[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Dam GRE floppy [Music] so this is something that's a pretty poisonous ocean that we're dealing with here the Competitive Gaming scene that is where the most popular games currently are mostly of the multiplayer realm for some time there's been countless debates and talks over the subject and the stories that come along with them there are stories of personal triumphs victories with a large trophy held up high in front of Stadium siiz crowds seeing a high rank in front of your screen or just simply enjoying the game with people multiplayer gaming
has been an old and seasoned component of the gaming world as of today it's no longer the young and less crowded individual that it was in the 2000s but a behemoth with a bottomless pit for a stomach contrasting the multiplayer scene back then to now is night and day in both its popularity the incentive for grinding as well as the competitions that are available as of now and also the accessibility for self-improvement within the current popular titles back then people were throwing [ __ ] at the wall in games like Quake CS 1.6 DOTA Starcraft
you name it until it just landed and while there were competitions it wasn't to the same degree of what was going on in South Korea in contrast to now in the Esports scene unless you nested yourself in these communities and found better people to play with and kept playing them you had to grind it out and pay attention to what you were doing and what you could do better resources then to improve weren't as abundant back then as they are now nowadays even a solo player can become Pro if that is their ambition multiplayer like
the sun in the sky has its place in the gaming Universe how it's changed though over the years has been a contested field with a lot of people wishing it would go back to a simpler time or a time where they felt like it was more casual and people wouldn't take things as seriously I myself have experienced a witnessed this atmospheric change many times across different games from Call of Duty to Halo League DOTA Heroes of new Earth Starcraft Warcraft CS valerant fortnite Apex and so on these multiplayer games were designed with a lot of
Polish and have a lot of things going on for them in terms of the game itself but the one consistent element that has not only become more noticeable since the presence of streaming services and social media as well as people talking about it more often than ever before is of course the rise of you know competitive Esports and just Esports oriented gaming in general so I'm going to be giving some of my thoughts and opinions on the subject of Competitive Gaming and how I feel about it now however it's going to be a skewed view
because I don't really have a lot of competitive experience even though I've played a lot of multiplayer I don't even have a rank to show for my experience in any of the games that I've played in my lifetime I personally have just enjoyed multiplayer in my own way and have my own unique relationship with it also for more resources I'll provide some insightful information from people smarter than me in the description if anyone is interested in further reading I have a Rel relatively casual relationship with Competitive Gaming and I'll get into that later the ones
I have played and currently play are mechanically fine tuned they look and feel smooth to play and each sign of improvement releases an injection of dopamine that's of a unique flavor compared to single player experiences the feeling of winning matches or upping the ladder is a feel-good moment but equally it's a rabbit hole that can potentially get darker and from that point on The Descent to Madness Begins for a lot of people I've gotten my share of toxic toxity and I have been toxic at times too I think that everyone at one point reaches a
stage of toxicity and it's something that manifests in different ways where we change and correct that course of action is by recognizing the patterns and gradually modifying our Behavior towards situations that would cause it in the first place the grind in these games are endless players are pitted in an infinite pool of matchups with an ocean of other players that come with pros and cons most of the time people at the end of the day just want to Vibe with their selected game have a good session with their friends if they have any that play
with them and just relax the problem is though is that these people want to casually play the game and relax with 20 plus kills under their belt and dominate or they want something like losers queue to not happen even conducting rituals to appease the gods at Riot to ensure that they get the win tonight and get you know honored into the winners queue as some as they call it I've been frustrated tilted have raged and uninstalled at the same time I've also deleted footage from games that I planned on covering when I was was that
tilted yes I've actually done that and I've wished I'd never played the game at that time but eventually I would return stubbornly and in some cases I realized that I just really enjoyed the games I just OV exaggerated to the fullest in the past this would have just been addiction talking but nowadays though as I've grown to have more of a understanding of game design and what makes things click for people I've also come to understand my own relationship with these type of games I've never had any Esports Ambitions or cared much for ranking systems
in general but the desire to improve and get better has always been there it's a reflection of real life where we aspire to get better at something especially when we realize our enjoyment of the experience there's a lot more to it than just simple addiction there are other reasons why we come back to these type of games and it's not too far apart from why we enjoy other games in the co-op and single player realm competitive multiplayer games generally have an emphasis on good feedback in the gameplay Loop a good competitive game will allow room
