The Joy of Losing - Learning to Have Fun Playing Games - Extra Credits
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2018
- The design of multiplayer games means that, in most cases, half the playerbase is losing games at any given time. However, that shouldn't mean that half the playerbase is miserable or is unable to have fun. You can still have fun learning how to be a better team leader and practicing mechanical skills--which is important for combatting toxicity in multiplayer games.
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It's easy for even the best of us to get frustrated while losing games, but that doesn't mean we can't still have fun--in fact, arguably we play games TO enjoy ourselves!
What's a fun gaming experience you had recently, even if you lost or struggled for a while?
My friend convinced me to play BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle for Switch. I used to be exactly like this, and the *somewhat* poor balance on the DLC characters ended up tilting me, especially since my multiplayer career started at a losing streak of 25 games. But then I played the campaign mode and realized I loved this game, it’s characters. And I decided to play for the sake of the game, for the sake of the fight, not to win. And it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in a game, and it’s helping me apply that same mentality to others like Overwatch
I Disagree; I Hate Losing; I always have and I always will; I never find any fun when I am Losing!
3:50 Despite not being a competitive game like you're discussing, Absolver is great for this. There were many times where someone would approach and trounce me, just to then show me around it's world and help me level up.
Can't give this video enough thumbs up.
For Honor. I know a lot of people get salty at that game, but I've frequently had the experience of getting into a series of 1v1s against the same opponent where both of us respected each other's skill and had a blast testing each other's ability. I think the ability to easily have a rematch is extremely helpful, because it lets you feel like you're improving and gives you continuity for your efforts. I wonder if the lack of the ability to rematch is perhaps a major problem with many team games, because when you lose you know you're highly unlikely to be able to test yourself against that same opponent again. It makes losing a negative measurement with no context or continuity; just a "you lose" without any opportunity for progress.
Losing is particularly harsh for people with self-esteem issues like myself. Winning provides a small sense of pride and accomplishment, but losing can feed into an already unhealthy opinion one might have about themselves. I'm still struggling to not let the pain of losing outweigh the fun of winning or even playing the game to begin with.
hello, i just lost a game and searched up "game to let rage out" instead i found a new perspective on games entirely. this is life changing and my team has been going great! thanks for the video!!!!!1!
Winning what exactly?
The definition of winning seems to have changed over the years.
My definition of winning is getting better at something and then having continued success because i learned it the hard way. - Failure is my greatest teacher.
Kids definition of winning nowadays: Instant gratification without too much effort.
The main problem with this is, video game companies are picking up on this trend and water down the difficulty of their games on purpose in order to get more audience paying.
But people still keep asking why video games aren't as fun anymore and then blame themself for "growing up".
@@Chokoboh no it isnt
Yeah man, I’m sick of getting called “ loser” or getting emoted on, really just makes me want to go take a walk
I struggle with this too. Toxic communities pointing out your every error and saying you suck all the time or downplaying your achievements also makes it much worse and makes me afraid to fail.
This is one of the big successes of Battle Royales. If you're alive, you're winning, and if you lose, you can start back up right away. No time stuck fighting an uphill battle or waiting for the game's time to run out so you can finally take the L.
Your channel is sick nasty, TierZoo. Keep on killing it
TierZoo oh hai tier zoo didnt expect to c u here LOVE YOU VIDS btw
Only thing that sucks in this scenario is, at least in fortnite, if you leave right away, but the rest of your squad is still in, any progress you've made on any of the extra challenges doesn't save. You have to stay until your squad finishes. Or it was like that. I haven't played in a while, so that may have changed.
Wow, I probably shouldn't be surprised you watch extracred, but also it's awesome to see you here!
This is exactly the same reason why League and Dota were terrible examples at 2:20
i don"t mind losing one or two games, everyone does, my problem is that even when i change what i'm doing and try to improve i still constantly lose every single consecutive game. Winning eventually just doesn't seem possible anymore, and so my overall enjoyment fades. it just makes me feel like a failure, and it makes me miserable.
Yes, pick your games carefully, some are like this, but some let you do what you want and don't punish too harshly.
I feel the same, especially in multiplayers games, is useless to be the only playing well
ensure to always use 1% risk :D
I understand, i’m always trying to calm myself down. I hate how I always get mad over a game. But I can’t feel disappointed in myself for spending such a long time practicing, only to be destroyed in a match
Taking breaks can help a lot. I often get flustered at video games , but realizing when you are not enjoying the game or feeling negative things toward yourself and taking a break (at least a couple days) can help a lot. This can be hard to do, for sure, but it is very worth doing. Sometimes preventing yourself from even being able to play the game is needed. I hope this helps at least somewhat
Modern board games are generally great at being fun even when you lose. Tabletop game designers realized early that when you're sitting around a table with people, everyone needs to be having fun or no one will.
tell that control players in magic the gathering
"i enjoy other people not playing"
(this isn't meant serious)
I was told by a game designer that those, (like Carcassonne) are called "European games" to differentiate them from the masochistic hell of games like Monopoly.
@@recklessroges Monopoly is particularly bad at that. One principle of modern game design is that the game should end as soon as a winner is determined. In Monopoly, you reach a point where one person is clearly going to win, and then you roll those dice for another 40 minutes as everyone else slowly goes bankrupt.
Well Monopoly was meant to be more educational than fun. Teaching the problems with unrestrained capitalism.
Add to that the fact many people play by house rules which were meant to make the game more fun but end up just letting the losers limp along a few more rounds with the hope of turning the game around.
One of the other fine examples of bad design was Risk, but then they came out with Risk 2210 and it fixed everything! the Finest example, I think, is Powergrid. Anyone can theoretically win that game even until the final turns.
I have won and lost in games like Dark Souls and Overwatch and I have to say, 'losing' in Dark Souls does not feel as bad as losing in Overwatch.
Santiago Agnes One of the few times Dark Souls has ever really made me mad was repeatedly dieing to the boss at the end of the first dlc in Dark Souls 3. I don't want to give any details due to potential spoilers, but damn that fight. I lost count of how many times I died.
When you lose in Overwatch it feels like because of "that stupid team!".
When you lose in Dark Souls it feels like it was because you are not good enough.
My issue with losing is when a game (typically a competitive game) will withhold any and all rewards UNLESS you win. There's more and more of these games that losing doesn't reliably offer learning experiences and punishes you for losing. So theoretically you're completely wasting your time half the time.
A lot of the time when I feel frustrated when loosing is at least in part because individual objectives and team objectives are at odds. This leads to frustration when I'm getting clobbered because it's just me and 1-2 others actually doing what needs done for the team to win, while the rest of the "team" is getting too much reinforcement from the game for their lack of teamwork and no way are they going to listen to someone 5+ spaces below them on their team rankings for the game.
If the mechanics themselves are at odds creating conflict within your team, that's a boxed recipe for a bad time, just add loosing. When you can have the person with the worst teamwork get the best rewards and a #1 spot on the team, you have a toxic environment for your players.
