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Multiplayer comes with social obligation. I’m messing up other people’s good time if I drop the controller and vanish for five minutes. I don’t feel comfortabl

Multiplayer comes with social obligation. I’m messing up other people’s good time if I drop the controller and vanish for five minutes. I don’t feel comfortable doing that unless the chance of an interruption is extremely close to zero. Stresses me out.

slothtrop 2y ago
This is the big one to me, time commitment. People spend hours on these, and if you want to "hang" with an in-group, they expect you to put in the time. No thanks. I don't want a lifestyle revolving around maximizing time on a multiplayer game. If I'm going to commit time every week it might as well be a physical sport. I do like couch co-op or occasional online play with friends but that is off-the-cuff stuff. I'd be willing to do it more frequently if the time were capped.
- valval 2y ago
  I imagine you’d find friends to play with who are able to dedicate the same amount of commitment as you are.
jayd16 2y ago
Yeah. FFA pvp is less stressful because you only have your own fate to worry about. If you need to go AFK it's you just sacrifice a match. ...team pvp or even coop games need much more commitment.
- tharkun__ 2y ago
  Not my experience. You are right that it's less of an issue. But I very definitely stressed about individual matches and how it affects the ranking and stats. You hold it in until the match finishes and just don't join the next one right away but you still change your behavior. Or in something like WoW PvP servers you go somewhere safe before logging out etc. SP? Hit the pause button and go.
  - techjamie 2y ago
    What I dislike is how much more uncommon random matchups are. I find ranked stressful because it incentivizes making the number go up, so I prefer to be an eternal Quick Play player. But a lot of QP systems still use shadow rankings that influence who you get paired with, and they tend to give me very ping-pong results. One game I'm dominating against the other team, but then the ball hits the other side and get paired with people above my level for the next several. It kinda makes me feel like the agency on how well I can perform is taken away from me, and I just have to hope the matchmaking system takes pity. At least when matches were more random, sometimes I'd get paired with people above my level, but it was rare that it felt completely rigged against me.
thot_experiment 2y ago
You can always solo queue fortnight/apex or whatever. The worst case is you die cause you had to deal with the kid/cat/work call, if you focus on the fun of the individual engagements and don't worry about actually winning the match you'll have fun. I do understand what you're saying, multiplayer gaming does require much more intentionality. You have to make distraction free time to get the most out of it, especially if you're playing a team game there's a social contract to have the time to play the match out.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  Repeatedly dying to screaming tweens is not any fun for me
  - valval 2y ago
    You don’t have to participate in the voice chat.
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
      Yeah but if you play a multiplayer without the "with other people" component, you are getting are strictly worse experience than a single player
mrweasel 2y ago
> Multiplayer comes with social obligation. My wife uses video games to relax and de-stress after having dealt with customers all day. Having to deal with more people in the evening is the last thing she needs.

slothtrop 2y ago

This is the big one to me, time commitment. People spend hours on these, and if you want to "hang" with an in-group, they expect you to put in the time. No thanks. I don't want a lifestyle revolving around maximizing time on a multiplayer game. If I'm going to commit time every week it might as well be a physical sport. I do like couch co-op or occasional online play with friends but that is off-the-cuff stuff. I'd be willing to do it more frequently if the time were capped.

valval 2y ago
I imagine you’d find friends to play with who are able to dedicate the same amount of commitment as you are.

jayd16 2y ago

Yeah. FFA pvp is less stressful because you only have your own fate to worry about. If you need to go AFK it's you just sacrifice a match. ...team pvp or even coop games need much more commitment.

tharkun__ 2y ago
Not my experience. You are right that it's less of an issue. But I very definitely stressed about individual matches and how it affects the ranking and stats. You hold it in until the match finishes and just don't join the next one right away but you still change your behavior. Or in something like WoW PvP servers you go somewhere safe before logging out etc. SP? Hit the pause button and go.
- techjamie 2y ago
  What I dislike is how much more uncommon random matchups are. I find ranked stressful because it incentivizes making the number go up, so I prefer to be an eternal Quick Play player. But a lot of QP systems still use shadow rankings that influence who you get paired with, and they tend to give me very ping-pong results. One game I'm dominating against the other team, but then the ball hits the other side and get paired with people above my level for the next several. It kinda makes me feel like the agency on how well I can perform is taken away from me, and I just have to hope the matchmaking system takes pity. At least when matches were more random, sometimes I'd get paired with people above my level, but it was rare that it felt completely rigged against me.

thot_experiment 2y ago

You can always solo queue fortnight/apex or whatever. The worst case is you die cause you had to deal with the kid/cat/work call, if you focus on the fun of the individual engagements and don't worry about actually winning the match you'll have fun. I do understand what you're saying, multiplayer gaming does require much more intentionality. You have to make distraction free time to get the most out of it, especially if you're playing a team game there's a social contract to have the time to play the match out.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
Repeatedly dying to screaming tweens is not any fun for me
- valval 2y ago
  You don’t have to participate in the voice chat.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
    Yeah but if you play a multiplayer without the "with other people" component, you are getting are strictly worse experience than a single player

mrweasel 2y ago

> Multiplayer comes with social obligation. My wife uses video games to relax and de-stress after having dealt with customers all day. Having to deal with more people in the evening is the last thing she needs.