for a well of growth that exponentially gets bigger as more people play to ensure this Studios will also prioritize wellth thought out mechanics and polish in the graphic and audio design that gels with the overall concept of the game some are relatively simple like rocket league but deeply complex in terms of movement and ball techniques down the road games like Counterstrike are easy to grasp but mechanically are difficult to master these games can go from one end to the other being really complex at the beginning or simp Le at the beginning either way as long
as the gameplay Loop is good and there's room for growth people will continue to play it in in effect the game skill ceiling will increase over time there can also be other aspects that are enjoyed too like the game setting the graphics sound design among other things they all have the essential components to make up a functional and enjoyable game for all the toxicity that can be found in these games they Harbor an incredible amount of mileage in play time where the skill ceiling is extremely high higher than most of the other popular games on
the market they all have polished gameplay deep mechanics and learning pools in common a non-physical ground basically to infinitely satiate the natural desire to compete without having to run around a football field for 90 minutes in total but on the internet and in general you hear more about stories of why you should quit stories of people quitting there are genuine reasons for these stories to occur and why a lot of people can relate to these topics because to experience the best aspects of Competitive Gaming you have to also experience and tolerate a fundamental aspect of
Competitive Gaming that is simultaneously the best and worst part about it all and that is the people a game may have technical issues networking issues heavy monetization genuine gripes of balancing in the gameplay Loop or Jank that can sometimes disrupt the session But ultimately the deciding factor for whether you're into competitive games or not will be how you view and deal with people toxic people and positive people don't mix in the same way that mobile infantry and Fleet don't mix whether you like it or not you'll be encountering both in these games I've encountered both
and I've been both because of the non- physical space it is much easier to really lash out when the mood Rises dealing with toxic players is both a nuisance and a dark reflection because on a really bad day and when we're in a bad mood we can end up being exactly like that person sometimes you're not playing at your best or you skill isn't quite there yet toxic players don't want to hear this when you're in bed with toxic players and team based games you're a new kid on the Block expected to perform like a
top ranking player every time or if you're even more unlucky you'll have people deliberately throwing games out of spite or just because they play with you before and are doing it to punish you for sucking people have complained about this behavior for years with no end in sight and it's actually been happening for quite a long time even before you know social media and streaming and all that got a lot bigger you just didn't hear about it as much Halo and Call of Duty in their earlier years have had their own toxic pools you had
people or groups like [ __ ] that would Troll and deliberately piss people off in Halo and Call of Duty and in that time you had other people trash talking and full-time screamers infecting lobbies [ __ ] [Music] [ __ ] what the [ __ ] [ __ ] leg dude what the [ __ ] I was right in the back of your [ __ ] head what the [ __ ] oh bull [ __ ] right your [ __ ] door sit the [ __ ] down [ __ ] [ __ ] piece of
[ __ ] come on where's your [ __ ] Dum where's your [ __ ] do oh [ __ ] why your [ __ ] Dum oh [ __ ] oh [ __ ] [ __ ] R sheld what else RI Shield I'm a [ __ ] that use RI Shield you want to [ __ ] me [ __ ] huh tell me what to [ __ ] use huh tell me what to [ __ ] use fuing you you [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] that's right dick all day [ __
] diig said he dick [ __ ] I was making fun of you you [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] Ider right now Modern Warfare 1 and two would also have more of this stuff especially in Modern Warfare 2 Modern Warfare 2 was a great game that also harbored a lot of loud and obnoxious people and yet I still look back at these games fondly because of how much joy It ultimately brought me some of my most memorable experiences were in multiplayer during my times with couch split screen multiplayer in Halo 2
and 3 or early Cod sessions from MW2 all the way to BO2 I've always loved Counter-Strike ever since I played the original Xbox Port I was never good at it I didn't care because the simple strategic gameplay Loop has made it a Timeless classic one that I can always go back to and enjoy and even that game has its own toxic pulls dating all the way back to 1.6 the easy to grasp approach to the game was something that anyone could pick up and play and you know would get better over time and now the
game is drastically different from what it was back in 1.6 hell for a time I even played combat arms for a fair bit when it was in its prime and again that game still exhibited similar behavioral patterns with you know positive people or toxic people again there was no escape from this sort of thing even back then I've been exposed to multiplayer games for a long time and in effect I've been exposed to different kinds of people in retrospect the people element is what makes other people come together in these type of games and when
