Single Player Vs. Competitive Experience

[Pinkie-Dawn]

It's a debate that's becoming more common in recent years within the video game fandom, in which one side of the fanbase complains how in social-related video games, there's too much focus on the competitive aspect of the game at the cost of an underwhelming single player campaign and vice versa. The Call of Duty series is the most common example of this debate, followed by the Pokemon series since Gen 5, Super Smash Bros. 4, and just recently, Street Fighter 5, as these games were currently being largely criticized by the non-competitive communities for their sub-par single player modes. One of my online friends here greatly despises the competitive community, as they ruin the charm of these games, and he felt sad that some of his favorite franchises are catering to them at the cost of a lackluster story. I'm wondering if any of you guys who share the same feelings as him. Do you prefer a larger focus on single player or are you fine with the larger focus on the competitiveness in hopes that the game would become an esport one day?

 

[Ullion]

I like both aspects to a game. But personally, I think if a game is going to have both PvE and PvP as a huge part of the player experience - then PvE should be the primary focus. Getting the game to have a good plot and settings, character development, replayability, etc. And then you worry about focusing on the competitive aspects behind the game, such as skill balancing, etc.

On the other hand though, if a game is designed for one purpose over the other (such as DotA/LoL for PvP) then obviously the competitive aspect needs to be focused on moreso. I see no reason for a person to complain about a game series designed to be competitive.

I do agree though that some split games (Pokemon, for a good example) could (and should) be focusing more on the single player aspect. It's how the game series started, and should be continued as such - correct? Maybe if GameFreak wants to establish a more well-rounded competitive aspect to Pokemon, they could create a sort of spin-off series for it, highlighting that aspect of the game over the singleplayer options. Thus giving the consumer an option (and the knowledge) of what to buy beforehand?

 

[Teten]

For me, I prefer to focus on the single player aspect of a game in the beginning until I clear the story then after that, I would slowly start to switch my focus to the competitiveness part of the game.

I'd rather see my characters develop first and finish their stories before engaging with any player-to-player activities.

A good game that gives balance to both, imo, would be Guild Wars 2.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

I do agree though that some split games (Pokemon, for a good example) could (and should) be focusing more on the single player aspect. It's how the game series started, and should be continued as such - correct? Maybe if GameFreak wants to establish a more well-rounded competitive aspect to Pokemon, they could create a sort of spin-off series for it, highlighting that aspect of the game over the singleplayer options. Thus giving the consumer an option (and the knowledge) of what to buy beforehand?

There actually is a spin-off game that focuses on the competitive aspect of Pokemon, and it's already out in Japanese arcades and coming to the Wii U one month from now.

 

[JJ Styles]

I actually wanted to make a topic or talk about this for a while but thank you so much for making the thread. And yes I wanted to talk about the large competitive focus of SF5 aka "ESPORTS" and ESPORTS in general.

Sadly, as a multiplayer junkie, I feel that a Competitive Multiplayer focus is a way to be these days ever since 2012. As much as single player is still enjoyable for me whenever I'm taking small breaks from ripping and tearing opponents and carrying teams in League of Legends, I feel that competitive multiplayer is a key these days. A lot of people love to be competitive or want to feel STRONK and want that lovely medal or that Challenger or even at least that Diamond ranking ever since Esports in general has gotten pretty big.

I won't really say much. I've been making fun of the people in the Pokemon General threads for not accepting that Single Player Pokeymangs isn't enough these days. Everyone wants ESPORTS.

Quoting Sundowner, come on guys. Think about the good things ESPORTS has done for us. Why don't we here speeches about that in PC? Jobs? Technology? A common purpose? All I'm saying Jack... GIVE ESPORTS A CHANCE

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

I like both aspects to a game. But personally, I think if a game is going to have both PvE and PvP as a huge part of the player experience - then PvE should be the primary focus. Getting the game to have a good plot and settings, character development, replayability, etc. And then you worry about focusing on the competitive aspects behind the game, such as skill balancing, etc.

