Modern gamer psychology and how I hope it does not influence the future development of Planetside 2.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Baleur, Jan 11, 2013.

  1. Baleur

    This is a thread that has been in the making in my head since late beta.
    I really have no idea how to properly lay this out, so I'll just write down my thoughts in a rather irregular fashion.
    I apologize if it sounds like nonsense, it probably will offend a great deal of you, as the majority falls into the category of gamers I will discuss.
    If this thread ends up just recieving the same nonsense flame replies that many other threads recieve, I'll simply not read them. It's not worth the trouble. They are just proving my point.
    For the rest of you, I invite you to a discussion about this topic, and what, if anything, can be done to gradually change the modern psychology of current generation gamers.

    Disclamers:
    1. This has nothing to do with player skill.
    2. This has nothing to do with player age.
    3. This has everything to do with maturity.


    I'm only 27, I'm not even an old man or a father. Yet when it comes to this I feel very old, like a relic of a by-gone age.
    I belong to the sort-of-first generation of gamers. I did not play Pong or Pacman, but i played all that followed, ever since the Commodore 64 and 8-bit NES.
    In "my time", when we played games, as we used to, we played to have fun.
    I used to play a whole bunch of different strategy games, rts games and fps games with my friends. We played until we became one with the game, we played so much that we learnt the ins and outs of the games we loved, with not even a single second spent thinking about "game balance".

    The words "overpowered" or "underpowered" did not exist in our vocabulary.
    We didn't think in the same ways that todays gamers think.
    When we failed, when we failed against an opponent in a game we never once thought about what was wrong about the game. We thought about what was wrong with our own playstyle, or our own preformance within that game.
    We discussed weapons that we had a hard time using, and figured out situations and ways to properly take advantage of them. We discussed units and factions we had a hard time using, and figured out what we did wrong and what we had to change in order to succeed with them.

    We did not consider the games to be faulty, even if they in some cases probably were.
    We dealt with what the game provided, and "manned up" to figure out how to handle it.



    Today, things have changed.
    Today gamers don't do this anymore. Some of the ones that do are called pro-gamers, because it is something rare these days to see a person adapt and become proficent in more than 1 thing. A player that doesn't have a loser mentality and goes on forums to cry, but rather wipes himself off and dives back in to try to better himself and his preformance.

    It is strange how this, which was once part of every gamer, is now largely reserved for the pro scene.
    Again, what I am discussing has nothing to do about skill. It is about player mentality.

    Today, if a gamer does poorly in a game, no matter what genre, he or she (mostly "he", i've noticed female gamers are quite alot more careful about prematurely judging faults within the game compared to males), instantly jumps to a sort of cyber-paranoid delusion that the game and game developers are out to "get him".
    That the entire game world is balanced in such a way to make it as hard and unfair as possible for the player in question.

    There is no attempt at analyzing the situation. There is no attempt at trying to better himself as a player.
    The only thing he resorts to is this delusion that the entire world is unfair, and his unbelievably inhuman skills can not possibly have been at fault.
    Every gamer today is a self-entitled professional with flawless tactics and skill, and any shred of evidence to the contrary is objective proof that the game in question is unbalanced against his favor.

    Sid Meier talked quite a bit about this very topic, how he even had to change the random number generator for combat in Civilization, because players felt that the computer was "cheating" if they lost a 2:1 odds battle, despite the mathematical possibility of such a loss.
    This lead to the inclusion of "cheats" in favor of the player, to feed their self-delusions. The players got a certain number of "free wins", despite the combat odds, each turn. This is but one example of how an increasing loser mentality among gamers can negatively affect the mechanics of a game during development.

    It makes me sad to see. And a bit "scared". In the sense that I've seen games I knew and loved be turned into garbage because developers listened too intently to the vocal new generation playerbase, as opposed to sticking with their original vision and quite frankly better more mature judgement.



    I'm scared that the same thing will happen to Planetside 2.
    Because it has happened to the entire games industry.
    Games these days require no thought, and are designed to be as mind-numbingly simplistic as possible to avoid sparking the flame of the new generation of gamers delusions about imbalance and their own imagined self-importance.

    Games become homogenized indistinguishable clones of each other, as nobody dares to strive too far off the fine balance to keep players egos satisfied with imaginary achievements (You got TRIPLE KILL!! 300 xp!), while still retaining some shred of varied gameplay at all.