it works out really well it can actually make for a lot of memorable moments but the lens has been focused so much on the toxicity and negativity of these type of games that we often forget the good things in between it's a two sides of the same coin Dynamic when it comes to multiplayer as long as there are toxic players there will always be good players the good players are the ones that you want to hang out with that will support you in the games that you play skill is something that can be honed and
improved on with or without people but without the desire to seek out people and network and you know be with people that you genuinely want to play with it can be a lonely and frustrating grind to gauge whether the genre or multiplayer in general is really for you you have to really think about the things that you like in gaming and what your favorite aspects are you like games where you can take your time and enjoy your time alone then naturally you'll lean towards single player games and the choices there are endless you like multiplayer
but you don't like versing people then Coop gaming is the next best thing where you still have the option to play with other people or with friends Deep Rock Galactic is a great example it's also a game with simultaneously one of the best and most toxic communities out there it's an absolutely fantastic game with a lot of positive people but it's toxic when you openly admit that you're a leaf lover one of the biggest streamers on Twitch recently finished Elden ring and people were still complaining about his build ignoring the fact that he still managed
to beat the whole game the souls Community is great at times but can also be insufferable whatever type of game you pick it's always going to be laced with poison anyways it's just a matter of taking the good with the bad and focusing on what you enjoy more at the end of the day it's easier said than done and eventually you'll have to decide what's more important especially when other circumstances come into your life or maybe you find something better and decide to pursue that instead it's ultimately up to you in this case for a
scene that has a lot of negativity and toxicity there is simultaneously a lot of good people in the mix their presence in Esports or in the competitive scene or just in games in general is a reminder that there are people that genuinely just want to Vibe and enjoy the game and also just show their passions and show their skills but in a more positive light which can be done without you know making people mad and frustrated to acknowledge the positives of Competitive Gaming you have to also acknowledge the negatives you can't ignore it people are
people and no type of ban or suspension is ever going to fix the bad sides of it but only punish it once again not everyone will mix again mobile infantry and Fleet don't mix to find the people you want to play with you have to also exhibit the same qualities that comprises of a good player have a certain level of respect and open mindset to your team to yourself be firm when you feel like you need to give advice freely even if it's not wanted add people if you enjoyed a session with them even if
it was a bad one add them and reach out networking is so important if you want to cultivate a circle of people you want to be around and have a positive competitive multiplayer experience so you have people then you have Role Models people that you can look up to you learn the differences by how they engage with other people their own communities who you look up to could be for various reasons sometimes it can just come down to how much you relate with them even the most toxic streamers or players will have other people that
can relate to them on some level or just stick around to see how far they fall this will be a unique choice for the individual because it depends on the kind of person you are but if you're aspiring to be like someone who is not only good but makes people want to be around them then you need to identify the whats hows and wise of what they do and apply it into your own daily life creating your own positive Circle in the competitive world to piggyback on the casual and competitive comment there is an important
distinction to make when it comes to playing casually or competitively and a lot of times it's misunderstood by so many people it's not even funny casual usually means that you set no expectations for anything you enjoy the game for what it is and what it does right you go without worry about your KDA rank or your score but the moment you start to try harder the moment you start to think more about your gameplay analytically is the moment that you start playing competitively the moment you start setting expectations is when you start playing competitively in
an Ideal World people would like to casually get a positive KDA and get a lot of kills or casually get a nuke every once in a while but that would require effort and when you don't get it you then get really disappointed and frustrated if you were playing casually then you wouldn't care competitive players set standards and expectations for their play time because they have goals to pursue they have a much higher purpose than just simply to unwind and kill the time a player may have a long-term effort goal to reach radiant and valerant or
Challenger in League it's impossible to do this casually because to do so would require a lot of hours hours upon hours of trial and error analytical thinking towards your own gaml effective communication and a deep understanding of the game's mechanics casual players don't do it to the same degree as competitive players do let alone Esports players put it this way if you casually pop into a game and bottom frag and still rage where you playing casually or competitively the thing is both casual and Competitive Gaming tend to bleed into each other anyways because we may