So you feel you only had fun if you get rewards? Like shouldn't the game be fun just by itself, if you feel like you wasted your time while playing. Maybe you shouldnt be playing that game
gamesdisk A lot of games tie progression to winning, and the losers get totally boned, which leads to a loss feeling like "wasted time". Exceptions like Dwarf Fortress or Aurora 4X or Rimworld make losing fun by having non-existent or very fuzzy win conditions, where the gameplay itself is pretty much the whole reason to play, not the shiny rewards and rank typical of many online multiplayer games. Even if you get totally stomped by something today, you might learn something that helps you do better tomorrow. That kind of delayed gratification reward is a lot less immediate and appealing to the dudebro gamers who spend a lot of the actual money on games these days though. The CoD / FIFA / GTA style games might be garbage fires from the PoV of interesting game design and the like, but they make literally billions of £/$/whatever, and so long as they do, and "good" games don't, guess which style most games companies will want to make?
Rewards are an incentive to keep playing. Even if it's just a skin or a box of random junk, you're still getting little extras as you play, on top of being able to play a fun game. Without change, any game can quickly become stale. Rewards are a way of having small amounts of change - both on yourself and the foes you face - to keep things fresh and interesting.
Imagine Smash Bros without trophies to earn, characters to unlock and CDs to find. I feel like only the truly dedicated or truly competitive would stick with the game, while a lot of people would get tired without incentive to continue.
Unlocking things is fun.
Games that are only designed for winners and punish losers are trash to me. Especially some games that make it harder and harder for you the more you die. (Like giving you less maximum HP after each loss or weakening you in any way) That can certainly kill someone's spirit to continue playing. Only people with certain mindsets can enjoy these games and harsh challenges, but I prefer only above average challenges, not too hard, because life is challenging enough so I want some fun in games.
"When you're not having fun it's time to stop". I agree 100%.
like halo enough said
Should I die?
I'm just pushing myself harder when I'm 100% not having fun and 100% sleepy to reach my daily goals but I hate my strategy lol
@@trenttetley2198 no but i should
@@trenttetley2198 no
This video is a pretty much the reason I quit playing MOBAs.
Things like League heavily reward winning. Things like World of Tanks go so far as to punish you for losing (repair bills and depressed earnings on defeat).
Defeat shouldn't feel like you've just wasted your time, or lost progress.
Yeah, despite getting better and better at League and often basically reading my opponents minds it also lead to a ton of frustration also. When my old laptop couldn't handle the game any longer (at least I was in a huge disadvantage with going under 10 fps in bigger fights) I rediscovered the joy of single player games that were just as much, if not more rewarding to play without the toll on my mental health.
"Defeat shouldn't feel like you've just wasted your time, or lost progress" I think this is the biggest point. It definitely helps when a game still lets you progress and gain something from a lost battle/match.
You are very correct.
TheIrtar sometimes penalties are good. Depends on game
TheIrtar if u quit moba cuz of this,don’t try dark souls
Personally, it's frustration induced by repeated hindrance to accomplish anything (like dying repeatedly right after spawn) that infuriates me.
Winning or losing is not really an issue.
I agree, I pretty well refuse to play games with rapid respawn for this reason. I prefer a good rounds-based game where if I die early on I can have a longer cool-down period and can watch the game play out through my team mates to let my mind relax
@@RichardHardslab Could be seen the other way around.
I hate not having a quick way to get back into the action since if I fail once I'll be stuck in that loss state instead of going back at it in an attempt to maybe do better.
Feels like my improvement is hindered by that.
If I had to wait a whole game every time I'd fail, I'd go crazy. I want to get back in quickly to where i lost and try another tactic. I'd die repeatedly to the same sniping camper just because I consider it a challenge to take him out. This of course quickly fall apart if the game doesn't give me enough tactics. Or never let me retry before everything resets.
While i agree, i think this is sligtly different matter: a design oversight. And well... they are all annoying and infuriating, whether it's multiplayer respawn-kill or single player 5 minute loading time \ rare checkpoints \ dungeon retraversial etc.
Or in M:tG terms getting bodied by control and counterspells from the start of the game. Something that led me to quit TCGs.
Not saying I didn't like this video, because I definitely did, but it's odd to see a video on this channel that's six minutes of "Git gud (at losing) scrub" without a single mention of how game designers can make that easier.
How can a game designer make losing fun instead of just relying on the players to find their own fun in defeat?
yis, the vid is only beginning to get into this issue
yeah, EC has felt like it's been floundering around big ideas, without really getting into what people can do better
They actually indirectly did when they brought up games that make it easy to see where you messed up or need to try something new. Like they said, there are games that make it feel good to "git gud", and there are those that make you rage due to a series of cheap feeling deaths, like many old school games.
The reason they didn't go in-depth though is probably because it coincides with topics they've already covered, like difficulty.
It isn't their job anyways, the message is there. It only needs the understanding listener to take action in their own ways.
Well actually, there are some things that people themselves should improve on while playing. If the game is good, the gameplay is fun, then after that it is up to you to have fun with the game. You can't expect the game to make the losing fun for you too, or super rewarding. That way people would just throw. This is more a matter of attitude than game design itself. So basically, just have fun while playing, don't attach your self worth on winning and go for improving.
Not so much frustration, but I know people who actively won't play games because they fear they'll lose. Their social anxiety won't let them join the fun because they're more concerned with losing, getting embarrassed, and being openly mocked. Even when I offer up co-op games where the only thing lost when we fail is just time.
I suppose the question here is, how can I help convince someone in this situation to try and play games with me? Obviously, I won't force them if they really don't want to. But I want to at least get them to the point where they'll at least try this co-op game or that co-op game. Because I know there are some games that can help one deal with that kind of anxiety. But if said person won't try, they'll never see that kind of benefit and I'd really love to be able to enjoy a few select games with this person. Cheers!
Here's one suggestion;- make sure you or any participants avoid salty attitudes or words. If you win don't be smug and if you lose don't get angry.
This is so much my girlfriend. She's relatively new to gaming and especially at the begining she got really frustrated even with single player games after dying more than once in a single quest or something and basically gave up, wanting to call it a day. To her a hardcore punishing game like Dark Souls or Hollow Knight is basically off limits.