I couldnt agree more with this statement. Destiny is a prime example of this; the game has such amazing lore to it but the creators have been focusing primarily on PvP and skill balancing with the last few updates to the game that they've totally neglected the incredibly rich PvE experience and lore that they've established in their game. There's so much indepth untapped potential in PvE through the stories you can look up outside the game that they could most definitely build upon, but they've barely touched it.

In the end, if your game's goal is to be ambitious in being a game that both PvE and PvP players can enjoy and you end up neglecting one side of the game, then your going to alienate a large portion of your gaming audience. Which, unfortunately, is a prime example of what Bungie has done with their franchise at this current point in time.

 

[JJ Styles]

Since someone replied quickly, I do have one advice though, as much as I love to endorse League of Legends a lot in PC, which is why my original username was "Mega XinZhao" and I'm glad that we have a LoL Megathread here in VG, my advice is that competitive scenes take time to grow.

Heck, I could write a 5billion letter essay on how League started out as a pretty obscure and cartoonly looking "Dota spinoff" up to its eventual rise as the most popular esport there is. But that whole process took a lot of time, and heck League back in 2009-2010 wasn't even taken as seriously nor was it the Esports juggernaut that it is now. It took time, acceptance, a growing fandom, and of course it being a multiplayer game from the get-go. I remember Riot admitting years ago that they never thought that League would rise from its roots that strongly.

But I remember that Turbine made game called Infinite Crisis aka "League of Legends with a DC Universe license and skin" that ended up failing hard in the end for being pushed too quickly as a competitive esport or something like that with organizations even making professional teams for said game and holding some tourneys and stuff. Instead of just focusing on things that would appeal the non-competitive or typical yolo-que players, Turbine tried too hard in pushing through that their game was the "next big competitive game" too quickly. Oh and it also kinda adds up big time that the game did nothing to stand out despite the use of the DC License.

 

[Ullion]

While I agree with you, Xin, on the point that Esports should be given more opportunities to grow and such, I think you missed the point of this thread? LoL, DotA, etc are multiplayer-ONLY games. There is no story-mode, singleplayer options for them. They were originally designed and made to be multiplayer and competitive (in nature) games. From what I can tell of the OP, the point is for games that contain both PvP and PvE in their base game and/or the series of a game as a whole and the attention the developers give to one side of the game they work on. Games such as Pokemon, Diablo, Call of Duty, Destiny, MMOs as a whole, etc.

 

[Frequency]

Both should be considered imo, but at the end of the day it comes down to the genre. You can't make a Fighting Game reliant on single player due to its nature. It just isn't possible. So it boils down to the game in question.

 

[JJ Styles]

Guess i got carried away. Also TLDR post incoming because I love this topic so much.

Then again, the whole reason why I did mention League was that although it is a Multiplayer game from the get go, LoL back in the olden days of 2009-2010 wasn't really a big esports hit. Riot worked hard on making sure it was given a lore that made sense and made you feel that you were a part of the experience, whether you just wanted to play for fun or play competitively. Olden days of LoL had a lot of emphasis with lore such as weekly Journals of Justice, much more detailed character lore backgrounds, readings, extra materials, and stuff. It even made sense on how a character in game speaks to you like in your typical RTS game. (Summoners and their champions have a mental telepathy link between each other) Heck, i remember whenever a new champ was introduced, they were even given another lore reading for people detailing how they were accepted in the in-lore storyline. Even though it was a multiplayer game from the get go, it had a lot of stuff to enjoy for those not interested in being the next esports superstars. Its a much different League since 2012 and after Season 2.

Regarding the "issue" with Fighting Games, i pretty much am spot on with the competitive or multiplayer focus. After all, Fighting Games were never meant for that immersive story experience or anything like that. Its all about beating whoever you face, climbing that ladder, become a member of TSM or IMT's fighting games division, and face off against Koreans and Japanese in EVO or SBO, beat Daigo, Momomchi, Chris G, and their future children, and all that. I pretty much saw SF5 coming out of dat delicious multiplayer focus ever since, and you got Combofiend who worked on that game as well.

Now on to the spirit of the topic:

So it boils down to the game in question.