    This is not about improvements that could and should be made to games, such as more metagame for Planetside 2.
    This is about players ragequitting after 15 minutes, claiming that the game is unbalanced, without learning the ins and outs of the game first. And the risk of such a community negatively affecting the development path the game takes.

    Higby, T-Ray, Maggie, Jimmy, and all others..
    Please use your best judgement, regarding balance.
    We don't need another game where everything are carbon copies of each other, where player skill and self-improvement has lost ground to self-delusions of grandeur.

    Discuss.
    • Up x 93
  2. D0n

    Lol, this game only has 2 choices and they are both horrible at the moment.
  3. {joer

    True post but this part does amuse me a bit. I recall playing civ 1 where your battleship might be destroyed by a phalanx unit. Mathematically possible but historically made me want to throw things at the computer ;)
    • Up x 12
  4. ImGladUmad

    The Golden Gun Was OP.


    Back then online wasn't really existent...you weren't buying weapons that claimed to do something but actually suck at doing that.


    Is Apples and oranges.



    Also this is your main comparison in your argument.


    Kids Mind(which you were at the time u mentioned u played) vs Adult Mind.



    Of course when we were kids we didn't give a damn about things being unfair, it was fun......Now we care about fun but see it in a way of balancing when it comes to MMO's like Planetside 2.
    • Up x 2
  5. deaded

    Writing such a plea to SOE and showing you are VS with your profile pic is asking for trouble, man.

    That being said, Im sure when it comes to infantry combat SOE got tons and tons of data to analyze regarding the performance of the different factions guns in a "real world" setting, not just spreadsheet bs. Nor do I think they listen to these threads, they do their own tests and analysis.

    Personally Im fairly certain, after close to 100 BR across all 3 factions, that NC guns are much harder to use - and in SOE's data it will show up as such. VS guns are silly easy. TR somewhere in the mid. Ye, they might have the same potential on a dps dummy under perfect conditions, but not during actual gameplay and in shootouts.

    Imo, NC guns real problem is how relatively hard it is to land headshots with bursts and compensating for silly recoil (esp when getting shot yourself), compared to the other factions. Headshots is where its at, and is where NC guns are subpar compared to VS/TR. But Im sure SOE will figure it out themself if its an issue.
    • Up x 1
  6. Badname3073

    That's because today's population is extremely immature and insecure (which is also one of the results of society computerization). Therefore, the games are being interpreted as challenges which determine the specimen's rank in the society. It is quite sick, but that's how things are.
  7. AnnPerkins

    I'm not really sure why you posted this. These are forums intended for discussion. You are just throwing out this jaded view of gamers in general with no real conclusion.
    • Up x 1
  8. Dingus148

    True enough, I agree in part. But remember the Zerg rush? Or the Flash rush in TA? Biorifle lag spam in UT (although maybe that was living in rural Australia...lag used to always be my biggest rage-inducer). Balance issues have always existed. Doesn't mean you can't overcome them, but it did promote tactics that were samey. Innovation was rare in early Starcraft. Comparing that to Total Annihilation, the devs released a new unit every week to counter any 'poor' tactics. The Flash rush was countered very quickly with Core's Immolator tower, a short-ranged, cheap plasma cannon. If you suspected a flash rush, a few of these towers would counter it almost entirely.

    Earlier generations of gamers didn't play multiplayer games that were so...rigid, either. Back in the day, you'd just institute a server rule that any potential BFG wouldn't spawn, or you'd create a map that promoted balanced gameplay. Good maps would rise into regular rotation (poor ones would never get a go), good weapons would become regular fixtures, awesome mutators were ubiquitous. Devs these days don't give the community the tools to create their own content, because they figured out they can charge $15 for map packs if they keep map-making tools away from players.

    Games these days are undoubtedly dumbed down, and the generation of gamers coming through seem to reject challenging single-player. But I disagree that you can't consider a game faulty if it has issues. If the devs won't allow the community to fix the problems, then it has a duty to fix it themselves. This being the case, the VS/TR nerf war is stupid. I'm TR, and I enjoy TR. (I enjoy NC better, but I hate their aesthetic.) VS are just about on an even level...sometimes we come out on top, sometimes they do. NC need a slight buff, because they seem to suffer somewhat. /discussion, and everything else is more or less L2P

    (Not saying that the denizens of the internet are in any way the answer, but I think we all wear a share of the problem. Calling OP/UP is a symptom, not the disease...same as the 'entitled gamer'. I think they're entitled because now moreso than ever players are powerless, and this has been publisher/dev intent for some time now)
    • Up x 6
  9. Killjoy2503

    I'm kind of in the same boat as OP.