I also have social anxiety, so here are some suggestions. For one, try to start out with stuff that's either entirely local multiplayer or can be restricted to just your private party. No interacting with strangers online. Before you've got them hooked on a game, any experience with negativity from some random online, even if it's not directed at them, could very well cause them to bolt and never come back because they're afraid of getting chewed out. Secondly, a single player mode where they can practice the gameplay alone in private before feeling pressured to play in front of you is really important. They'll likely feel like you're judging them, even if you really aren't, so they'll probably be a lot more comfortable playing with you if they feel competent at the game already. Odds are that if they do in fact enjoy gaming and aren't just bored by the hobby for reasons unrelated to anxiety, they'll eventually grow more comfortable and be willing to branch out. But don't pressure them. Let them take the lead there. Finally, this probably goes without saying, but don't start out with games with any form of PVP, leaderboards, rankings, etc. They're going to have anxiety about how they measure up to you no matter what, but hard numbers like that are going to justify those fears in their eyes.
you could try out puzzle- co-op games. I'm not familiar with too many of them, but portal 2 has a fun co-op and with puzzle games, there often isn't any way to lose, beyond getting stuck not knowing how to progress.
I’ll play but I’m afraid of losing, so if they win I’m blocking them so I won’t have to put with their nonsense
One time I was playing a brawlhalla ranked game when I felt like I was doubling my skill going all out feeling like nothing could stop me but I still lost.
That was the best feeling I have ever felt right after the game, I improved and learned this is what gaming is
Dwarf Fortress isn't mentioned ONCE in this video despite it's motto literally being "Losing is !FUN!" There's a page on the DFWiki literally titled "losing".
same for Rimworld. (yes I know it's literally Dwarf fortress lite, but I'm not all knowing enough for DF)
Awww, that was the whole reason I even started watching the video.
Dwarf Fortress is an extremely niche game with a very narrow but passionate fanbase, it's a cult title even among PC gamers (the platform to which it is restricted,) the points being made here are meant to be broadly relatable. If 90%+ of the viewers can't understand the analogy then it's essentially useless.
It almost sent me Stark Raving Mad waiting for it to be mentioned. I hope this comment section doesn't turn into a tantrum spiral. It would be a shame to uncover an aquifer of tears. Unicorn-riding stealth elf pun.
So you're upset that they didn't mention that one weird obscure PC game made a thousand years ago that only 5 people are playing?
I can have fun losing sometimes. If a game is close, everyone’s working hard, and they’re just a little better than you, it’s easy to accept. But then there’s the games where you’re being curbstomped and have no idea why. You know you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, but you’re losing. Is there a counterstrategy you aren’t employing? Is the team failing to uphold their roles? Is your comp just that bad? There’s no answers to be found in the moment, and even if you have the ability to analyze a ghost cam recording of the game’s proceedings, you might come up dry. Those are the ones that enrage me. The games where you can’t learn anything, and you can’t even be sure what the problem is.
This. This so hard. Or when you know what the problem is/was, but can't do anything about it.
saaaame! especially when it's a game that's either really fast paced or very complicated (er, deep?)
Yeah, and then you have games that don't balance things properly, so you'll have nothing BUT matches like that one day, and then be on the opposite side of the coin the next day. Devs need to work to make their games more balanced so that the losses aren't so infuriatingly one-sided all the time.
The moment I quit MOBAs was when I realized that less than ten percent of games fell into that category. Win or lose its almost always a stomp. The entire genre is built around snowballing to the point that a 30-minute match is often decided in the first five, or in the span of 30 seconds halfway through. The close, engaging matches are far too rare for me to justify putting up with what's in between.
Git gud scrub!!
Is what most assholes would say. The reason you get curb stomped sometimes is because of the lack of SBMM (skill base match making). I a portion of the PvP player population can only have fun when they are delivering a demoralizing beating to their opponents. And then they put it on RUclips so others can witness their glory. These people are straight up the cancer of the PvP community.
I think most players feel the same way you do. Losing doesn’t have to be a frustrating experience if both teams are evenly matched. If the score is close till the very end, losing isn’t an issue. Because you had a chance to win until the very end. The problem is when at the beginning of a match, the score difference is so massive that winning is hopeless.
But, for some god forsaken reason, RUclipsrs and streamers constantly criticize SBMM. In one of the CoD games and prominently in Destiny and Destiny 2. SBMM has been criticized and outright blamed for removing the fun from PvP matches. Destiny and CoD players do not want a fair fight. The want to punch down all the time and not just win, but deliver non stop punishment and a demoralizing beating to their opponents.
I just got Overwatch last week and have been dumping a lot of time in. Today I had a particularly bad losing streak and had been feeling down. So seeing this pop up on my sub feed was like fate! Its given me the motivation to jump back in to just have fun and improve myself in all the ways you spoke about. Thanks!
Thanks for this man, I was going through a sort of video game depression and this just changed my view on things. You earned a sub.
I believe that is the reason we say "gg".
A good game isn't about winning or losing, it's about if both sides were able to be engaged in the game itself.
If you did your best and your opponent also return with their best, it's fine if you lose as long as you put up a good fight and was able to perform as you wanted.
That maybe true for PVP in FPS, but when it comes to Games like Fire Emblem, being told to "Get Gud" cause some of us wanna play Casual/Phoenix mode or want them kept around in future games is Insulting and Hurtful at times.
In this case, being told to GG is saying that too dumb or not good enough to be playing Video Games. Iv Legit had someone say that I should Play games on hard/Classic Mode or stop playing games all together.
Now tell me where the fun in that is?
This here is so true! I remember being in games where I have lost - but it didn't feel bad! Both sides concentrated on playing and doing their best - even going so far as to comment in all chat about the other team. Such as commenting on good plays the opponent does.
Nothing I like more (well, usually) than a very close win/loss.
True but at the same time it can be hard to not feel as though the winning team is being pretentious sometimes since they are the only one saying gg as your team was never even given a chance.
When i play a good yugioh match were both me and my opponent give it all we got. i always say GG whether i win or lose 👍🏽👍🏽. Cuz this is the true meaning of a GG
For a design channel the question of, "how should designers encourage this behavior?" is never discussed.
It might just be me, but this seems to have become an issue with Extra Credits over the last year or so. They're keen to point out an issue, but there's little in the way discussion of how to design games to address that week's thing anymore. I still like this channel but I can't shake the feeling like it's lacking something it used to have in abundance.
They don't always talk about design but, yeah, huge hole there.
maybe there needs to just be a reward every time one plays then a big bonus reward if you win. or make the win rates happen more regularly rather than rarely or impossible
I have a general idea. Instead of punishing the player for losing, reward them instead. E.g. There's a card game with ranks. Don't punish the player with lost ranks. Give the player a tiny bit of currency.
This way, the player is always rewarded for participation and for not quitting midway through. They will feel that their time was not wasted.
You all seem to think about the reward at the end of the game as the important part, instead of the gameplay.
You can design maps to prevent a team from getting overrun even when they are loosing. You can design mechanics that change the goal for the loosing team to something attainable. These and other methods are what I had hoped to see discussed in this video.
I have made these arguments with friends I play games with for years! Thnx for putting it all together in one condensed video to share.
Thank you for this and the reminder to change our perspectives on winning and losing. This was excellent and what I needed to hear. Also, loved the guest art!
This makes me think: Smash Ultimate's replay mode should allow for rewinding, pausing, and adding notes.
