Staying competitive in multiplayer

I'm the same way DS'. And if your a working stiff, you'll never get better then some folks that can play at will. For me it's on in the game and the folks I play with. I may get fustrated as heck (as in GoW), but the gaming is so cool. And of course the GWJ banter is priceless:>) In APF, it's just fun to get in a lick or two (in any game really) and see some cool stuff the game has to offer. Sure once and awhile I have to go into my closest and chew rubber while I scream, but hey:>)

I do enjoy co-op, but I like team elimination too. I wish our GRAW group had enough interested to get in the Clan matches (or whatever there called). Even it we got whipped, it be fun again to try and get some licks in with folks you know. (but then I should just hope there's enough around to just play the game:>)

Funkenpants wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Sorry, I'm all over the place. Stressed a bit (a lot) lately and trying to find a game to just exit into and relax a bit.

Then do single player games with the difficulty set where you want. Go in, blow some stuff up, enjoy the explosions and taking out the bad guys and relax.

I agree. If you are stressed out, you really should not play any multiplayer game, unless you are sure you can crush everyone in a server. It will only make you feel better if you do that. Just go ahead and boot up some SP with easy bots or something. Let off some serious steam first. After that, you can go and have some fun while not winning a lot.

Hope your and your brothers next week will be better.

I hope your brother will recover soon. Bad news like that is not something I ever want to hear

On the multiplayer game - my experience is limited to muds (mostly Discworld) and WoW, neither of which are really what anyone else is talking about here. The PVP aspect of WoW tends (for me at least) to swing between hilarious fun and insane frustration. Hence me only having a max rank of sergeant, I guess.

If I'm feeling stressed, multiplayer games tend to make me feel worse. Okami is excellent for relaxing, due to it's relatively low difficulty level, awesome graphics and feel-good factor. Even now clearing an area and watching the place suddenly bloom and sprout trees and whatnot makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I find the psychological stress of setting up and meeting people online has started to outweigh the occasional really excellent online game experience. I keep xbox live around just in case, and for Halo 3, but generally I haven't spent a lot of time at multiplayer in a while and I don't feel too bad about it.

I like big room games, with the sound off. Nothing worse than getting your ass kicked one-on-one with someone you don't even want to talk to. I also don't want to put a ton of practice into some game genre just to be marginally more competitive... there's little real-world payoff for it. I'd rather practice at music, or drawing. The question is always, what do I like about games? Usually it's visual, some concoction of exploration, vistas, feeling like I'm part of something large. Star Wars: Battlefront was always great, especially with chat muted. Crackdown. Oblivion. If I want to venture online and try to recapture some of that late night, college, huddle round the SNES/N64 fun, maybe some Gears. Invent a story for myself when I'm sucking, i.e. I was the worst COG at the academy, and simply surviving is a feat. Convince myself not to care about that which isn't worth caring about, and if I fail at that, turn it off and try again later.

I'm horrible with competitive games mostly because I'm not very competitive. I play to have fun. When the game starts getting "serious" or I'm on a constant losing streak (I take a few steps and explode every round), the fun is gone.

I've been having this problem lately with Gears. It's as if none of my weapons work except the chainsaw. And I don't even use that very well. Either the people I usually play with have gotten a hell of a lot better or my shotgun is permanently broken. It's like everyone else has the new shotgun with Host Advantage™ technology built in. And the damn glitches cause me to explode when the enemy is shooting in the opposite direction.

I've decided to put my Xbox 360 away for a while and started playing Twilight Princess again. Oh man... Why did I stop playing this?!

Mystic Violet wrote:

I've been having this problem lately with Gears. It's as if none of my weapons work except the chainsaw. And I don't even use that very well. Either the people I usually play with have gotten a hell of a lot better or my shotgun is permanently broken. It's like everyone else has the new shotgun with Host Advantage™ technology built in. And the damn glitches cause me to explode when the enemy is shooting in the opposite direction.

I find that's happening alot on GoW, it seems like the Lancer is alot more powerful and the Shotgun is kind of messed up, I don't know what it is but it's one of those things.

Lothar wrote:
Mystic Violet wrote:

I've been having this problem lately with Gears. It's as if none of my weapons work except the chainsaw. And I don't even use that very well. Either the people I usually play with have gotten a hell of a lot better or my shotgun is permanently broken. It's like everyone else has the new shotgun with Host Advantage™ technology built in. And the damn glitches cause me to explode when the enemy is shooting in the opposite direction.

I find that's happening alot on GoW, it seems like the Lancer is alot more powerful and the Shotgun is kind of messed up, I don't know what it is but it's one of those things.

I'm in the same boat. I loved the shotgun, now it just seems totally useless.

The new shotgun tweaks make it a baubble. It's fun if you can get it to work, but you're much better off with a grenade or chainsaw.

Hey, there's a way of staying up to par: Talk to other players about tactics.

lunabean wrote:

I loved the shotgun, now it just seems totally useless.

None of you ever loved the shotgun like I did! None of you! Nobody will ever understand our forbidden love!

Time to write some emo poetry, wordsmythe.

Oh noetry!

Roses are red;
Violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet...
THIS. IS. SPARTA!!!
*kicks Quintin in chest*

(That's my favorite cheer for my Frisbee team this year.)

wordsmythe wrote:

Roses are red;
Violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet...
THIS. IS. SPARTA!!!
*kicks Quintin in chest*

That was beautiful, man.
The imagery... *sniff* it made my soul jump right out of my mouth and hit the monitor.
And by soul, I mean the Apple Juice I was drinking at the time.

wordsmythe wrote:

Roses are red;
Violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet...
THIS. IS. SPARTA!!!
*kicks Quintin in chest*

(That's my favorite cheer for my Frisbee team this year.)

I didn't laugh until I read the stage direction. Then it was classic.

It's the little things that make a great poem.