[miamibre]

It's pretty simple, nowadays the ONLY way to have fun in most multiplayer games is to win by any means. Outside of a few games like minecraft, every other game is designed around winning. 6 of the most played games on steam right now are some combination of competitive FPS / pvp survival or Dota 2. All of these games give you way more rewards for winning over just casually playing so over time the community is incentivized towards maximizing ELO, mastering the meta, and finding any ways to gain an edge on the competition.

I won't say it was better back in the 90s/ early 2000s but games had lobbies and people would just naturally drift around until they found one that satisfied their needs, be it playing more causally or for a more hardcore experience. Nowadays matchmaking is all controlled by the almighty algorithm which is just a glorified ELO/MMR system and dumps people together regardless of whether or not the game is "fun" for them. Worse yet "Quitting" is actively punished so you just have to stay in the game being frustrated and angry at your teammates until you lose. I always use pick up basketball as an example of how lobbies should work with people being given the choice of playing until they are tired/bored and punish trolls by excluding them forcing them to seek out another court or just start their own games.

Now that i have sworn off all competitive multiplayer games because i used to be a real fiend with several thousand hours in Dota 2 i have come to realize that as fun as the game is the fundamental failure of every matchmaking system is that your fun will always be dictated by how often you win because that's the only thing that is rewarded both in the game and by the community. If you look at any forum for these competitive games it's always the same complaints with people bemoaning that the balances is bad (AKA i don't win because if i did why would i complain), the game is too hard for newbies (AKA i don't win because the skill level is too high), and that the community is too toxic (AKA i don't win because i don't take the game too seriously and people get mad at me).

I'm much happier playing singleplayer games or exclusively cooperative games like Helldivers and Deep Rock Galactic and think most people would be too but they need to come to the realization that it's not the games fault per se but the underlying mechanics behind the matchmaking systems.

[IsTom]

> fun will always be dictated by how often you win

Matchmaking is designed so that you win roughly 50% of the time (except for the very top), no matter how well you play. If you focus on playing better it's going to be a treadmill by design. OTOH some people accept that you're going to lose 50% of matches anyway, chill and keep to lower ELO.

[tanewishly]

I can see that working in a 1-v-1 game, but how does that work in a last-one-standing game? Each game would have 1 winner and N-1 players who lost.

[SirMaster]

Well they need a better matchmaking system in counter strike 2 then because I'm currently sitting at a 35% winrate...

[Arnavion]

Cooperative games do still have the problem that you either need to have friends with the same interests and gaming schedule as you (the last one especially gets more and more difficult with age and real life responsibilities), or you play with randoms and then all the same annoyances with multiplayer games that you listed apply.

[jpsouth]

Helldivers 2 was exceptional for this in my experience - I met some great people from matchmaking, both when I was playing with IRL friends and solo. I know it’s only a video game but it truly felt like a proper bonding experience when you were trying to save the last of your team, or when you harmonised in such a way it just felt tactically perfect.

I need to hop back on that game.

[_carbyau_]

I saw a forum interaction: "game is not fun, always losing" with the singular predictable response of course being "get good".

But if the complainant actually got good then all that did was reverse the roles...

[npteljes]

I think you a misunderstand why people cheat. There is nothing "nowadays" about playing unfair. Minecraft is also a bad example, as it's also cheated, and botted to hell. If there is anything to gain in any context, and you get enough people interested, the people will try to maximize that gain, and some will not care about the rules, or the intent of the context.

I do agree about the conclusion though. The solution for the disappointment in online matchmaking is singleplayer, and multiplayer with friends. Both completely eliminate the bad actors.

[ascagnel_]

I'd say the pendulum is swinging in the other direction -- Fortnite is bigger than most everything on Steam, and everything in that game feels like it's designed around you making progress through its battle pass in some incremental way. The world map has puzzles, there's a fishing mechanic, and it comes with a suite of non-combat alternate modes.

[frollogaston]

PC game market is also smaller than mobile games

[oersted]

> nowadays the ONLY way to have fun in most multiplayer games is to win by any means

That’s quite the hyperbole, I play plenty of multiplayer games and I enjoy myself plenty wether I win or not. Granted, games like Dota, Counterstrike or Tarkov are designed for a certain ultra-competitive audience, that’s fine, but there’s plenty of choice besides, more than ever.

These competitive games might be at the top of the charts, but they are rather niche in the grand scheme of things. It's just that the kind of people that play these games, they end up only playing that one game for years for a few hours a day. But in reality they are a minority and there are many more players spread out among all other games.

I think you are projecting your motivation to play games onto others, there are many reasons to enjoy games other than just getting those fake points at the end, and not everyone is as sore for loosing.