What annoys you about Multiplayer/Online First-Person-Shooter games?

Games like COD4, COD MW2, BF BC2 and so on.

I had an idea to post this while I was watching youtube videos. I wanted to list my own frustrations and I also wanted to know what other people’s were, and if they shared mine or I shared theirs.

Many of mine are fairly obvious/common. I want to list the things that annoy me about the games themselves, and the things some players do.

The Games themselves

Modern Warfare 2 - removal of cage

They took away the cage mode. I was a legitimate player! I hated the use of that mode by boosters. The removal of that mode has actually been counter-productive and seems to show that the game’s producers (or whoever is responsible for the decision to remove the mode) are either stupid or don’t care enough to actually be aware of what goes on in the game. Because what it has done is forced the boosters to use the Free for All mode. For some this can be a good thing because it provides the oportunity for some righteousness in the form of finding and killing the boosters… and in some cases making their lives more frustrating (as they do for others) by following them from game to game. But for most it just makes FFA a really arse-custardly annoying mode to play.

Modern Warfare 2 - being thrown into the middle of games in progress

What is so hard about giving the person who paid money to own the game the option of only joining ‘lobbies’ or ‘parties’ that are between games?? It’s frustrating to be thrown into a game where the score is 1350 and there is 1:23 left to play. What’s more it creates a false impression of the achievement of those people who were in the game for the full time - For example a really bad player will not come last because people who joined late won’t have had time to get the same amount of kills in order to rise up the scoreboard. Same for the good players - it makes it seem like they beat more people than they actually did.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - infuriating text blocking

The way you can’t use the chat function while dead or when a game ends. Often the first thing you want to do if you’ve been killed by a particularly dirty tactic is put something out there using the chat function… but you have to wait to respawn, by which time you’ve lost the ‘moment’. I accept that it might be good for the game to force people’s rage to subside before they can rant using the chat function but it’s bloody frustrating!

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - inability to strafe while running

This is the first/only game I’ve ever played where this isn’t possible. Run-strafe is the game equivalent to being able to turn your head to the side while running in real life. In other words it is a legitimate ability inherent in human beings. In the game it means that if you are running you are unable to look to one side. You have to stop to a walk to be looking round the corner you are walking round. If you are running you only get to see what’s round the corner once you’ve changed your direction of travel. It might make the game more of a challenge, but it’s off-putting coming to this game and not being able to do something I can do in every other single or multiplayer game

The things gamers do

Modern Warfare 2 - boosting

It annoys me in principle as well as on a basic level. The principal being that the point of boosting seems to be to gain unlocks in order to make your game character better, but surely the obvious way to get better is to play the game properly. You get to gain those unlocks and real actual ability to play the game well through experience. When cage still existed I demonstrated this often. When I was level 38 or so and hadn’t ‘prestiged’ at all I was able to pretty much paint the walls red with players who were level 70 tenth prestige.

Modern Warfare 2 - auto-handgun or shotgun akimbo

This is probably more a fault of the game than the player but these days it seems like the way to win the game is to be using that setup. “Darn I died… let’s watch the killcam… oh surprise - akimbo g18… ‘pok’ ‘pok’ ‘pok’ dead”. There were days where the winners of games were exclusively the people who used this weapon setup. Therefore implying that what won the game was the weapon, not the player.

MW2 and BFBC2 - ‘noobtube’ (grenade launchers)

I believe this is the most common irritation with this type of game, hence the very well known name for it - ‘noobtube’. I’m not sure what to say about this one so I’ll move on.

In general - camping

There are different levels of camping. Some are acceptable. Some less so. The acceptable kind I guess is patroling a section of the map. The unacceptable kind is hiding behind a rock motionless with your sights trained on an area waiting for people to walk into them. Where’s the fun in that?? Come out and fight like a grown-up.

And now things that just annoy me but aren’t really ‘faults’ with games or players

The fact that in BFBC2 I can be running exposed in the open and surviving being shot at but invariably I always die ONCE I’VE GOT INTO COVER! It’s almost like some evil intelligence controling the game is saying “I’ll wait until he’s got behind that wall and then let him die”

The fact that if I find myself suddenly in the midst of one or more enemies who haven’t yet seen me, after having killed someone. I need to reload and it seems to take far longer to actually reload the weapon. And by the time it’s reloaded they’ve seen me and I’m killed. I know this is just my perception (the time taken to reload), but it’s annoying because suddenly I find myself in a situation where I might be able to get a few kills in quick succession but I am weaponarily impotent. (Well I could use the knife or the secondary but both are inadequate for the situation)

ETA: Jumpers - dropshooters

This can probably be considered a ‘skill’ to make you a better player. Jumping like a fucking kangaroo, or having a lie down. I don’t do them so I am eternally annoyed by people who do.
Because of the combination of the things in the OP I find myself struggling to justify playing these games to myself. It’s as if the ‘honeymoon period’ is over. Either I 've got worse or the other players have got more dickheadish (or just better). There are too many highly competitive people in these games to get more than about 50 percent enjoyment out of an evening playing them (the other 50 being frustration)

This pretty much sums up my feeling on multiplayer FPS games, and people’s complaints about “camping” to boot.

