Part of this goes back to skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) systems becoming the standard. It used to be I would just play Counter-Strike on a local server because

Part of this goes back to skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) systems becoming the standard. It used to be I would just play Counter-Strike on a local server because it had the best ping, by far. The same people were playing there all the time, so there was a sense of community, and I could really see myself improve over time in the stats and match results. With SBMM I get punished for playing better by getting matched against harder and harder opponents so that it feels like treading water, even in "unranked" game modes. SBMM is also an abusable system, as dedicated players will often make several accounts to play on and take advantage of their assumed lack of skill as their matchmaking rank is calibrated, throwing the whole thing out of whack.