want to play the game casually but we still have that natural desire to compete for a good score being competitive is a natural thing and there is nothing wrong with that there is nothing wrong at all in wanting to play better and play good even if it means being you know seen as a sweat it's just that some people are more attuned to this even plants are competitive people are competitive always have been get over it it multiplayer games just happen to exacerbate the issues because you're in a competitive environment and the rules are already
in place to make people compete for a win there's even games that are seen as casual but are in reality really competitive Team Fortress 2 a game that has been seen as more of a casual experience actually has an amazing and deep skill ceiling that is seen in the competitive scene the YouTuber pingui has an absolutely fantastic video on the team Fortress 2 competitive scene and I would urge everyone to watch that video competitiveness can display itself in many forms outside of gaming outside of multiplayer single player games themselves can cultivate competitive communities in the
guise of say leaderboards or speeduns or first records you see these type of people grind countless hours for the sake of reaching the top or getting the fastest record then of course you have 1 V one fighting games strategy games or games like rocket League where the player has no teammates often to blame in case something goes wrong unless they're playing what like 2v2 3 3 but most of the time people duel you would think that toxic players in team based games wouldn't touch 1 v1s with a 10-ft pole because they don't have anyone else
to blame but themselves well you are sorely mistaken no matter where you go in gaming it's going to have its bad sides in both the issues the game may have and some members of the community in between it's a matter of how much attention you pay to it on the matter of sweating or try Harding they're the type of players that will try their hardest to win the game and a lot of people hate these type of players on the one hand it shows they want to play at their best even if it pisses people
off but at the same time other opponents simultaneously hate playing against them I've dealt with them myself and most of the time I don't mind but on my worst days it would usually lead to me leaving the game and taking a break but as I've slowly begun to analyze my gameplay more and what I can do better for next time I've also grown a different perspective on the idea of sweating or trying a lot harder the thing is sweats are just players that are usually really good or are taking the game more seriously than you
are sweats Smurfs tryhards whatever you want to call them are just at the end of the day people better than you it can definitely be demoralizing for people when faced against them because they become conditioned to believe that they don't stand a chance it can get so bad that some teammates will deliberately throw games just because the opposing team has high ranked players but it's a case of not having the right attitude or mindset towards it and those people certainly don't have that and they're the type of people that you want to actively avoid whenever
I play against sweats or people that are much better than I am I see it now as a learning opportunity to get better rather than a hopeless death maze that just pisses me off and from their perspective they're just enjoying the game how they want fun means different things for different people every player has the right to improve and play how they want but you don't get the right to decide how your opponents get to play a newcomer who just joined the NBA isn't going to walk up to the opposing team and tell them not
to sweat too hard and go easy on them just just because you know they're new to the league when games become more competitive and the skill ceiling increases players will over time develop naturally and get better at the game what some people want is just unrealistic and just isn't how people work fortnite is no longer the game it was in 2018 same goes for a number of other multiplayer based games you can't stop people from wanting to improve you can't stop people from wanting to play better even if it means sweating even still it's a
reason why a lot of people Retreat to single player games cuz they just don't want to deal with it but that's just how multiplayer develops over time people just get better and as a result people get more competitive and as a result people sweat naturally it's like if you go to the gym you're going to work your hardest you're going to sweat you know you don't just do a light workout and then call it a day if you want to like hit your max that's what you do you sweat in these games it's the same
case you want to play it the best then you sweat as for me over time I have found my own delicate balance of improving in multiplayer games I treat the numbers of in scores kdas the positions of ranks themselves more casually I kind of just let them speak forsel in the background and instead focus on more of my own gaml I focus more on self-improvement towards the game and make it a priority letting the results speak for themselves if I do good then great if I don't then there still needs to be more work to
be done I prioritize these aspects because I can always control what I do right and what I do wrong after I realize what happened I can't always control the ratio of wins and losses climbing up and down the rank l or the people that I play with because there's so many variables when it comes to multiplayer experiences each match is always going to be different from the other and it's part of what makes multiplayer unique too the replayability factor comes from the unique sessions that you can have where it's never going to be the same