So would you prefer a game where it lasts for a couple of days and everybody’s basically just sitting in a bunker waiting for something to shoot at?
I should clarify that camping is obviously vital in games with objectives or things to defend. I am talking about the kind of camping where there isn’t. Just sitting there like a boring venus fly-trap waiting for someone to happen to get near.

Let me make it absolutely clear: I hate multiplayer FPS games and do not play them. For reasons both related and unrelated to those present in the comic. The whole genre for me is functionally unplayable and leads to a whole bunch of bad behaviors, so…

I hate how Modern Warfare 2 ( and really, all of the Call of Duty games so far) insert you into a game that’s already started. I’ve been put in games where it’s almost over and my side is getting wrecked and I have to eat the loss and where I’ve come in on the winning side and taken a victory for essentially entering the game. The party you start the game with is the party you end the game with.

Boosting is a pain in the ass, and, in theory, it’s not possible to do in Halo: Reach. It’s also harder to do in Gears of War, and that’s probably due to the fact where you can’t (and everyone else can) see your rank number in those two games, but you can in previous titles. Remove that rank number, remove the mechanisms, and you remove boosting.

I’d posit that the dual shotguns and dual auto pistols aren’t things “gamers” do, they’re weapon imbalances caused by the game itself. They simply didn’t test out the possibilities. Infinity Ward simply released a bad product with Modern Warfare 2.

Camping is a pain in the ass, but again, camping is something lower-skilled players tend to do because they can’t hang out in the open. Don’t fault them for employing the tactic. Fault the designers for having shitty maps where people can camp and be rewarded for it.

Man, it’s like we’re not even playing the same game. I love online FPS, and possibly for the same reasons you hate it.

The thing that annoys me the most about competitive gaming in general are the people who complain about “cheap” tactics. It’s exactly as if a chess player complained that I castle in every game.

It seems like most of your problems are that you’re playing MW2.

Imbalance and match-external progression mechanics are lame.

Or, how I usually phrase it, “Play Halo”.

What annoys you about Multiplayer/Online First-Person-Shooter games?

Other people.

I have met more dipshits, asshole, morons, imbeciles, asshats, droolers, dumbasses, cockpolishers, and shitheads online than anywhere else over my entire life. You can’t rely on them to guard your back, you can’t rely on them to work together, you can’t even rely on them to actually play the game they’re playing. If they aren’t actively cheating, they’re shooting you in the back of the head so they can take your vehicle, trying to get you voted off cuz you actually managed to shoot them fair n square, or just leaping repeatedly to their death and whining endlessly about it cuz they don’t know what a parachute is. Since I was first griefed on my first MUD way back when, other people have always been the biggest problem online.

Are fucking kidding me? Taking cover and standing still is being a bad player? Because I’m not walking back and forth like a carnival target I’m cheating? Seriously, are you kidding? Cuz that there is some USDA prime grade A bullshit. When you defend a target, do you spend the whole time running around, cuz apparently finding a good field of fire and standing still is somehow wrong? When you know there are enemies coming, do you stand out in the open and wait for them, cuz finding something that might help protect is just plain mean? I can’t even wrap my mind around this attitude.

It’s not necessarily a bad tactic. Clearly it works. It’s cheap, but it’s not a player’s fault for employing the tactic.

I don’t complain about campers or jumpers. I consider it to be a tactic that they use. Sometimes it works for them, sometimes it doesn’t. 'Tubers don’t bother me either, because they may just be trying to unlock perks, attachments, emblems, etc.

One thing that drives me absolutely bonkers though are all the freakin’ amateur rappers and singers who play SS on MW2 (and most recently, RDR). If you’re listening to music while you play and want to sing along, fine. But mute your friggin’ mic. And no one wants to hear your mad free stylin’ skillz. Thank God for Turtle Beach headsets, and toggle mute, but damn what a pain in the ass.

Nope, I still don’t get it. How is it cheap? You’re playing a simulation of a firefight. How is using a standard tactic of firefights cheap?

Something is cheap when it is truly able to neutralize a great skill disparity between two players.

In terms of camping, if Mr. Quake couldn’t kill the camper because he didn’t know he was there, that’s fine. If Mr. Quake couldn’t kill the camper because the camper is in some spot where it is impossible to approach without dying so the area must be avoided, that’s cheap.

Generally, the problem with camping is the way it slows down the game.

There’s nothing cheap about using what the makers of the game have given you to use. It’s up to the designers to balance the game, not the players to handicap themselves.

Nausea, mostly. Also, shooting. I’ve never been able to get past those two to get to the online part.

That’s ridiculous. I can drop through geometry on a number of maps and kill everyone with impunity. You’re saying that’s not cheap because the developers designed the level in such a way to allow that?

Developers aren’t omniscient. They overlook some things and sometimes those things are cheap.

It takes skill out of the game. The immense amount of camping is one of the reasons I really dislike Modern Warfare 2.

There’s a strong flaw in camping: your kills come back to life. And now they know where you are.