Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Now I remember why I'm an MMORPG player
gimmesome
Member Posts: 362
I suck at FPS.
I recently bought BF3 and have been playing all weekend.
(I needed SOMETHING to play while I wait for swtor/guildwars/archage/TSW)
It's a fantastic game. The graphics are second to none. It pulls you in and makes you feel not only like you're a part of the battle, but also as if you're really outside, in the sun, and the dirt, with the trees and the water and the wind. The sound quality is amazing and the intense feeling of danger is always there.
The problem is I simply am not as good as I hoped I would be. I know I'm not supposed to be uberkiller within the first 3 days of playing, but, I'm consistently at the bottom of the ranks in every map I play. Every tip I've followed says to fine tune my mouse, memorize the maps, and think tactically instead of rushing in.... I do this and end up frustrated because:
1) My mouse feels great to me, I just don't seem 'quick' enough
2) Even when I am quicker and fire first, it seems to take more bullets from me to kill them, if at all... while they fire back 1 shot and I die.
3) I don't have all day to play, so memorizing the maps will take a while for me
4) There doesn't seem to be any matchmaking that works, because it seems like every scenerio I'm in with a bunch of hardcores that treat me like I'm supposed to be hardcore too, not taking into account that the game just BARELY launched.
5) While I try to take the time and find the tactical approach, or a good hiding spot, I'm always wtfpwned by someone rushing in, doing exactly what I'm told I'm not supposed to do... If I stop moving, regardless where I am, it feels like someone was following me or watching me the whole time. It's just frustrating.
So, whining aside, I've realized that I really am just not an FPS player. I'm not. I'm no good. I don't have the drive or the time to practice practice practice memorize memorize memorize before the game starts to become fully enjoyable for me. I bought the game because I am now (unfortunately) a casual gamer, with real life items that limit my game time. I thought FPS was the king of the casual games. I thought I could install, jump on, pew pew, have some fun, get some kills, and log off. I was sorely mistaken, and left with a thick feeling of discouragement.
I miss my mmorpgs. I miss my brain being the competitive edge, instead of just my twitch skills. I miss itemization, and customization, and progression having an impact on the outcome of battle. I miss how my comfort with a keyboard and mouse and hotkeys and macros and stat calculations and knowledge of lore/world effected my win/loss ratio. This is what got me into MMORPGs in the first place. On an equal battlefield, I lose if it comes down to who's twitchiness is faster. I like the imbalance that character progression and customization brought. I can win if it comes down to who knows their class better, or who knows the controls better, or who knows when to do what, and where...
I'll be honest, I hate that so many changes in the MMORPG genre have ushered in people from the FPS mindset. This vocal group have complained so much that MMORPGs aren't "Exciting" enough or not filled with constant "action" that the devs have all but given up entirely on the features that seperated MMORPGs and other game genres.
So, now what? 2 months until SWTOR... and that will be a very long 2 months if I have nothing to play in the meantime. I won't go back to WoW, because it's not even a shadow of what it once was. Everything else mmo-wise is either too old and dated; not quality at all because of lack of budget, or not released yet. I want to love BF3, because it really is a HIGH QUALITY game. (and yes, far beyond COD ) But the fact remains, I am not an FPS player.
Anyone else know where I'm coming from on this?
Comments
Your modesty is truely refreshing.
I love fps, but I also want the same things you want out of mmorpgs. They both take some kind of skill.
Wait a bit before playing BF3 again. The people who buy sequels closely within release are the same people who played and loved its predecessor, so you're essentially playing with all the veterans. After a few months, more people with less experience will crop up and you'll have an ideal crowd of people to play amongst.
So what if you suck initially? Getting good at any game takes time. MMORPGs still require some skill but that learning curve is mostly filled in with character progression instead. But I suppose if the frusteration is that unbearable then maybe you are right and MMORPGs are just the thing for you.
I didn't realize that BF3 would be so full of experianced vets already. Old BF games used to be full of cannon fodder noobs.
OP: Maybe it would help to watch some of the many gameplay videos to pick up on how to play better. Just a thought.
People love to blame the FPS crowd for ruining MMOs.
It's the devs though who turned the genre into a simple hack 'n slash fest with little to no depth.
There's so many things you can do with MMOs, it's virtually limitless...But also very hard to pull off technically if you start getting too creative.
Doing simple online action RPGs is easy, cost effective and there's a huge market for it...It's just not the (traditional) MUD/MMO market. How ironic is that?
@ ;DoctrJackal :
That's a very good point that I didn't even begin to consider. It is, indeed, a sequel to a very popular FPS predicessor. It's only logical that the first crop of players are mostly vets from the series.
Thank you for that bit of insight, as it helps me feel a little less stupid about spending $60 for a game that I'm pathetic at playing.
