Competitive play and Meaning (Destiny)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Sunday, June 18, 2017, 19:25 (2805 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by Korny, Sunday, June 18, 2017, 19:28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWFX4vfn9w

Datto's argument is that he is concerned because it appears that competitive players will not be rewarded when it comes to PvP in Des2ny.

You've got to let the good players be good, and reward them for it. I want to see people in Masters get a new weapon skin for being in masters… right now the vibe I am getting is that they don't want to make the competitive experience rich and meaningful and rewarding.

This argument is wrong, and he is operating under an incorrect assumption about competitive players.

Wow. never thought I'd see a post where you're not worshiping the ground that that Datto tool walks on.

They don't need to be rewarded, because the competition is the reward. Playing good opponents and getting better is itself the prize, just how it has been since the days of Quake and Street Fighter 2. I agree that there should be some sort of system to help you gauge your improvement, like stats or a rank or something, but as far as rewards go, no true competitive player will care.

Competitive players are cancer. I dread the day that Bungie starts catering to them the same way the spineless 343i did.
They should not expect to get special treatment or "rewards" simply for being good, as if that's what makes the competitive experience "rich and meaningful and rewarding".

In fact, rewards for competitive play often lead to toxic behavior - just look at all the lag switchers in Trials and the like. This is because the reward takes precedence. Again, I cannot say enough how non intrinsic rewards poison everything when it comes to video games.

It exacerbates the existing toxic behavior, yes. And see, the thing is that this is clearly visible. Look at Overwatch. When the game came out, the community was ridiculously positive, the matches were about fun, and the game highlighted players for recognition when they contributed to their team in ways besides 'got the most kills". Articles were written about this miraculously "Troll-free Shooter"... And then Blizzard added "Competitive Mode".

Competitive Mode is everything bad about Halo 2's ranking system, but with a stronger emphasis on punishing players when their teammates aren't the greatest. Almost overnight, the game became a cesspool of toxic behavior, and much of that toxicity came from your own team. Because of the special rewards for doing well in competitive (gold skins for your guns and animated sprays), cheating (including the explosion of mouse and keyboard adapters for console) and hostility became rampant. Now articles are written about how Blizzard is combating the toxic community. And the worst part is that the Competitive mode is seasonal, so those toxic tryhards pour back out into the regular playlists periodically, and make everything worse for everyone. The game is intermittently unbearable. I've literally never played a single round of Competitive Mode, and I don't intend to; it's bad enough where winning doesn't matter.

If your game is fun and deep, lets you play against skilled opponents, and lets you improve, then that is all the reward a competitive player will need to stay engaged and have meaningful play time.

Like Cruel said, Titanfall 2 is this in spades. 100% of non-cosmetic unlocks can be unlocked at any time with in-game currency that you get simply from playing the game. Cosmetic unlocks rely on using the thing that you want to unlock the skins for. Nothing rewards the higher-tier players, and nothing punishes lower-tier players. The only incentive that you have to play the game is to have fun and get better.

Destiny had it right at launch when the lowest-skilled player in the match could get a Gjallarhorn to drop.