    Games used to be a lot more frustrating/difficult. Which ment fun, since you had to grind the game. Like Mario.

    Now game devs cater to casual players. First by making the frustration factor non-existant. Meaning health re-gen, mini map radar based on firing weapons, ability to spawn in 10 seconds after you died, on near the same spot.

    But this is what the success formula is suppose to be, especially if you look at games like COD. But this is only ment for increasing sales to max.j

    These days, games hold your hand while playing.
    - Like A2AM , fire and forget non sense. For players with no aim/skill.
    - Like the HUD, anything is marked, or people won't know the difference. Any enemy in range? Instantly marked with a red marker.

    Or anything else I missed.
    • Up x 3
  10. Talizzar

    Welcome to today's new society where everyone is a winner and there are no losers. Everyone gets a ribbon, everything is politically correct. Nobody works for anything and they expect everything. The best lessons in life were learned by failing and trying again. Today it is if I lose my gun sucks or the other guy was cheating. Nobody takes responsibility for their own actions....Ok very few.

    It is sad to read that a game designer had to incorporate built in cheats to make players feel adequate.

    I am an old man and have kids and have been playing games on computers for a very long time. I agree that gaming has changed a great deal. I hate to say this but some of the best online gaming happened long for before there were graphical games. The games were multiplayer worlds and everything was in text. You actually had to use you imagination and you paid by the hour!

    I never had to walk to school up hill both ways in 6ft of snow but it is sad to see so many game companies and devs cave into to constant unsubstantiated QQing.
    • Up x 16
  11. LameFox

    Older games also were much simpler and had less things to take into account balance-wise.

    How in Dante's nine levels of hell did you use Mario Bros and/or Super Mario as an example and complain that now games are directed at casual players? o_O
    • Up x 2
  12. Xarx

    This does bug me a lot.
    Especially when time and time again videos are posted which show the difference between the empires is almost nothing.
    A lot of people these days can't accept that there are others out there that are better than they are so they go looking for something else to blame it on.
    • Up x 2
  13. Fligsnurt

    I'm going to start off by saying in no way does the OP state anything about the balance of the current game (Planetside 2) regardless of his perceived faction. Though I agree with him, you look at the most whined over threads X vs Y is OP Z vs X is UP, more so we see people who do overly well with certain load outs and then everyone sees this one way or another and does it themselves finding its easy to use. This leads to FotM mentality and it kills game balance sure but it doesn't mean for sure that said tactic is OP. You can argue about mines vs mineguard tactics, ground vs air tactics, and faction vs faction tactics but all in all only the DEVs have the position to decide what is unfair / being abused.

    Also I'd like to add to the OPs DISCUSSION that I've noticed a steep decline in the maturity / mentality of players since the rise of console gaming. Almost as soon as gaming companies decided that consoles were where the money was at (easier to code for, cheaper then PCs equaling larger player base. Which has caused serious issues with balance and playability of games that are "ported" back from consoles to PC) and accompanied with our current instant gratification society and the new generation of parents literally being afraid / unable / doesn't care enough to discipline and raise their kids right we have been left with a large amount of underage "gamers" who are far to immature for the games they are being bought and allowed to play. On top of this these kids are being encouraged to do bad behavior by the community and lack of discipline they get for stepping out of line. The rise of "trolling" and "griefing" as popular and massively amusing behaviors has also done nothing but bring gaming down as a whole. You can also attribute the ability to remain anonymous on the internet that encourages "internet tough guys" instead of people who are less likely to step out of line because people are able to figure out who they are.

    All in all it comes down to our ever collapsing society, the ability to act as you want without consequences on the net, money grubbing over quality products, and the inability of parents to do what needs to be done. And because of all of these issues the people that remember when communities weren't full of whiners and foul mouthed rage mongers and remember when games were released when they were ready instead of being finished after the fact, that as a group are becoming the outcasts in gaming. On top of this bad "gamers" breed these behaviors into others, one guy who continuously whines and rages will eventually spread this behavior to everyone around him or drive them away from the game he is playing only leaving these kinds of people around. Its like a d**n virus.

    As far as ways to deal with these people and weed them from the community, about the only thing that will work is DEVs / MODs stepping up to police the behavior of the individuals on the forums / on the game. This will cause even more whining because peoples make believe internet rights will be smashed in this new "police state" and everyone will be up in arms (look at what happened when blizzard tried to removed anonymity from their forums, holy sh*t.) and there will be a mass exodus from the game which honestly would be for the best but in turn this would hurt profits and that isn't ok on the corporate level. The first company to step up to A**hats on the net are the current DEVs for Halo, which is funny to hear me praise since I dislike halo and have since the second one. Their will to drive out sexism from their gaming community is an inspiration and all gaming companies should see them as pioneers and step up to be as good as them. H*ll even go one step further, smash racism, bigotry, and sexism from their games. Put real consequences on those who feel that they can behave how ever they want.

    Just my two bits.
    • Up x 8
  14. beastmode619

    It's like you read my mind and put it in the forums.

    Today's gamers (the bad ones of them) rage quit. QQ.

    If it were paper rock scissors they'd probably complain that ROCK is OP and should be nerfed so that paper can stand a Chance against it -_-


    I am an old school gamer as well. I adapt. I adjust. I reevaluate.
    I EVEN QUIT planet side 2 and uninstalled it...but I came BACK.

    Why? Because deep down I knew I was doing something wrong.

    If I want to kill tanks I better get anti tank missles.
    If I want a good squad I can't wait for a leader I have to man up and LEAD my self.

    That old school gamer style is dying... It's sad but true. Hopefully we can keep it alive! There's still some of us out there!
    • Up x 6
  15. Otleaz

    Yeah, no. It is not gamer psychology, it is design philosophy.

    Games back then were fun, not because we had a different mind, but because they were not designed like modern games, with grinds, loadouts and unlocks. When you played, you played next to each other on the same screen, and competition was often friendly. Overpowered weapons didn't exist because weapons were scattered around the map, rather than chosen at the start.

    Balance did rarely get touched on with fighting games, but those games were so complex it was hard to state anything as fact.


    Blaming this on the players is obscene and disgusting.
    • Up x 4
  16. Iksniljiksul

    Pit trap, oil soaked logs, BBQ roasted whitey in a tin can.

    Tanks are very easy to take out, that's why they require infantry support.
  17. Freyar

    I've been playing my current character without any (or many) certs being spent. (612+ in reserve.) I can still play alright, as long as I'm willing to change kits as necessary.
    • Up x 1
  18. anaverageguy

    Lol. If you have difficulty landing headshots with NC guns, that's your problem man. All you have to do is aim at the chest or neck and the recoil sends bullets right into their face.
    • Up x 2
  19. beastmode619




    an interesting analysis... But to be fair the golden gun was overpowered.

    The point that the OP is trying to make is that todays gamers act as if EVERY GUN is the golden gun.
    People accuse everything of being overpowered. The golden gun WAS a 100% ONE SHOT KILL.

    these days...a guy owns you by pure skill and people cry out OVERPOWERED etc...


    Medics will cry about airplanes killing them and needing to have their damage lowered...when its AN AIRPLANE...shooting an infantry lol...


    OVERALL the original posters message is that These people that cry about EVERYTHING being OP....are having a huge impact on the way games are being shaped.

    games are being dumbed down to appeal to the masses. IMO...the reason games are being dumbed down to a 4 year olds appeal is because DEVS are competing in an age where EVERYTHING attracts your attention.

    i didnt grow up in the ipod era. or the facebook era in middle school. or the GPS skype a friend from anywhere.

    back then when a friend moved...if you didnt have his/her address...they were gone for LIFE lol. now days you can keep in touch with anybody.


    with so many cool things in todays generation. DEVS have to fight for every scrap of fanbase they can get. and this is why they cater to the masses... the all mighty dollar pays the bills.

    verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry few companies STICK to their roots and find ways to make money AND hold the INTEGRITY of their product. planetside 2 is one of them and its why i am a premium member. because i support companies that arent scared to do something BIG!
    • Up x 2
  20. Pruto

    The saving grace of PS2 and other MMOs is that moderation is at the discretion of the devs, and not, for instance, over zealous fast food managers that post novels about the collapse of society and lack of maturity found on online games