I know exactly how you feel. I LOVE FPS's, but I'm almost 40 and just can't compete with the twitchkiddies the way I used to. This has always been the draw of MMO PVP for me was that it's inherently slower pace gave my knowledge of tactics, game systems, class abilities, and integration more weight. Give me an FPS with an ol' timers bracket, where I'm playing against people within my demographic, people with jobs and RL time constraints and the baggage that adult life entails, and I'd be all over it.
Until then I'll stick with games that are systematically paced.
Warhammer fanatic since '85.
*rolls eyes* oh, come on.
You are playing FPS for some weeks and want to compete on the level of people who played different FPS for decades? It's not that you are "not FPS person", it's just that you can't just get the ball first time in your life and compete with even mediocre player who played the game for decade. Those things take skill, you know.
It's not that your mouse is slow. It's that you don't know instinctively where you should point it a every given moment, so you need to think about it and then move it much further than people who play the game for years. It's not that you need to rush or not to rush, it's that you can't, at a glance, evaluate the situation and your tactical position, advantages and timing, and know, when to rush and when not to rush; when to risk and when not to risk.
I have a pretty bad reaction time, but I have nice tactical feeling of the battlefield, even if I say so myself, so I play on equal terms with much faster "twitchy" players. But it took some serious time - months of playing - to develop that sense.
As for memorizing the map - there is simply no alternative. Those who know the terrain have inherent tactical and strategic advantage over those who don't. That's why in real-life military always memorise map, watch photos, build mockups of areas of operations and train in them...
Now, about balancing. That is a very valid point. Those who have low win/lose ration have to be grouped together, to help them play with their peers and have fun. There should be, probably, "champions" or "rating" regime where should be no such matching, but in everyday, random battles it MUST exist; there is no reason for it not to be.
I don't remember anyone in my life telling me I had to be good at a game to have fun.
"If you have to be good at it to have fun, your not playing a game but rather a sport."
FPS's are kind of like actual sports such as baseball of basketball. In that, if people have been playing FPS's since they were 8, you're going to have a lot of trouble competing against them. Just like how I will always get destroyed in sports because I never played them as a kid.
The basic "play concept" of the FPS has changed very little since Wolfenstein 3D. It's still all about aiming with the mouse and moving with the keyboard. Everything else comes secondary. This has allowed people's FPS skills to transfer over from game to game, and it is really hard to beat someone that has been playing their whole life if you just picked it up.
Oh...and as an aside...
If you want to get lots of points in BF3, just play assault and heal people
. You will get tons of points and be high on the scoreboard. Especially in maps like Operation Metro or Seine Crossing.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Online multiplayer FPS's are pretty much a sport.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Any competing game is a sport. Really.
Please name a game where you compete with another player, he is very good, you are very bad, and both you and he have fun. Just one game.
I'll be here, but will not hold my breath.
I totally get where you're coming from. However, I have been playing MMORPGs for a very long time, and I fully condone the progression approach to the learning curve far more than the "get owned over and over until you memorized everything" approach. I simply can't stomach the idea of seeing my name at the bottom of the ranks every single time I play, for months, (maybe even years?) while I wait for the inherant benefit of redundancy to kick in.
Honestly, this is kind of where I started to question my friends who are always hooked on the fotm FPS at any given time. I ask "what's the point of doing the same 5 maps over and over?" and "you suck dude. I haven't seen you kill anyone yet. You are willing to deal with this over and over until you just remember the spawn points and the hiding spots? once you get to that point, won't you be bored of playing the same maps/scenerios anyway?"
and on the point about the BF3 vets -- The game is visually and audibly STUNNING. Beyond ANYTHING I've EVER played. It requires a certain standard of gaming rig to get the most out of it, and now that the subject of BF vets have come up, I can totally understand why most of the people I'm playing with are FPS vets. I don't think there's too many lame-asses like myself that would have bought such a game so close to launch without feeling the confidence one would feel from being a seasoned FPS player. I'm guessing that the others like myself that just wanted to casually find something fun to fill the gap between MMOs are probably playing COD: (my petname for it is the "Disney" shooter) -- much more casual style and cartoony and less intense. To each their own, of course, but, even tho I suck at fps, it's very clear that BF3 is where the good stuff is in that genre.
Anyone have a suggestion for something good I can get into for a couple months in the MMORPG genre? I know that's not reasonable considering 'what's 2 months?" in an MMORPG. I just want something to customize and share with others and looks good and sounds good and feels good to play.
A drinking game.
lmao, but seriously. Winning is fun. Losing all the time isn't. My exception is Zombie Panic: Source. Losing was occassionally more fun than winning, but that's only because of the nature of the game.
EDIT: If you say "occassionally", you don't need to say "sometimes" in the same sentence.
Any drinking game.
