity for support positions and as I noted, nowadays the support person often racks up more XP than someone who simply camps for kills (depending on the game of course).
@Caiters... Team Fortress seems such an AWESOME game... I wish the PS3 version had been better implemented and supported. :(
@Wrenchfarm... awesome comment!!! Yeah, you can try and try and be quite skilled, but there will always be something in multiplayer to throw a wrench in the works... like that cyborg you mentioned. :)
@Grimstar... LMAO!! people do seem to have fun with mines don't they!
@KingSigy... difficulty that adapts to the player is just one form of difficulty - I like the challenge in multiplayer of how people do things that the devs and other players just don't expect them to do. They take the games technical mechanics and use their imagination to come up with ideas that are just so much fun. They're not always strategically sound, but sometimes surprise alone is enough to gain an advantage. People are just so capable of doing things in multiplayer that require constant adaptation. If you're really good at a game then I guess it could become somewhat boring and predictable, but in the team based games I tend to play, the ingenuity of people constantly creates a difficulty challenge. (because there is nothing worse in MAG than approaching an apparently undefended bunker only to have an entire squad swarm out of the bunker on you! - but this requires a coordination not often found in games like COD) I guess this type of surprise tactic isn't as common in games like COD though where team based strategies aren't as common.
You make a nice point about stable competition, though I’ve never thought of it as “difficulty” – which is odd considering the realm of online play is difficult.
A nice read, thank you.
often times with games like COD the difficulty is in not getting 2nd (always being 1st), whereas a game like Killzone is just helping the team win - which right now i find a lot more satisfying. and why i play that game so much more. team-based play just offers more, its got a place for every type of player.
also, love that pic of the jeep on a jeep. bad ass.
FPSs just require a different mentality, you need to be ok with going in and sucking big donkey nuts, and try to learn from all your mistakes and resulting deaths. patience is key and practice is crucial. knowing the maps, learning common playing techniques, understanding which weapon is best for which situation, and lots of little details that differ game to game is necessary for not getting totally frustrated and rage quitting - though it still happens :)
and most are real quick, as elsa mentioned, you need to be able to think on your feet and change tactics at the drop of a hat (or sight of a tank).
but they can be a lot of fun once you get decent. shooting peeps in the face is quite cathartic for me.
I stopped there, disgusting console elitism...
On a serious note, I sort've agree with KingSigy but for different reasons. While no doubt there is (adaptive) "difficulty" to online games, we still refer to multiplayer's difficulty primarily by the learning curve of the game mechanics. If a game presented you with a challenge that was impossible you'd say that the game was poorly designed, yet multiplayer throws these sorts of situations at you often (at least in team-dependent games). You're not gonna be winning a round of TF2 against 12 organised skilled opponents if the rest of your team decides to spycrab.
Good read though.
I'll give you that COD is not very team based, but I still don't see it as difficulty. To each his/her own, though.
Nice blog regardless. I do agree with almost all of your thoughts.
You might consider some of the newer team based games - like Homefront, MAG, Warhawk - games that have team based chat, vehicles and where killing isn't everything. These games are just more fun to play while the "learning to aim at the head" thing gradually gets learned! :)
... and definitely jump in some of the Dtoid games, join a Dtoid clan. We all play for just the fun of playing and you'll often pick up some great tips and make some good friends!
@dr_spaceman_... yeah, prox chat often does make it more fun when you get in those duels! Killzone is another fun team based game, though I personally didn't like the enhanced perk system in KZ3.
... and that jeep, yeah, some of the places they get jeeps is pretty funny!
H Tuttle... you should play some of the FNF games. Then again, you'll still hear screamers, bigots, and team killers... but at least you're usually busy laughing your ass off when one of the Dtoid crew breaks out into song on mic! :)
@Williampansky... "difficulty" always comes to my mind when I play online. Certain maps, certain clans, certain players on the other team... all can immediately make me sweat like I'm about to enter a major boss battle with only one health potion! There's also no "do overs" in online multiplayer... :(
@Vali and KingSigy... I get what you're saying about difficulty being the mechanics and learning curve, but I tend to usually try a different "take" on the Monthly Musings so that I don't end up working on a blog only to see someone else publish something similar first. I also write just for the fun of it, so I tend to stick with what I know and my own perception of the matter rather than worry too much about semantics, presentation, terminology and all that writer stuff! :)
(and I had to work in our Dtoid squad's ability to bump our vehicle into an area we're not supposed to be in somehow... cause that was fun!)
Your "different take" is definitely a valid viewpoint and I think it only feels wrong insofar as it should feel right...if that makes any sense. I think maybe it's got something to do with how hard it is to quantify an experience with so many unknowns. I mean there's an aspect of non-hitscan combat at least where difficulty in a particular shot (or whatever) isn't really defined because whether he runs into where you predicted is determined by "luck". The same goes for accounting for error from the other player etc. in determining your survival rate, you have no way of actually evaluating how likely it is that the other person will miss.
I wasn't trying to argue from semantics that your viewpoint was wrong or anything, just contrasting it with how difficulty is commonly perceived. I think it's great that you decided to tackle multiplayer difficulty, something that hardly ever gets brought up on the topic (which I guess is a testament to the sentence before this one).
Also, difficulty in FPS games for me has ranged from the maps, to the weapons to my connection to tactics. I kinda suck at tactics but by God do I try.
(and Rexwolf... EVERYBODY is good enough to play online. It's all about having fun with friends... that's one of the things that makes Dtoid so awesome - you always have friends to play with!)
after i score or die and respawn, i will find the closest warhawk, get in it, take off, less than 5 seconds later, its dumped at the enemy base, usually right on top of the flag. i get out and i got it, now the hard part, to find a jeep and call in air support.
alot of times i usually get blown up by mines on the flag pole, but thats okay, they won't be there when i come back, and i'll be back in 5 seconds.
in that one mode in that one game, i am the one player thats above the rest. i may not score every time i touch the flag, but i will get to and touch the flag more than any other player. its not uncommon for me to score 150+ points per round of ctf.
i am that beast during ctf in warhawk and i so do miss it.
great blog lady. another hit outta the park.
Exactly why your blogs are so engaging. I tried that as well, but I'm not as skilled a writer or muser.
The image and the subject as a whole reminded me of one time my friends and me, during my halo 2 playing days when the hax and the mods where super common, ran into a team that had a modder with super speed, aimbot and rapid fire. It was a 4vs4 TD but as the match went by it turned to us 4 vs the 1 modder (leaving the game ASAP was to dissociate yourself from the guy cheating on your team).
So there we where, 4 of us against a guy you could barely see and that could kill the 4 us in a couple secs. Yet this was the at the peak of our team's halo 2 gaming, if there was one time everything work as we wanted it was on this match, we moved as a squad, we knew where each of us were, we talked and said when we were in danger and about to die so someone would throw a nade and kill the guy right after he killed one of us. It was the most tense, dramatic and hard match i remember playing, we barely won 10-9, but to this date that remains my test of "being really good" at a game, if you can beat the hax, the completely unfair difficulty, then you've mastered that game. This is pretty much the only reason why i sometimes like to stay when i get into a hacked game, with modded people, or something on newer FPS games, just to see if I can beat them.
Anyway, some of the stuff that people got away with in Bad Company astounded me. I was pretty late to the game, so I'd see people bombard the hell out of buildings and root out snipers before they had a chance to set-up and it was glorious to watch. It actually encouraged me to try out some crazy shit myself, like stalking tanks as a Spec Ops guy with some C4. I moved like The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
The thing is, there's obviously a negativity to those kind of antics. For every ballsy move, it becomes more about the individual and while online isn't really the place to keep in line, I sort of miss "real" co-op like that. That's why I really got into Left 4 Dead. You can pull of some crazy heroics like saving people and stay together as a team.
Hell, my most memorable moment in that game was the Blood Harvest campaign on Expert. We finally made it to the end, holed up in a barn. We lost one guy in a horde attack and I was about to die anyway, so I jumped out of the barn, guns blazing to distract the final Tank zombie and let the last two guys escape on the APC.
Dying never felt so good. You'd never get that kind of selflessness from an AI.
... except for the exploits and hacks. :\