What grinds my gears!

[ColdCamV]

You know what grinds my gears, playing an FPS and people cracking it like no tomorrow over an accident, I saw a tank shoot another tank, miss, hit an ally jeep and the jeep driver died. The tank driver said sorry it was an accident I was aiming for the tank..the jeep driver wants none of it cracking a hissy claiming the whole teams shit except him and proceeds to destroy every ally vehicle because he died once...seriously it's people like that who need to grow up.

Rant over.

[ColdCamV]

What grinds my gears this week, while no fault other than my own, it's still a gripe I have to come to terms with everytime I'm playing games on my laptop.

Wireless mouses.

To be more exact, when the battery dies in your wireless mouse mid gaming and have no batteries to replace it with. This happened to me today whilst playing a few practice rounds of NS2 with a few friends before the logitech tournament and let me say its quite annoying trying to play a FPS using a touch pad.

[Ned]

Australian internet.. or lack of it. I've had little to no connection for most of this year

[ColdCamV]

You know what grinds my gears...people who think their the best at every game in existence, I dont claim to be a great gamer, nor do I call others shit if they haven't played as much or arent doing as good in a game as I do, because to me negative comments only push to make others leave the gama or paint a picture of it in a negative light.

I was actually harrassed by a little kid in Black Ops 2 who sounded no older than 14 who, even though I had the highest points by helping my team capture the flags, still decided to berate me with insults saying how bad I was as I had only just started playing 2 hours before hand, had no where near as many kills as him (as in his mind kills were all that matters) and wasnt max prestiged. He then later went around going "this is my 4th account ive master prestiged with all diamond camos, if you want one hit me up if you want to buy one." I cant see that as a good thing to say and it always irks me the wrong way.

If your a good player it doesnt matter what your level is a good player should be judged by his skills and merit not by titles and levels.

[Espesh]

I try not to get mad in similar scenarios, I've had many.

More a feeling of sympathy for someone that places too much emphasis on points in a virtual setting. I usually (perhaps wrongly) think that they must be lacking some satisfaction in the real world to want to be judged solely for their in-game exploits and "L33t Skillz" and when they want and crave attention for it like that it makes it that much worse.

Games that pump out the badges and chievos and project a "carrot on a stick" progress type mentality do nothing to help this attitude IMO.

We all love gaming and kicking ass but to berate others that you consider less skilled than you, for not having a "worthy" score, especially in a fun, safe, gaming environment is a slippery slope to being a bad, sad and lonely human being.

I'm not sure if it's worse in someone so young or to hear it from a more "mature" person but either way it is totally uncalled for and unnecessary, sadly unavoidable.

Like life, sometimes you meet some jerks. The beauty of our hobby is that they disappear with the push of a button...

[ColdCamV]

Couldn't agree more Espesh, actually happened to me just as I finished reading your post. Was pleaying the league series in black ops 2 just to kill time and have some fun, came 2nd on my team and we won so I was happy but the mouthful I got afterwards from the opposition top player, my word. He gave me the best line ive ever heard for why someone is a "noob" his exact words "ColdCam your so noob look at you you dont even have a tag, only noobs dont have tags" Im thinking really, thats the best you had? had nothing to do by the current noob judgement score of what your level is oh no its if you dont have a clan tag you must be noob.

Its things like that, that make me step back and look for single player story driven games just to not deal with them.

[Drac]

Originally Posted by ColdCamV

Has also happened with a few RTS games like company of heroes and C&C RA3. Aswell as SC2 but anyone who does it in SC2 is a dick in my mind, they still lose a point but for the person who it looked like was going to win..well they get nothing, just a waste of a good game.

You are quite mistaken here.

One of my grinds, people who think like this. ^^^

If someone quits a game on you, you clearly won. Be happy. Why complain about it? What exactly are you missing out on? Didn't you play the game to beat them, well you just did. In almost every RTS multiplayer community I've ever been involved with It's considered mannered and polite to leave a game when you know you're loosing (the exception being MOBA style games). Sticking around in a dead end 1v1 RTS and forcing the other player to spend their valuable time hunting you down and killing every last unit and building is considered rude.