Edit: I see Doc Jackal beat me to the spiked punch. Great minds thinking alike and all.
I feel your pain OP. I play TF2 with my 8 year old son and he routinly beats me at it when we end up on different teams. Nothing is more humiliating then to hear your 8 year old screaming from his room "I killed you dad!".
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
>>I simply can't stomach the idea of seeing my name at the bottom of the ranks every single time I play, for months, (maybe even years?) while I wait for the inherant benefit of redundancy to kick in.<<
Well, you are truly stuck, then. If there is one thing that doesn't bother me - it's having my name at the bottom in games. It's GAMES! Now, if I wasn't absolutely superior to every male in the universe ever in real life, I probably would seek some kind of self-validation through being on top lines in games, but as it stands - who cares! I'm just having fun.
Also, you say "what's 2 months for MMORPG", and yet couple of months for FPS is too much to ask, eh?
Whatever.
Me, I'm playing right now only World of Tanks. "Twitchy/fps" tactical combat + team play. They have an interesting system of balancing, by the way, first 10 matches you play against ONLY newbies like you, with less than 10 matches beside their belts, and then you are balanced by your tank's level.
However, not all tanks are equal; there are light, medium, heavy tanks, anti-tanks and artillery; heavies are the top of the food chain; if you are light or medium you can't compete with them and you are not supposed to; your role in the game is different.
Oh, and when you are heavy/anti-tank/artillery, there is not much of "twitchy" gameplay - you are moving slowly and ponderousy, whole game is in positioning, calculating fire angles, directives and lines-of-sight (complicated stuff, you need to actually read forums/tutorials to make sense of that).
As for mmorpgs...
I've installed DCUO when it went F2P, played through 5 levels and got insanely bored. I probably haven't got to any of the good stuff, but I really couldn't force myself to log in. Same with most other mmorpgs. I will try SWTOR and GW2 when they are out, but other than that, mmorpg world and me are through.
First off whoever said don't rush in dosn't know what their talking about.
You need to rush in and rush in tactically. Rush in, out run, out flank your enemy and accuracy and twitch don't matter when your stabing them or shooting them in the back.
It's not really about memorizing the maps as much as it is about knowing where your enemies are, know what direction they are in so you know if your exposed or not.
Also there are alot of different ways to play FPS if you have crap accuacy like myself you can use guns like shotguns or LMGs which simply rock cause you just hold down the button and crap.
Not to mention that veichles or simply repairing and caping points can be alot of help and alot of fun it's like playing a healer.
The hardest part is figuring out how you like to play games like BF there are soooo many different ways you can play BF3.
So if not rushing in is not working for you, you should try rushing in get a shotgun ot LMG rush in and hold down fire.
But yeah like some people have said people who have been playing FPS for years will have a significant edge over people who don't, don't worry about it.
You need to try different things in a FPS every time you play until you find one way where you don't die as much cause everyone always dies I've only had one BF3 game where I did not die and that was an exceptionm especially since the way I play I tend to die alot.
Also I find that singleplayer FPS of any kind makes me worse at multiplayer it sets up bad habits and crap i don't play singleplayer ever at all just can't do it.
but yeah, I love MMOs too It's definatly more relaxing. I miss alot of the older slower paced more social things in MMOs.
-------------------------------------------------
Achiever 20.00%, Explorer 86.67%, Killer 60.00%, Socializer 33.33%
EKSA
-------------------------------------------------
before you completely give up on BF3 please take in cosideration that this game was made to be played as teams. unlike CoD, BF3 is made to be played as a squad and not by yourself. BF3 can be incredibly frustrating played by yourself because most likely the other team is all on vent, running arround in squads, calling targets, covering each others backs, calling for air strikes/mortars/rpg on your position, etc, etc.
there is a reason that BF3 had no Freeforall option.
to truly have fun in BF you need to joing a clan, share the shame vent and really play as a squad, otherwise you'll pretty much get destroyed every game. think of WoW's premades. BF3 is made to be played by premades.
Better that than if he were saying the same thing standing over you with a bloodied cleaver.
I'm actually recieving BF3 next monday so I hope I don't suck as I do on other FPS...but I'm sure I will. I still have fun none-the-less.
As someone stated above your reply; Losing all the time is not fun. It's the rare person that finds fun regardless of outcome in a competitive environment. (so what, you're one of the rare exceptions who can "just have fun!" even when they never win... yippie and bravo, I hope you feel better about yourself now that you belittled me and brought it to a psychology issue of self-validation instead of the simplistic nature of the conversation)
Also, Ironically enough, I downloaded and played World of Tanks just before I decided to go out and buy BF3. As an oldschool MECHWARRIOR fan, I found the combat style of WoT very intriguing, and there was some entertainment value for sure. It was FPS, sure... but it was paced the way I like fps. SLOW and TACTICAL and not so much rewarding for the hyper-active reflex. I saw the vehicle combat in gameplay footage for BF3 and immediately uninstalled WoT for a more realistic experience. My mistake eh?