Not only would this be helpful for gameplay purposes but it'd also just be really convenient for anybody using them for any form of editing. The fact that smash replays have no time controls is just pathetic honestly, no other self-respecting replay system is just basically a video player with negligible camera controls like that.
TAmari plus 4 the memes
It should also not wipe all replays every single fucking time the game updates. Seriously, whoever thought that was a good idea deserves to be fired. The saved space isn't worth that.
Kerbal space program was never about winning. But merely the joy of trying new ideas. I love KSP
Yeah but the frustration of KSP comes from bugs and the performance issues you get from modding the game, still gonna play if for another 1000 hours
Absolutely, it's about throwing every idea you can against a wall and seeing what sticks, what doesn't and what blows up in your face.
thats what you think until you start to speedrun it
sandbox games > everything
Ah killing kerbals is it's own form of winning
That's why I love couch coop. Letting out your frustration with a well meaning "I hate you sooo much" while your opponent laughs wickedly is just pure joy :D
Thanks, I was needing to hear all of this. Hope I can take my losses more healthy from now on
Losing in multiplayer games always feels much worse than losing in single-player games. At least thats how I always feel, probably because its perceived to have more at stake.
Or the ever present pressure, real or not, from the rest of the team. It's as if the lost was your fault and everybody is pointing and cursing at you for not carrying.
I think it’s because in single player you learn the boss’s pattern and with each loss you get better. While in multiplayer pvp, human opponents will find the cheapest, must frustrating way to beat you. And by the time you figure out a way to counter the bull shit, the match is over and you lost. But now you are ready to fight the piece of shit that was killing you in a cheap, frustrating way. But, now you playing against a new team who is doing a different kind of cheap and frustrating shit. Yay!!!!
For me it is the opposite, since I am not very competitive in real life, so losing or winning in multiplayer does not affect me too much, but in singleplayer I want to dominate "My world" where I go to have fun alone and where I want to be better than regular NPCs so it upsets me when I can't beat them scripted bots.
4:38 I want that picture as a poster, so, f***ing, bad
HELL YEAH
Im sure we all do
"EVERYONE IS HERE!"
and also 4:44
me too man, such amazing artwork
This video helped me a lot. It helped me see a new perspective on the reason for playing games, which should be to have fun, and not necessarily to win. Thanks.
This is exactly what I needed, Thank you.
so... what exactly should game designers do to support good failing? this player-oriented advice is not very extra-credits-like
Make the game fun to play not fun to win.
Reward players for the journey, not the end. If I pulled off a clutch give me a huge boost of xp or something, give something that matches how I feel, and maybe others, and how well I performed.
The community-directed message is helpful, but I was excited to see this approached from a design perspective. Despite how widely it's encouraged that people play through their failures, so many single player games make failure either completely uninteresting or such a massive setback that there's no value in continuing even when you only failed once. In the future, it'd be really interesting to explore some alternative failure states or mechanics that combat this.
I think this issue reminds me of extreme number scaling vs skill. An alternative to most deaths is either many checkpoints or second chance without moving the character to some far away location. Let us rise from the ashes, Like a phoenix; not start with an always pristine clean plate as that is what sleep is for.
This channel is such a gem of a show. Really informative, great content, funny...etc. Keep it up!
There are so many people I know who need to watch this video (my self somewhat included). Thank you for making this!
While I feel player behaviors play a big role in the feelings of winning being more important than fun, but I also feel that some off the blame falls on the game design of many of these games. There needs to be a closer look at how multiplayer games can fight against this extreme lack of joy when losing and see if there is a way to encourage players or at least make the losses more palatable
For sure, a lot of them seem to just act like a fight arena.
Throw a bunch of randoms into a fight and guess what happens?
Chaos.
There's no incentive to take a specific role, no incentive to work with people like yourself or anything. So the game becomes chasing that golden reward because the rest of the game is a drag.
Eventually the games become a glorified child minding exercise, there's often a lack of any real depth.
incidents of trolling go up when people are bored or frustrated and become feedback loops of players within their teams fighting themselves.
The alternative is you get a group of super elite players who know each other by name and there's no newbie pool to just dive into and you get obliterated every time.
I wish games actually had something to prevent tilting and stuff. I can tell in my head it's just a game or something but I'll always get frustrated after like the dying for the 5th time. I REALLY wanna get better at games like Fortnite or any Shooter game like it, but when I lose I always get mad. Something always feel like bullshit, something always goes wrong and I feel like it's not my fault but something the other player does, and I can't get out of that mentality. Please help me.
Ranked ladders often make it seem like it's all about winning. Maybe they should look into that.
A lot of the time when I feel frustrated when loosing is at least in part because individual objectives and team objectives are at odds. This leads to frustration when I'm getting clobbered because it's just me and 1-2 others actually doing what needs done for the team to win, while the rest of the "team" is getting too much reinforcement from the game for their lack of teamwork and no way are they going to listen to someone 5+ spaces below them on their team rankings for the game.
If the mechanics themselves are at odds creating conflict within your team, that's a boxed recipe for a bad time, just add loosing. When you can have the person with the worst teamwork get the best rewards and a #1 spot on the team, you have a toxic environment for your players.
Sure, people *should* engage with a healthier mindset. But this video isn't going to change human nature. The question you should be asking, but somehow didn't manage to address, is how to construct game systems in such a way that they encourage those kinds of healthier mindsets and discourage toxic ones.
I am glad someone else sees this. Any solution that relies on people being better than they are is doomed from the outset. If you want people to behave a certain way you have to create an incentive for them to do so.
The video goal is mainly to inform players to be better not to propose a solution.
Easy: NERF BRIGITTE
just like halo right
I feel like this topic would have been better served by looking at how mechanics in games like Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress actively make losing enjoyable.
To kind of elaborate, it's easy to see why people care so much about winning when we're talking about games that are designed with competition in mind. When you play a MOBA or FPS, the core experience is about empowering the player or testing their skill and losing a game is completely counter to that. I think two good examples for how to go about players feeling better about losing can be found in Divinity original sin, where two players can work against eachother or argue about how to progress, but "losing" in this case serves the experience. Likewise, you can easily "lose" a run of Dwarf Fortess, but how you lose generates the narrative that is the core focus of playing.
I was waiting for the df mention too. Losing is !Fun!
Losing is never fun in any game.
Excellent episode
An issue in League and I assume Dota as well: you really can't immediately apply what you learned from the last game to the next one, because the next game is often too different.
Here's an example. Game 1: you feed early. That can't really be helped, but then you go on tilt, feed even more, and then your lane opponent hard carries the game. Game 2: you get fed early, go ham, get even more fed, and hard carry the game. By game 3, you've forgotten the lesson of game 1 (if you fall behind, play safe and let your team carry you), because "go on tilt and feed" and "go ham and get fed" *are the same behavior* . They only differ in what precedes them (were you at an advantage or a disadvantage before the fight?) and what follows them (did you win or lose the fight?).
The worst thing is the solo carry mentality. We remember the games like Game 2, where we hard carried the game ourselves by becoming way more powerful than everyone on both teams. But even in a meta where *someone* hard carries the game, there's about an equal chance that that solo carry could be any of *eight* different people, *four* of whom are on your team. Even if you win your game, you still will most likely not hard carry, unless your match was made poorly. So most likely if you actively try to hard carry right from the start, you're going to wind up feeding early and/or throwing the game late.
Solo carry mentality got me to plat back in season 5 it was like 6 percent of the player base, so there is nouthing wrong with that mentality except maybe the fact no one thinks about team comp but most people pick whatever they want cause the concept of team comp is only talked about but never actually seen in the way kills and deaths are so it's harder to learn or even conceptualize for the casual player imo (no tank).
as for tilting mute everyone and if u get lvl 2 ganked its just unlucky that u died accept it and move on.
Overall solo q mentality is not the "worst thing" cause if the worst thing is getting to plat then its actually pretty good in practice.
As a Dota player, i can confirm that pretty much everything mentioned above can be applied to Dota Too( pun intended)
I'd also like to mention that some people might be distrustful of other people's skill on a particular role, most likely mid or carry, and therefore there are plenty disputes on the topic of picking 2 mids and 0 supports. Some people do such things because in a previous game they played as some other role, and saw his/her fellow teammate lose mid spectacularly and then the entire team is just stomped, which causes frustrating and thoughts such as: "Next game im playing mid regardless" and then its automatically a lose
8 people? Are you discounting the support?! My friends don't call me Support Damage Carry for nothing! Fear my Soraka plays.
I'm discounting the supports here, yes. Sometimes supports can carry (I've seen some crazy support Brand players for example). But it's not nearly as likely as the rest of the team.
The thing that I hate about a lot of these games is when you lose because of factors outside your control such as bad RNG or someone actively griefing...
And getting flak from a sore loser on your team who died in the first minutes who still think he is Admiral Nelson reincarnated...
3:39 I remember years ago when i played Team Fortress 2 with a team that was losing. I started to take charge, gave out commands and strategized, then the team stepped up the game and won the match. The feeling was exhilarating!
Thanks, I needed this (:
Yes.... *FOR THE SHAWARMA!*
FOR THE SHAWARMA!!!
Most epic panel in a long long time and also great, great message
Spawn more shishkababs!
Rides armored cat into battle
THE SHAWARMA.
Lovely.
This is not just a problem with games, but also the world at large. We reward children for winning, but we don't reward them for genuinely trying, nor do we emphasize how important failure is in learning. It creates frustration, and teaches people that winning or finishing is more important than doing things thoughtfully.
I'm not advocating for participation trophies (lol), but I do think we need to think about what we're teaching people with the rewards we give. Do we emphasize winning, or do we emphasize genuine effort?
Also thank you so much for toning down the overly-animated voice. This is much easier to listen to.
Omg the art style is so cute!! It’s always fun to see the same characters in such different styles
Well you're certainly right in your message, but I would've appreciated more advice and suggestions on how to make games that are fun to lose as well as win.
I'd say this is a goal we'd want to strive for, but is ultimately flawed currently. Something, at least in multiplayer environments, needs to be built into the game design more. As most pvp games currently have higher rewards (more currency, xp, bonuses, etc) for winning, without anything to ease the feeling of loss. Winning feeling more valuable is baked directly into the game's design.
Furthermore a problem with the idea of the "Soulsborne/Monster Hunter" mentality of overcoming challenges through learning doesn't play out in these multiplayer environments from match to match. PVP doesn't have a fixed barrier or curve of difficulty to make a decent feel of pacing. And, the challenge/competence of your opponents can vary wildly from game to game, making that feeling of constant progress and improvement feel muddled or hollow when several matched you can get steamrolled by highly skilled opponents, and the next get pitted against someone far below your skill.
Finally, I feel that the direction of how multiplayer games have been built and designed around the ladder/competitive experience, and company servers only has really detracted from the more casual experiences of the past. Putting a higher focus on winning, honing gameplay around tiny microsystems of interaction, not creating a mechanical difference between ladder games and public play, and lack of self-regulated dedicated servers and communities to foster a more socially healthy playerbase.
I would agree. I'm consistently amazed at how many team based games still essentially reward the player that plays alone really well while leaving the objective and their teammates to fail. Also damaging is the continued existence of things like individual k/d ratios in team games.
I won't blame the developers for toxic players but I do think they could be doing more in the realm of design to minimize it.
At the very least adding in some kind of rematch function would go a long way. Just being able to play against the same person multiple times makes it a lot easier to get a handle on what, specifically, needs improvement. It also helps create a sense of connection with them as part of the community.
The higher rewards on winning is actually necessary to make losing fun. If winning and losing gave the same rewards, the players who are only after the reward, the levels or currency, begin to use the "losing is faster" strategy to get as much reward as fast as possible, and that kills the fun for the people who want to try on both teams.
Learning from your mistakes is difficult in multiplayer games, even within the same game since your opponents are learning as well. Definitely not something to rely on, but is still there. The ladder system is supposed to keep the games similar enough that you can use what you learned from one game to the next, but that is mostly about the mechanics of the game and not so much the strategy for those mechanics.
This last point about the focus on competitive ranking and improvement is back to the first point. Without a need to win, why try? Online anonymity creates some negative behaviors. Offline/couch competitive don't tend to have this type of system/need for it, as players aren't anonymous and can't get away with sabotage like that.
I've been waiting for this episode :) More people need to hear this -- and EC in general.
This made me think about what gets me upset in games and I think it only happens when people are rude to me and I refuse to accept the pain so I get toxic too.
As a Magic the Gathering player I know I'd much rather loose a close match where things go back and forth than win when my opponent had to mulligan to 5, maybe played one spell and never got off 2 lands. I'm more frustrated when that happens to my opponent than to myself most of the time.
This is why Titanfall was so good. “Get to the dropship” was fun for the losing team!
Get to the choppaaaah! It's the only way out!
This actually helped, I'm a bit older and got wrapped up in winning and stopped having fun. I appreciate you Extra Credits!
I love this video (and frankly found its message personally helpful), but I think there would be a lot of value in a part two addressing how game design can reinforce this kind of toxic only-winning-is-fun mentality (such as the constant sparkly, dramatic indicators of how close you are to ranking up that focus players on ranking systems over personal growth), and how games could be designed to encourage better behavior and healthier mentalities.
Disagreed, there is problem to begin with. People that can't take a loss shouldn't be gaming and people that can't stand salty losers should use the mute button. Personal accountibility.
yeah this is a point but the game your playing has an effect on your mentality and thus has an effect on how well/easily you'll be able to just take that loss.
People who rage purely because they lost are bad, but you also left out how people degrade the enemy team when they win. Honestly, sportsmanship is something I see on the most rarest of occasions in multiplayer games over the past few years. Either people are raging simply because they lost or people are trash talking simply because they are winning.
As has been said on this show many times, games are a bunch of smoke and mirrors to designed to make the players feel what the devs want them to. You're shifting the blame onto the player base rather than the devs who make bad games that encourage this behavior. An example of this would be 1:28 "Those few points and ladder don't really mean anything" you know damn well that thats not what the devs want you to feel. They want you to get upset that you lost so you get frustrated and try again.
EC has been waaayyyy more pro-corporate in the last year or two
I have no idea what might make the channel move in a more corporate friendly direction. I mean its not like they've started multiple side shows where they regularly make money by doing sponsored content for game devs or anything.
This sounds really... conspiracy theory-ist.
"It's the DEVS who WANT you to hate!"
You mean conspiratorial? Also how could it not be designed to frustrate you, a big obnoxious YOU LOSE screen, is practically taunting the player. Also you know that they know the devs are just making bad you lose screens. They showed how Dark Souls is designed well enough that you don't get upset at losing, they know there are bad lose screens and good ones. They just pretended bad you lose screens don't exist and its all the player's fault.
I'd say the point of the video is that A: we want devs to make games less focused on winning and B: we want players to be less toxic.
devs need to be careful about how they make their games and players need to realize that it is, in fact, just a game. the only meaning it has is the meaning you take with you.
One thing to consider with multiplayer games is what kind of community the game breeds. I've met a lot of people who were really eager to share their knowledge to anyone who was willing to learn, but also plenty of players who'd taunt you if you asked for advice. Improving your skills bit by bit in any way possible was some of the greatest fun I've had in games, but so many people get discouraged or upset when they get repeatedly demolished by someone way better than them without ever even trying to ask for help.
I just wanna say, the drawning of the whole crew was a work of art :')
I find that a lot of the toxicity happens when games tie winning to progression. Look at hearthstone's older quest model, where the only way to progress is to win. You are rewarded on your end of month rank, you are only rewarded every x times you win, and if you lose, if you are on rank you are penalized while the game basically mocks you, doubly so with the win streak mechanic.
I would be interested in more games encouraging more cooperative moments and play rather than just winning. Enough with the overly dramatic loss screens and mopey music to attend them while the only meaningful progression goes to whoever wins. Sure, the idea is that if winning doesn't matter as much, people will try and abuse a system and make things less fun for other people in the name of progressing faster, but there has to be a better solution than this. (Also, more competitive games need to have more cooperative games modes anyways, I literally only play mobas to face bots, and I only sign on overwatch during the occasional pve events.)
The real question is whether we can craft a system which doesn't reward toxic behavior. I think the jury's still out on that one.
A lot of the time when I feel frustrated when loosing is at least in part because individual objectives and team objectives are at odds. This leads to frustration when I'm getting clobbered because it's just me and 1-2 others actually doing what needs done for the team to win, while the rest of the "team" is getting too much reinforcement from the game for their lack of teamwork and no way are they going to listen to someone 5+ spaces below them on their team rankings for the game.
If the mechanics themselves are at odds creating conflict within your team, that's a boxed recipe for a bad time, just add loosing. When you can have the person with the worst teamwork get the best rewards and a #1 spot on the team, you have a toxic environment for your players.
+1
My favorite PvP matches are when it’s really close and I feel like I played my best! Whether I win or lose. There is no feeling more rewarding than losing and losing and then pulling through and winning.
The only time I get frustrated is when I feel like the outcome was completely out of my hands, such as OP or exploited mechanics.
What you said at 4:23 really struck me. I've played a lot of competitive tf2 back in the day on several teams, and none of the moments that really stuck with me were any of my own frag-montage type stuff. But those times where our coordination pulled our team through where raw skill could not, when our strats and plans played out just like we practiced them, and when we lost a round but knew exactly where and how to shake things up to try to win the next one? Those memories lighten my heart to this day.
So, does this mean I have to feel good about losing at Mario Kart, even when I'm in 1st place for 99% of the race but get hit by a blue shell when I'm 1 inch from the finish line and everyone passes me at the last second?
I think it's more about winning not being the main goal of playing a game. Getting upset from your example would make sense, but you still should enjoy actually playing the game itself, unlike some people who play purely for winning.
Agreed, the newer version of the game has improved that mechanic. There are ways to dodge/defend against it now. It still requires high skill and timing, but at least it's not oh, I'm in first place....great...a blue shell...well that was a waste of my time.
As a Mario Kart pro with over 100h in each game since DS - I actually find loosing in this game funny, especially when this happened to pure unluck. This makes these games the most enjoyable series for me, even if I remain with less VR than I started (which is very unlikely anyway).
My attitude about MK is what I try to implement on other games, but I fail to integrate this into OW.
What do I intend with this reply? Don't mind about rng losses, they won't cause any damage irl and aren't even impactful in the game. You loose imagenery points (which in the case of MK are easily reclailable).
I also think that a win that's easy is just as demotivating than a crushing defeat.
A few of the best rounds I've ever had were games that were narrow to the bone, where both teams wrestled for the win, almost won and then lost control, for multiple times. Those games where you just steamroll them back to their base and never stop for more then 5 seconds as if it's some mad dash to Paris are just disappointing.
Eh, I never feel that I'm getting better when I play multiplayer games, so I never feel any satisfaction from playing them: if I lose, it's because I sucked, and if I win, it's because I was lucky. Since the other person is improving as well, it's a hopeless cycle that I'll never be able to catch up to.
Since I'm going to feel bad no matter WHAT I do, I'll forever stick with singleplayer. True, I'll fail there, too, but the obstacle will be (mostly) static, and so the goal posts won't constantly shift. So I know that, eventually, I'll win in the end with enough patience and work, and winning means I've proven that the obstacle CAN be beaten by me, repeatedly if needed. Thus, losing and winning are both fun for me.
Great video, just one nitpick about the whole "learn from your mistakes, try out new things right in the next game": I used to play on the StarCraft 2 ladder as Zerg a lot, and losing against one particular build from one particular race was always annoying as hell. The next game was almost always against another race or at least a completely different build - so it was impossible to apply something you've learnt in the next game directly. Instead I'd have to memorize this all or write it down or something, so I could recall/look it up when the same situation happens. And this grew tedious really fast, leading me to give it all up as soon as I got into masters league. There was a joy of ranking up and defeating better opponents for sure, but it cost ALL of my free time because it was so time consuming. I had the same problem in most other competitive games, like CSGO or even Heroes of the Storm. The same situation almost never happens in the next game - so the motivation to click the "next game"-button just is not there.
The chance to learn from your losses is one of the reasons I love to play fighting games. Every time I'm bested in a set, be it online or in a tournament, I'm given an opportunity to think through what happened, and see what I can learn from my mistakes. And when I finally achieve that hard-earned victory, that gives me the satisfaction of knowing I've grown and improved beyond where I was. Honestly I wish more fighting game players thought this way.
Are you cute though? :3
@FluffySylveonBoi Cuteness is in the eye of the beholder so I'll answer with a "maybe"
Well you can’t help but get a bit of rage when in online games today you end up losing because of a network issue or high ping, the frustration comes from the feeling of being being cheated and the loss being unfair. Enjoying online multiplayer games is hard in relatively less developed country. Its even worse with almost no game today having couch multiplayer
This is why I prefer Heroes of the Storm to League of Legends, or Team Fortress 2 to Overwatch. You have less of a focus on winning, and more of a focus on fun. I'm also the kind of person who laughs when dying to a crocket, so to each his own.
Have you tried sticky jumping across spawns on harvest and camp at the spawn door with a melee because that the most I’ve ever laughed when playing tf2
4:10 Lol I thought that guy had punched his teammate with a smile on his face! 😂
Thanks Kelsey!
Can’t forget other gems like Team Fortress 2, or any Arc Systems fighting game. I’m always happy to see how much I improved since I started playing those games.
And then you see that CTB is the new game
And it feels so wrong to play it
Granted there is some mechanics in TF2 that make winning all the sweeter and losing all the more worse. The ability to kill the helpless enemy team with crits feels so satisfying when you win, but so humiliating when you lose.
Bobby Ferg yeah but that post-game 20 seconds of guaranteed crits against the losing team does nothing for either side of player: winner or loser. The main problem is when winning grants you rewards on some kind of ladder system (not yet established in tf2) yet every time you lose, you're set back the equivalent of 2-3 rungs.
Part of my theory about why I repeatedly lost was insufficient practice. I really enjoy improving, but I don't have the skills to compete with others who have a lot more time to devote than I do. That's why I quit playing Overwatch.
MrCBroz This is especially true for people who work full time jobs, also from my experience with those sort of games (Warthunder, World of Warships, etc.) if you can't devote every second of free time you have to practicing them then you will get an unbelievable torrent of hate in the game chat or kicked from whatever group you managed to finally join
I know the feeling well. As a World of Warships player I hated the toxicity of the pvp environment especially when the crap comes from some armchair admiral who got sunk for his stupidity but then blame it all on his team for not dying with him in a head long banzai charge. That's why I either turn off team chat or just enjoy pve.
I can respect not being as skilled at them. I get actively resentful at the culture that shames me for my lack of skill... frames my healthy diversity of hobbies and occupational demands as 'lame'. I'm happy being a casual player; fuck y'all for making it an unwelcome space for me.
Thanks for this man. Every time I lose I'm filled with an uncontainable rage that slowly burns me from the inside out and makes me want to destroy everyone. Pretty unhealthy. So yeah, I'd say this was pretty helpful. Yay for becoming better people!
I totally relate and desperately want to understand why I'm this way. I want to change. I want to appreciate getting better each time but I'm filled with contempt. Wish me luck. 🤺
Thank You so very much ! This video Opened my eyes again sind i really needed this atm
Losing in both Titanfalls is actually fun. Evacuating in the drop ship is one of the most fun things in that game
I honestly don't know if I should be impressed or just disappointed by the lack of references to Dwarf Fortress.
I'm honestly not sure whether current DF in fortress mode is really as much about losing as everyone says. These days you really have to go out of your way, deliberately avoid certain obvious cheese tactics, and/or embark in a nasty location, to lose. This will probably change further down the line, though.
I think they probs avoided mentioning it because its a single player game, and single player games can't really be toxic, so its a much bigger problem in multiplayer pvp games.
I believe the statement is still held to be true mostly because Dwarf Fortress doesn't have any defined 'victory' condition. From a purely mechanical point of view (ie: Not counting players trying to build megastructures, projects, etc), the game is just about trying not to lose until you lose.
Additionally, I find people's perceptions of DF change the longer they play it. Eventually you get good enough at it (learning those cheese tactics, avoiding nasty embarks, learning how 2 army etc) that DF is no longer the masochist's dream that it was when you first started. From this point, it's very easy for a player to simply assume that the reason for DF's change was 'The game was patched to be easier' rather than 'I got better at this game'.
The game's tagline is "losing is fun", though...
This is an important message for all of us to hear. Thanks EC, for once again being the voice of reason. Please keep on going, I believe you make a difference with every video.
Thank you... i have felt like this alot. i put myself in a spot where my self worth is on the line, and almost every time i get mad angry or frustrated and even when i win it was so stressful that i cant even feel happy afterwards and i have been trying lately to play games more casually. i started by every time someone else killed me i would force myself to say Well played! and now i actually mean it! i can see what im doing wrong and learn from it! Great video, inspirational keep up the good work! =)
3:39 WHAT IS THIS GAME? WANT! NEED!
Or maybe that is the game, that you'll make. Because Matt can see the future.
Looks like Tribes for me.
I wish Tribes wasn't dead :/ I loved that game
2:15 Lots of great art in this episode, but this frame was my favourite.
Q, Agreeed! Nothing captures my Dark Souls experience more than that. Wish I could gesture those flowers ^_^
It's actually the thumbnail also! Didn't notice that until now.
Damn I needed this 😂
i needed this, whenever i play games, i always immidiatly quit when i die, i need to memorize this more, because i love games, but i always get a sour mood when i die
When people feel like winning isn't the source of fun in the game, they may also feel like it's not their goal in a gameplay session. This can create interpersonal conflict in team games where some players are trying to win and others are not. For example, think of an overwatch game where your team needs you to play a tank to win but you don't like playing that role. Do you play what's fun, or what's needed to win? And what about the other games you play over the next hour? Are you doing fun wrong?
You do both. Playing the game is fun, yes; but that doesn't change the fact that the point of the game is to attempt to win.
Very good point that can even be extended further than video games! The world is constantly asking us to do better than others: to be paid more, have a better car and a hotter partner than our neighboors. But the goal is not to win, it's to have fun!
thanks. i needed that.
Thank you for knocking into a shit load of sense into me, I was actually doing bad at CS and stopped playing because of this but now I finally have a reason to go back and play it. Thank you.
Those rare moments when your opponent respect you and you
Converse during repawn.
I think this video is important.
11/10 Imho one of the best videos you've made in this channel
EDIT: If only more people trully understood what you talked about in this video gaming would be radically different and the gaming community would thrive and improve so much faster
Jacksonville Florida Shooting
In WarThunder it was a macth reward system, which made you to take money both you lose match or win it.
So, even loosing by team does not affected you. But it made you free to try to win: no penalty instead of WoT.
PS: but this video made me no fun or even... meh, it seems like even no examples of such mechanic!
this was an awesome video thank you extra credits team for making this
The art for this episode is amazing! GG Kelsey!
I do think this is an excellent topic, and I would agree with EC that there are currently a lot of problems with playerbase mentality that have caused various multiplayer games, even the cartoonish and friendly ones, to become unplayably toxic. It's definitely not just a designer issue if anything.
However, I can also highlight some design choices that, in my mind, have exacerbated this issue. And I can actually start this inside of *singleplayer* games. There's been a growing number of indie and major AAA games come out that introduce some good number of interesting mechanics - around failure. They're expanding on the armchair designer thought of "What if dying had *consequences*" and kind of forgetting why we discarded the idea of limited lives so long ago. These can sometimes waver between interesting, telling a good story, or they can in one fell swoop introduce a tremendous amount of tedium to a game, or make hours of past progress pointless. This can get people really invested in winning - simply because they now hate losing.
Multiplayer games used to revolve around very little. You joined a server, hosted by either the developer or one of 18 different clans, and played rounds, and after some time the map would change and it would briefly show the highest fragger. The "casual" modes of today would have basically been the "competitive" modes of way back when. Your victories are recorded. You gain experience points, better performance and victory leads to more points. You unlock poses to show in the end-match screen for bragging rights, letting everyone see the incredible weapon skin you unlocked by being really good at competitive. And the entire experience is designed to make the losers envious of all this. Even Overwatch, a game supposedly all for inclusion of less skilled players, has Arcade gamemodes (supposed to be the LEAST important mode) that reward you loot boxes ONLY for victories, making some of its players the most toxic towards victory.
The reason that these design choices happen is profit. It drives investment and gets people buying more items. The reason that players want victory is because of these design choices.
I believe that a major component in the shift from "Having fun even while losing" to "It feels terrible to lose" are two-fold:
1. The gametime per round for competitive games has increased a lot, which in inverse means less rounds per session of "I'm gonna play that for an extended period of time today".
2. While we did get better at teaching mechanics, there are many more mechanics interlocked in modern games, making it harder to see what went wrong, especially if those errors are of the "flapping butterfly" variant, where a small mistake early on has larger ripple effects later in the game, which is regularely seen in MOBAs.
In other words, to strengthen the aspect of having fun while losing, game devs either have to adress the length of a round or easing up on the mechanics, or they have to find ways to compensate for them. Battle Royale games tend to allow exiting a round once you've lost, instead of being forced to sit around, so even if games can go on for long, if you're a new player and manage to not get frustrated too hard, you can have plenty of games within a session, which helps learning the game and getting a better feeling of the flow of the game, which also helps with the second component I listed, since learning good and bad starting locations is pretty much the only "flapping butterfly" that matters and that the player has a major control over.
There might also be something cathartic about the fact that "well, I lost, but so will 98 other players. That's fine" and the fact that "winning" come gradual for these types of games. The longer you survive, the higher you are placed for that round, so you can have some sort of "micro-winning" just by not being dead during milestones in the number of alive players left.
Platform Fighters like Smash Bros. have one of the better innate balance in that regard. Rounds don't drag on for too long and even if you lose, the rest of the round doesn't take too long, so you can learn by watching the game (and Platform Fighters can be great for spectators anyway). The mechanics are also not as complicated as some traditional fighting games tend to get (especially "Anime fighters" like the games from ArcSys), so the game is comparatively easy to learn.
Thank you Kelsey for the art
GG! This is such a good episode. With a very well placed lesson which I would say can spread outside of the games as well. Winning in life isn't everything but it is a way to learn. Games are a better teacher for it though... Thanks guys!
Frankly, steamrolling the competetion is boring and not really fun, especially if the ones on the recieving end are having a bad time. I'll take a close loss against a good opponent over that any day.
I notice you don't mention at all about how in many games when your team is losing, your experience is objectively more limited than when you're winning. Struggling to break out of spawn, getting rolled, failing push after push are just not fun things, and yet you make it sound like it's all players being whiny at fault. Maybe there could be some onus on the games to improve and work around these common pitfalls of multiplayer experiences?
Xarth42 Amen, brother, *ESPECIALLY* with the spawncamping part!
I refer thee to the video about how we need to fix online ladders.
Kendall VanShaar While I think that video makes some good points, it doesn't address individual games and the frustrations involved, or any of the examples I provided. I agree the overall experience being more rewarding would help, but that's not going to stop a bad round from being a bad round, or a series of horrible experiences from being a series of horrible experiences.
Xarth42 Yeah like how in splatoon 2 I don’t mind losing one battle at all but when it starts to pile up loss after loss it starts to get really frustrating and it really angers me.
This is just good life advice. Losing is intrinsically linked to learning. Knowing how to get the most out of a bad outcome helps you in learning just about everything because you become invested in the journey instead of the destination which will inherently always be out of reach as you'll continue to set new destinations as you reach them.
Thanks! I really needed this. Not with gaming, but for life in general, and you made it pretty clear that I'm playing life wrong :D I hope that you reach as many people as possible, because this video is great! (But yes, I hate losing Pokémon battles XDD)
For me it kinda depends on
1) how I lose
and
2) how my teammates react.
1) Happens a lot in fighting games for me: Sometimes I lose but it is a close match. And there I feel that I did well and can try to learn what my opponent did better and get better that way but much more often I get absolutely demolished to the point of "what the heck am I even supposed do...ARGH". That is honestly not fun for me and that is also the main reason I play fighting games primarily in singleplayer (and have little interest in fighting games with no or small singleplayer).
2) Did happen to me a lot when I still played League of Legends and (partially) WoW.: Yes, I know I suck but can't you try to tell me what I did wrong instead of saying I'm an idiot? That's pretty much why I don't play MOBAs or MMOs anymore.
[cough] OVERWATCH COMPETITIVE [cough]
Majority of those games. Just find those really nice people and gamer girls and you'll have fun
Coughleagueoflegendscough
I think I saw somewhere Blizzard saying that lack of joy of loosing and toxicity are reasons why making golden weapon system was a mistake
its a salty sweaty mess i mostly play mystery heroes and i have a great time
just play with friends it makes every game funner even when you are losing
This is so true, especially the "Team Leading" part. I remember playing Battlefield 1, and waving and shooting my gun at a team mate's feet, who was not even on my squad, to tell them to help me guard this one door that people were trying to get through. We stuck around for a while and did pretty well, and it turned out to be fun.
Another good example was me working with a teammate to help fly a plane, where I would use the gunner seat to only keep spotting instead of shooting. We spent a whole round doing that, decimating a trench line with accurate bombs.
Bottom line, team play really does feel amazing, even if it's just simple stuff like pointing out guys or helping guard one very specific spot.
This reminds me about my experience of learning how to truly have fun playing MTG years ago when I made a deck only using cards drawn by my favorite artist. In a nutshell, I think it actually made me a the player that I am today. It wasn't that powerful because of its limitations, but I absolutely loved the deck. And instead of feeling frustrated that it has its limitations, it helped me learn the mindset of being the best player I can be DESPITE its limitations.