This pretty much seals the whole argument in a nutshell for most part. I mentioned for the most part is that MMORPGs are another big issue, at least in my view, regarding the whole PvE vs PVP/Multiplayer delivery.

Again, i pretty much endorse competitive multiplayer at this point in time. I mentioned before, sometimes just PvE isn't enough these days. There's always that moment where anyone wished they could prove themselves to be better than others in a game with the simplest way to prove it -> Good ol' fashioned player vs player.

Now anyone remember Ragnarok Online?

 

[Frequency]

Regarding the "issue" with Fighting Games, i pretty much am spot on with the competitive or multiplayer focus. After all, Fighting Games were never meant for that immersive story experience or anything like that. Its all about beating whoever you face, climbing that ladder, become a member of TSM or IMT's fighting games division, and face off against Koreans and Japanese in EVO or SBO, beat Daigo, Momomchi, Chris G, and their future children, and all that. I pretty much saw SF5 coming out of dat delicious multiplayer focus ever since, and you got Combofiend who worked on that game as well.

The issue with this is that for some reason (and no offense to those who fall in this category), casuals are starting to care more and more about portions of fighting games that don't matter. Sure, Story mode and Arcade and whatnot are supposed to be in the game yeah *cough* STREET FIGHTER V *cough*, but the main thing that bugs me is that none of these guys are going to actually put time into getting good at the game, and fighting games aren't really meant to be a single player experience. Period. There's no way around that. Capcom made a mistake trying to appeal to a lot of the casual crowd because casuals don't /WANT/ to get good at fighting games. They just want to hit buttons and see stuff happen, and then complain that they aren't getting catered when the game wasn't designed for them in the first place. I feel like more of a defining line needs to be exaggerated when making games so problems like this can be avoided, which is where this question comes into real play.

never got to play Ragnarok but I've heard some stuff lol

 

[JJ Styles]

never got to play Ragnarok but I've heard some stuff lol

Renewal aka "NERF ALL CHARACTERS ESPECIALLY CASTERS BECAUSE THEY ONE SHOT PEOPLE ALL THE TIME with their quick cast Comets, Autocast Soul Strikes, etc"

To summarize The RO Renewal fiasco, a lot of good characters got nerfed to the ground, especially casters who spent so much time one shotting tanks, assassins, archers, champions, and stuff in PVP and even WoE (War of the Emperium) that many of these characters became so hard to play in PVE because of the nerfed mechanics.

I think the issue really with the Single Player vs Multiplayer catering is that there should be no excuse for any game dev team to marginalize the PVE or Single Player content they have to offer. Perhaps one of the finest examples of a game that was pretty popular back in the day, both in console and especially the arcades was Tekken 3. Oh boy.

Tekken 3 Ladies and Grunts. Everyone remember the PSX Console port of Tekken 3? A fighting game that had so much to offer aside from just beating the crap out of the CPU AI on that Ultra Hard setting? Tekken Force? Tekken Ball? Loads of unlockables? CHICKENNNNNNNN? Then again, Tekken 3 was released and was hyper popular at a different era.

I think that some people are using Tekken 3 as their outlier for a game that delivers on both spectrums. Then again i maybe wrong.

 

[Frequency]

Renewal aka "NERF ALL CHARACTERS ESPECIALLY CASTERS BECAUSE THEY ONE SHOT PEOPLE ALL THE TIME with their quick cast Comets, Autocast Soul Strikes, etc"

To summarize The RO Renewal fiasco, a lot of good characters got nerfed to the ground, especially casters who spent so much time one shotting tanks, assassins, archers, champions, and stuff in PVP and even WoE (War of the Emperium) that many of these characters became so hard to play in PVE because of the nerfed mechanics.

Oh, so the window washer nerf. Got it.

I think the issue really with the Single Player vs Multiplayer catering is that there should be no excuse for any game dev team to marginalize the PVE or Single Player content they have to offer. Perhaps one of the finest examples of a game that was pretty popular back in the day, both in console and especially the arcades was Tekken 3. Oh boy.