P.S. Try Team Fortress 2 for a change? It's an epithomy of twitchy combat, and yet fun - the best thing that you can play roles where ANYBODY could shine, just anybody! For example, play as medic, find yourself a Fat Guy with a machine gun, point your gun at him - and now HE has to do all the thinking, tactics, guarding himself and you, etc etc - all you need is to try to keep out of the way of bullets while keeping your medigun in his general direction - and you can be at the top of the table that way!
Or Pyro, my favorite. Turn on your flamethrower and rush-rush-rush. You will inevitably die, but it's a great fun to put other players on fire and hear them scream.
Or an engineer. Build your dispenser and your gun, hide behind it and repair it. You won't be at the top, but you'll do your part of the fight. You can truly shine as engineer if you are skilled; but if you are not, it's hard to truly suck.
Don't play sniper, spy or scout, though. Those are for real pros - if you want to play them well.
The game is old - but I still play it and don't feel that graphics are harming it.
To an extent, this leads me to recall my recent adventures into DCUO. I have played CoH off and on since the beta back in '04. I really wish that CoH would do an actual graphics engine update rather than just tweak the engine to look better - and - I've wanted three color choices for costume pieces since beta.
Having seen clips of DCUO, I knew it was visually stunning compared to CoH. Having seen clips on character creation, even though it was a limited form of three color with the palette - it was still three color options!
SOE is honest about their game - right there on the FAQ, they call it a MMOAG instead of a MMORPG. So there was no bait and switch as there is with many games - I knew (or at least I thought I knew) exactly what I was getting into...
...and man, I suck at trying to do anything but the basic weapon moves and using the powers.
Tap, Regular, Hold...Tap x2, Hold x2 . . . then combinations of them.
I've used a mouse since '86 (that's a quarter of a century - 25 some years). I've argued that FPS games are best with keyboard and mouse. I'm generally very comfortable with my mouse skills - often to the point of getting frustrated and annoyed while trying to show somebody something where they're using the mouse (the typical, "Oh dear God, just let me do it..." sort of thing.
For the life of me though, I can rarely pull off a Hold x2. The various combos are almost impossible for me.
It's like, "God damn it, that was a tap, hold, hold!" - as the game does something entirely different than I was expecting.
It's kind of funny, by comparison - fighting games on consoles. I thrive on those - I love all the awesome combos. I bought my Genesis, Dreamcast, PlayStation, and X-Box for fighting games.
My thumb is mightier than my index finger when it comes to pulling off such things obviously...lol.
But then I started to think about why I prefer MMOPRGs/SPRPGs to action/adventure games. I direct the character's actions - rather than being responsible for them directly.
If the character has an ability that does A - I direct the character to carry out said action. It is not a case that I have to do a complicated series of actions for the ability to take place. I'm playing the character - it's a RPG. I'm not doing the action - it's not an action/adventure game.
My limited time in DCUO, left me really wishing that CoH would upgrade the graphics engine and add three colors.
I prefer RPGs...not action games.
Do have to give props to SOE for not misleading anybody about what the game is - (and it is rare for me to give SOE props) - but in being honest about it, they've done something most companies do not.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Good point as well... That sucks for me tho, because I hated how unfun WoW bg's and arenas were if you were going against a premade in a PUG. I don't have a clan or guild or group of gamers accessible every time I have free time to play. I'm an adult with adult responsibilities and gaming is my hobby, NOT MY LIFESTYLE.
I do understand the team aspect, as I don't expect to be the lone-gunner that blew everything up. Unfortunately, I don't like using VENT in games anymore (unless it's with people I actually know) -- and so far in the BF3 maps, most of the time we're all just "quick match" and not premade, so everyone's off doing their own thing, with the occasional 1-3 man buddy group flying in a helicopter together.
I appreciate the response, but I'm honestly not about to join some clan just so I can enjoy the few minutes to an hour I have to play a casual videogame. If i'm going to put that sort of time and socialization in, I want a lot more than BF3 can offer.... for instance, I want an MMORPG
Oh, come on, I wasn't trying to belittle you or anyone else, I was praising myself and boasting about myself. Man, do I love myself and to speak of myself!
I honestly wasn't thinking that anybody would consider that tirade as "belittling", especially since I was self-ironic. I don't really think that I'm the best thing evar; it was just a first explanation that came into my head on why I wouldn't mind losing, and I didn't stop to even think about it before writing.
This depends on the person IMO, I suck at basketball, I'm short and most of my friends are tall so of course i lose in one on one quite a bit. Either way win or lose I have a a lot of fun playing.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson