Online multiplayer?

[Peter Crisp]

How do you enjoy online multiplayer?

Do you prefer just casual games with friends or are you the sort who always must be playing ranked and being ultra sweaty all the time?

I ask because it seems there is no casual option for Halo multiplayer.
Even the casual game modes use skill-based matchmaking that tries to make every game a struggle and it just means everyone is super serious all the time.

I can understand in a ranked game mode but I don't play ranked, I just want a few games after work with people who are relaxed and maybe, just maybe actually having fun.

My favourite memories with the gang from here on Last of Us Factions were games where we could just relax and play without worrying about KD or stats.

So, how do you enjoy multiplayer?

[SEP]

It'll never catch on

[Balladeer]

I genuinely don't.

Part of this is a problem with me for sure. I'm super-competitive and a terrible loser. (Autocorrect changed that to 'terrible lover' - wow, harsh!) Winning feels more like a relief: losing, more crushing than it should. The only people I want to see that side of me are my close friends and family, definitely not randos on the Internet and not even online friends to be honest.

But there's another less personal side. I grew up playing split-screen Mario Kart, interspersed with Mario Tennis. Local multiplayer is tremendous fun, enough even to get over that barrier of me being a terrible loser. It's so much better when you have people around to interact with directly. Online seems like such a weak imitation of that in any form. Obviously for many it's the only option, but I'm lucky enough to have enough contact with my family and my partner (the latter for couch co-op) that regular-ish local multiplayer is a reality.

I appreciate its place in the great gaming ecosystem, but it really isn't for me. (Plus my views on it are tainted from the good ol' days of teenagers using homophobic slurs in CoD making the news on a regular basis.)

[Errkal]

I don't generally play online.

I either get strawberry floated off I'm being useless or on the occasions where I feel I'm not making daft mistakes there is someone ridiculously good to the point I figure they have no life and just get kicks ruining other people's fun because they live with their mum and no one in real life likes them.

Can't be doing with it.

I don't mind something like Fall Guys mind you that works, but mostly I play more offline story based stuff.

[Tsunade]

I don't really play that many games online really. The only games I can think of that I have done have been Animal Crossing and Mario Kart, and that's because I've found decent people to play those with. And they've all been from on here

I'm usually a JRPG player, so there's many games I own that do have that multiplayer aspect anyway. I can't seem to bring myself to enjoy MMORPGs, I've tried a few times but there's just something I find off-putting about them.

[Sprouty]

I enjoy competitive online gaming, but in all honesty, you're never going to be competitive without putting a lot of time into a game. I just don't have time these days.

So it's more casual these days. Maybe I'll pop online for an occassional game of Fifa or to blow a few people up on GTA, that sort of thing. I did play a few games of Fortnite with a friend yesterday. He was like Superman, whilst I was like a bag of Kryptonite which he had to ferry around.

[Photek]

I play ranked Rocket League a lot, it can get frustrating but it's usually ok, its EXTREMELY toxic in general but as it's mostly in chat I don't take much notice.

I play DayZ a fair bit, lots of walking about and resource management interspersed with human interaction in either gun fights or chats.

I used to play Battlefield all the time but that's gone, replaced somewhat with Halo Infinite but even within that it's not that much, no doubt the BR mode will have me back full time.

Recently got back into Hell Let Loose, had a great time with and all English squad on Sunday night, proper team work, an excellent medic and a lot of banter, the chat system (you can switch instantly between squad and general vicinity) means you can talk with everyone. I was assault so I was the only squad member with an LMG, setting it up on walls and in windows and targets being called out by squad as I lay down hundreds of rounds into bushes and hill sides (you have no idea until after match if you've killed anyone). There was one moment when the enemy inexplicably tried to run across an open field, I had just set up my gun on a wall facing it, they were mowed down comprehensively.

[OrangeRKN]

I enjoy online but I tend to get really into a game for a few weeks then move on to another rather than stick playing the same thing long-term, which is at odds with most of the modern gaas, seasonal design and drawn out online progression.

I do think skill-matching has been taken too far. I thought there was more fun in the days of joining a game with free spaces in a server list, where the entire playerbase is playing together rather than stratified.

[JT986M2]

I enjoy online but I tend to get really into a game for a few weeks then move on to another rather than stick playing the same thing long-term, which is at odds with most of the modern gaas, seasonal design and drawn out online progression.

Exactly the same for me. I'll play a game for a few weeks / months, take a break, and do - or play - something else. Then, when I come back, I'm not quite back at square-one - but not far off it. For the shooters I'll have forgotten the map layouts, yet I'll most likely still be match-made with the level or skill I was originally at.

Halo: Infinite, Forza 4/5 and Fortnite are the ones that have been staples recently. WoW used to be my jam until a couple of years ago, but then the gradual descent into non-sociable group 'matchmaking' (and nonsensical storytelling) gradually wore me down. Everyone is too busy rushing around min-maxing and can't be bothered to be sociable anymore. Other than those three, it's been quite a while since I played anything else online. I just can't be bothered committing the time to a single game - it just ends up feeling like a chore after a while.

I would much rather play games regularly with people I actually know. However, life got in the way - I either lost touch with 'rl' people I used to game with, or they stopped gaming. So playing randoms in matchmaking doesn't have the same appeal which is why I inevitably find something else to play after a while.

[Jenuall]

It's very rare that I get into any online multiplayer games, it's just not a form of gaming that I find massively appealing personally, or at least rarely appealing enough to choose to spend my precious gaming time on it over getting into a really good single player experience.

I played a good amount of Quake online back in '96/97, those were fun days. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was another one that gripped me in 2001/2002 - the team based stuff was really well done and it felt great when you actually had a group that properly cooperated with one another.

Since then online multiplayer has been pretty fleeting - the odd period of playing things like Rocket League, MK8 and Sea of Thieves with folks on here but that's about it

[Jezo]

Online multiplayer is great if the online works and you get good connections with people. Mario Kart works great, Rivals of Aether works great, Halo works great, TF2 works great, and are all great games to play online multiplayer (ping permitting). Smash Ultimate's online is one of the worst gaming experiences ever. I think because of that, a lot of online players are very angry and toxic which only makes the experience even worse.

[Cumberdanes]

Usually I'm not really one for online multiplayer but recently I've been playing Fortnite semi regularly with a couple of people and surprisingly I've been enjoying it.

I don’t take it seriously at all and it’s just a bit of a laugh.

[Ironhide]

Never liked it and never will.

[Jam-Master Jay]

It has been 15 years since I last had any interest in playing properly competitive modes in games. I have absolutely zero patience for toxic players these days and as I no longer play games with friends I get paired with randoms which often leads to having to put up with some hypercompetitive saltlord talking shite about other players for 10+ minutes. For a few years ARAM in HoTS was my little oasis free of wankers but sadly with Blizzard no longer giving a gooseberry fool it is now full of trolls so I'll probably end up going single player for good soon.

Honestly, stat-tracking ranked modes are a complete cancer in modern games.

[Robbo-92]

I pretty much just play racing games online these days, got bored of FPS a long time ago, racing games can be great if you find a good lobby with people of a similar skill level (I’d genuinely love to get involved in a league, even if I’m at the back but actually sticking consistently to a set time each week is harder than it sounds), generally you’re just getting punted off constantly which takes a lot of the fun out of it

Even racing games I rarely play online now, single player is my focus as I can just enjoy it at my own pace, no pressures except the ones I put on myself, plus some games the skill level is ridiculously high that I just haven’t got the time to practice for now.

[jawa_]

The first games I ever played online were 1 vs 100 on the 360 (great fun but, alas, the game was very short lived!) and Wipeout HD on PS3 (tremendously cool).

Subsequently the vast majority of my online play was then on Pro Evo Soccer (PS3 and PS4) - which was generally great although I very quickly learned that I should never use a headset and also to turn on the system option to block messages from non-friends). A fair amount of players were pretty toxic and so it was better to play without any comms.

I hugely enjoyed playing Mario Kart 8 on the U online, the vast majority of time with folk here in GR. This has continued on-and-off with the Switch version and you guys have always been good fun. Animal Crossing on Switch has been super-great on a few occasions, too - again with GR folk. A few years back we also had some great Rocket League nights, too.

In more recent times the only online game I've been playing is Fallout 76 on my PS4. Most people are fine with just the occasional pain-in-the-butt; although I never use a headset in order to avoid unpleasant stuff.

So, in general, I never play an online game with a talking option unless it's with people from GR.

Edit: Oh! I forgot about Final Fantasy XIV Online! I only used text chat rather than voice and most players were lovely; but with the odd asshat now and again (particularly during battles and probably because I was dreadful at that ).

[Preezy]

No multiplayer for me. It's just not my bag, baby.

[Carlos]

I have weekly games of Fortnite with my friends (we are all nearly 40) and we only play for a laugh. We know that the majority of our opponents will be kids so it's fun when we win and equally hilarious when you get killed by 'Gamemaster2015' which is obviously a 7 year old kid. We often joke about Epic making an entire season based on 1990's TV or just EastEnders.

The only online game I ever took seriously was Phantasy Star Online. I got properly addicted to it both on the DC and GC. Just before I left for Uni my mum and dad went away for a week and left me by myself. I spent my food budget on frozen pizzas and beer and spent the whole week running up an astronomical phone bill.

[Jezo]

Can't judge Animal Crossing's online yet, still waiting on the loading screen

[gaminglegend]

I much prefer offline multiplayer to online. I was playing Call of Duty earlier and it was just tons of people screaming or the noise of background TV’s sounds in my ear. So I just end up muting everyone.

There’s been a few times where I’ve got into a lobby with people who are just playing the game, quiet and we work together and have some chit chat and that’s great. But so rare I find.

However I have played Phasmaphobia and such on Steam with some of my partners online friends and found that a blast. She’s really into online multiplayer whereas I just don’t really like it that much.

I find it really hard to just chat over a microphone to people and such whereas in person it seems to be the opposite.