Now this is debatable, and I don't necessarily agree or disagree. With the advancement of online multiplayer and whatnot, the basis of these games have changed, and not to mention the notion of games taking themselves more seriously as a result of the competitive scene. Tekken for example mitigated this by introducing a more casual alternative which was Tekken Revolution. (Which sucked but that's besides the point)

Again as stated, a lot of these games are subject to only being able to go so far with single player/multiplayer focus, and that's kinda just how it works for a lot of games. JRPGs seldom have room for Multiplayer because of the focus of the game being on the story and whatnot. Some games do it but not always well. Example being White Knight Chronicles 2. So it's really hit or miss in this case. It comes to a point where you have to say "Alright, where do we want to pool resources? Do we want to make this single player option a thing or do we want to fix the garbage netcode?"

 

[Spinosaurus]

Street Fighter lives and dies by its multiplayer/competitive audience. That's how it started. In the arcades. SFIV lasted the entire generation and then some for a reason.

SFV's current state is necessary because Capcom Pro Tour starts this month, so it needed to be released early. Pros simply can't wait, this is a huge game and it had to be out. Fans that want more single player modes can wait until they're added. Capcom made the right move. (But could have done a lot better with the online, for the people actually trying to get good at the game.)

I like my single player, but in competitive focused games (this doesn't include Pokemon and Smash), multiplayer takes a higher priority, even if it doesn't cater to me. In the end its all about managing resources and what works best for the target audience.

 

[Arsenic]

I will use The Division as an example since I recently played it's PvE and PvP.

Now from what I got out of the demo beta was a decently built world, with some surprisingly good feeling combat, but mediocre loot till you go to the PvEvP Dark Zone. The multi-player for me is horribly out of whack and too strongly encouraged betraying your friends and other players just trying to extract a decent pair of pants. You get money for the killing blow, you get money for surviving the "rogue timer" not to mention you get any loot the player was carrying. It feels out of place in an otherwise coop oriented game about restoring order.

This is how multi-player feels in a lot of games. A tacked on afterthought to appeal to the "eSPORTS iz best bruh swag" crowd. That time would have been much better spent fine tuning the single-player/coop game and adding more interesting stuff toothed world.

Now multi-player focused games do the same as above for single-player campaigns. They could spend the time they used making SP to add more content for MP. Or spend the time to make an SP that doesn't suck via out of house contract.


And on eSPORTS... Yuck. It instantly turns any community into a bunch of vulgar and whiney tryhards and strips the soul out of the game in favor of streamlining...

 

[Frequency]

I will use The Division as an example since I recently played it's PvE and PvP.

Now from what I got out of the demo beta was a decently built world, with some surprisingly good feeling combat, but mediocre loot till you go to the PvEvP Dark Zone. The multi-player for me is horribly out of whack and too strongly encouraged betraying your friends and other players just trying to extract a decent pair of pants. You get money for the killing blow, you get money for surviving the "rogue timer" not to mention you get any loot the player was carrying. It feels out of place in an otherwise coop oriented game about restoring order.

While you aren't wrong, I feel like it'll be a different case in the actual game, where you can do PvE content that's extremely tough to get drops that are just as good. We'll see though.

 

[JJ Styles]

And on eSPORTS... Yuck. It instantly turns any community into a bunch of vulgar and whiney tryhards and strips the soul out of the game in favor of streamlining...

This is probably one of the best quotes to describe the anti esports fandom or, no offense to you good sir, the kinds of players who don't really like to carry hard.

I guess some people can't appreciate climbing the ladder to Diamond/Master/Challenger and the satisfaction of carrying typical solo queue trash. Then again, when was Ranked rating/MMR/BP a good life outlier? Well i dunno, Esports?

To tell you guys something, its those people who try too hard to be like their ESPORTZ idols are the ones i love carrying hard, and are also some of the saltier solo queue trash that I often write journals and diaries about. Oh those people who put "SKT" on their names. Love it.

Sides, this is why i enjoy the competitive multiplayer delivery in most games. When EZPOSRTS becomes a thing, the tryhards become many, and those who simply want to climb the ladder like myself have to carry their butts and be tempted not to tap that "Report" button.