experience over and over again it's going to be something new and fresh for better or worse I may try my best but my best may not be good enough against a fully stacked and well coordinated team that knows what they're doing and have a plan in place there are definitely external factors beyond your own control but at the end of the day you can definitely control your own behavior your own attitude towards your teammates and how you play and also how you carry yourself now how I view this it's not the end all and it's
not the cure to anything it's not the B all approach to Improvement and I'm always open to modifying my Approach towards it whenever necessary but for me personally it's been working really well for me so far and even if I bottom frag or get mopped pretty badly I just accept the results I analyze what went wrong and then I move on to the next game as well as setting limits for how many games I play in Turtle because moderation is still important in the goal to Improvement and again this sort of method of you know
Improvement doesn't just apply multiplayer or in games but in anything but to talk specifically about games you can apply the sort of mentality in single player games too and you know you could still have that you know desire to improve in single player if you're not competing against other people ultimately you're then competing against yourself on a subconscious level you know for instance say if you do the Cyber grind and Ultra kill and you get to wave 10 great next time you want to beat that score and say let's get to wave 20 in a
sense you're actually competing against your last result from before so you're competing against yourself and you're making more efforts to play better single player games can be competitive they have the option to do so even if they're not intentionally designed with the idea to be competitive it's the people aspect that can make those games competitive people that you know grind out leaderboards people that do speed running those sort of people can make those games like even the most casual games competitive you can of course ignore it and just have fun however you see fit in
single player games it's much easier to manage this because you're just enjoying the experience yourself you know you're not necessarily being forced to play in the way that you know say the current meta you know expects you to play if you want to play competitively it's just a single player game of its own it's its own thing in online multiplayer in 1 V1 games it's a you or me scenario and not everyone wants to deal with this all the time as I've said it really just boils down to what you want out of games and
what type of games you enjoy the most knowing the difference between casual and competitive play and of course how to improve and enjoy the games you like in a more positive Approach at the end of the day these are just my thoughts and conclusions on the subject of Competitive Gaming and how I feel about it nowadays can it be frustrating to get bodied over and over by people of a much higher skill ceiling of course it can but remember it can also be a learning opportunity to improve and to get better you need to play
against better people that's just how it is it's it's worked that way since time and Memorial and remember too that those people that you play against that sweat a lot remember that if the roles were reversed you would get the same treatment I'm not dedicated to any of these multiplayer games but I enjoy them from time to time whenever the mood strikes and even when I take breaks I still keep tabs on the scene in conclusion competitive multiplayer can potentially be a positive experience if you surround yourself with the people in communities it's no different
to how in real life you hang with the people that you actually want to be with that inspire you to be a better person and to improve in online gaming you can find that as well with other like-minded players other communities that encourage and promote self-improvement in Competitive Gaming as well as following content creators and pro players that have good qualities that you strive for it can however be a very negative experience and there are genuine reasons for why people quit and my take on the subject doesn't invalidate the decisions to leave the people that
leave may have realized that their interest in games don't align with what multiplayer games offer and that's fine they may just prefer playing Solo in a story driven game or sandbox experience where they can just be alone it really just comes down to the individual at the end of the day the competitive scene is different and bigger than before resources and tips guides have only made people want to play better you may get called a sweat or a try hard at times but don't let that dissuade you from wanting to get better at the game
it's not a crime to actually want to be good at the game contrary to what a lot of people say about it once again there is a lot more that could be said and I thought that because of the volume of video speaking negatively on the competitive scene I would Instead try a different approach to the subject and try to talk more about the positives that are still there and I've been since the 2000s era of multiplayer gaming and to some extent even earlier as evidenced in the fgc feel free to give your own thoughts
in the comments down below whether you agree or disagree with me doesn't matter because if this video generates conversation and varying opinions then my goal with this video has been completed enjoy whatever you want to play Play Casual and ignore your results completely play competitively and use every Advantage possible and strive to improve ignore the fluff mute and Report toxic players before they start abusing the mic at you for the entire match don't ever bite back at them it's never worth it and most importantly just have fun stay tuned and thank you for watching f