 

[Arma]

The issue with this is that for some reason (and no offense to those who fall in this category), casuals are starting to care more and more about portions of fighting games that don't matter. Sure, Story mode and Arcade and whatnot are supposed to be in the game yeah *cough* STREET FIGHTER V *cough*, but the main thing that bugs me is that none of these guys are going to actually put time into getting good at the game, and fighting games aren't really meant to be a single player experience. Period. There's no way around that.

Capcom made a mistake trying to appeal to a lot of the casual crowd because casuals don't /WANT/ to get good at fighting games. They just want to hit buttons and see stuff happen, and then complain that they aren't getting catered when the game wasn't designed for them in the first place. I feel like more of a defining line needs to be exaggerated when making games so problems like this can be avoided, which is where this question comes into real play.

never got to play Ragnarok but I've heard some stuff lol

I'm a casual ;-;
Still though, can you blame Capcom for trying to appeal to a wider audience? In the end, they're a company, and they want to turn a profit.

I enjoy fighting games quite a bit, but I must say I fall under the category of "those who do not want to get better at them" simply because it takes quite a bit of effort. I haven't played SFV, I'm talking about fighters in general here. Still, I agree with you that a player such as myself can't really complain about the game being more oriented to a different type of audience.

BTW, didn't Arcade used to be THE mode to play? I mean, the first fighting games I played were arcade fighters...

 

[Frequency]

I'm a casual ;-;
Still though, can you blame Capcom for trying to appeal to a wider audience? In the end, they're a company, and they want to turn a profit.

Nothing wrong with being a casual as long as you know where your lines are, which clearly you do, so it's okay!

Moving on, I can't blame them for wanting to make money, but the problem lies in the problems that the game at present has the casuals complaining about, while people who actually play the game have...actual problems. Like Spino already mentioned, Capcom had to get the game out early for the tournaments that are right around the corner, and that alone shows who their target audience is, regardless of what they might say on paper. And these things are getting patched in for free anyway. I wouldn't have an issue with the wider audience if the mass amount of said audience are the ones complaining about stuff that doesn't really matter. even though it matters to them but that's another story altogether

BTW, didn't Arcade used to be THE mode to play? I mean, the first fighting games I played were arcade fighters...

Well yeah, Arcade mode was the only mode available around then, but it was only really there to pass the time while you waited for someone else to pop up and fight you. That's how they made them quarters. Training mode didn't exist on arcades until actually VERY recently, so a lot of times you had to spend a lot of money to play people who knew what they were doing, and learn tech from them, unless you were one of those who were creating said tech.

 

[Arsenic]

This is probably one of the best quotes to describe the anti esports fandom or, no offense to you good sir, the kinds of players who don't really like to carry hard.

I guess some people can't appreciate climbing the ladder to Diamond/Master/Challenger and the satisfaction of carrying typical solo queue trash. Then again, when was Ranked rating/MMR/BP a good life outlier? Well i dunno, Esports?

That would be an accurate statement. I don't much care about digital badges idolized by a bunch of 12 year old kids. Nor do I much care for carrying a team or anything like that. If we loose we loose, and as long as it was a good enjoyable fight, that's perfectly fine. That's because in the end I'm here to enjoy myself, and don't need to add more stress to my life by worrying about a ranking going down if I get a bad game. Would I say I'm a casual gamer? No, I try harder than a casual, but I don't enjoy competitive scenes either as their communities tend to be venomous and not enjoyable.

On that line, you are a perfect example (no offense) of what I mean just by terms you use such as "solo queue trash" and "carrying hard". I find these are more used by people interested in putting people down then a team player. Hell team play as a whole seems to be on its way out, being replaced by a team full of one man armies. I miss the days of people actually formulating a quick plan and carrying it out, or in some games listening to the commander's orders instead of sprinting around the map shooting whatever moves

"XxX420_360DopeShotEdgyXx - Teamkill - 'Normal player'"

For lack of better description, just watch this video