I don't know about you, but I've got better things to do than sit in a game I've clearly already lost just so you can stroke your own ego. I'd much rather just go find another match.

Also, I've never encountered a multiplayer RTS game where you don't get victory points if the other player leaves. In SC2 it even says you were victorious on screen the instant your opponent leaves the game! Matches are played on blizzard servers and everything is recorded automatically. When one person leaves, it awards you the victory and the points for winning the match. Also, that player may loose points (depending on the ladder rankings between you and him). In SC2 it's simply impossible to dodge or cheat rankings in any way doing this. You should also be able to view your entire match history thought the game menus, and access the replays of the last handful of games you played (they're recorded automatically). You can even look up the person who quit and you'll see it recorded on his profile that he lost a match to you. You really ought to be away of stuff like this before playing online.

Actually, I'm not really sure where this weird aversion to conceding in online games comes from. If someone playing chess knows all is lost, people don't begrudge them laying down their king and scream "NOOO! I wanted to hound you around the board for the next half hour! You still have a rook, don't be such a quitter!"

It almost seems, when you put something online, you must appease and indulge in some weird right to be the sorest winner possible.

[ColdCamV]

Originally Posted by Drac

If someone quits a game on you, you clearly won. Be happy. Why complain about it? What exactly are you missing out on? Didn't you play the game to beat them, well you just did.

Its not a complaint as more of an annoyance, while yes you do play the game to beat your opponent as you stated later it is alot like a game of chess, if your opponent makes a wrong move and you take their knight, do they not still have other pieces to attack you with? likewise with RTS games, if I take out your army of tanks you've just sent out towards my base while launching a counter attack do you still not have other units to defend yourself?

Originally Posted by Drac

In almost every RTS multiplayer community I've ever been involved with It's considered mannered and polite to leave a game when you know you're loosing (the exception being MOBA style games). Sticking around in a dead end 1v1 RTS and forcing the other player to spend their valuable time hunting you down and killing every last unit and building is considered rude.

While I agree with you completely with making someone hunt down your last unit is rude and seen in the community as a waste of time for both players im not specifically talking about a dead end 1v1, it was more so to do with the moment someone gets an upper hand, even a slight one, the opponent bailing on the game.

Originally Posted by Drac

Also, I've never encountered a multiplayer RTS game where you don't get victory points if the other player leaves. In SC2 it even says you were victorious on screen the instant your opponent leaves the game! Matches are played on blizzard servers and everything is recorded automatically. When one person leaves, it awards you the victory and the points for winning the match. Also, that player may loose points (depending on the ladder rankings between you and him).

This is true and I know now that the point system is recorded and so cheating in this way to avoid losing points is no longer effective (Ive also noted that alot of other games are trying to tighten up their rules on people who try to bail in the hopes of stat padding their scores) however to me I don't play competetive RTS games, simply because I dont have the wits or the in depth knowledge to be able to keep up with the point hungry players looking to reach the top. No for me the game is all about the fun and the tactics thrown around so as no two games can be the same, however my gripe is with the game being cut short when your trying to have a fun game and the oppenent leaves with not so much as a reason, while I agree its now obviously not for stats reason it just becomes a nuisense to those who just want to play a regular match (hence why I no longer play ranked games)

Originally Posted by Drac

It almost seems, when you put something online, you must appease and indulge in some weird right to be the sorest winner possible.

Winning isn't everything Drac my friend, its how it plays out that is key, and while I have at once or twice been a sore winner I can say to you that I take my wins and my loses in stride and find myself humbled after each match that makes me rethink my take on a situation, just like in this case with your comment, I thank you.

[Drac]

Almost all RTS games are games of hidden information. If someone leaves early you'll rarely know (unless you watch the replay) if they just left because of a slight mistake or a large one they couldn't recover from. What I'm trying to say is that what you perceive and the reality of the situation may be very different things.

What I do find annoying in RTS games are players who constantly use all-in strategies in ranked matches. They'll try a 5 barracks marine rush or some other early game cheese in the hope of catching you unaware to "steal" a cheap win. If you foil something like that they're going to rage quit hard because not winning with such an opening move means they'll certainly fail later in the game. They've hurt their economy way to much to ever hope to recover and match your in the mid/late game. In such a case, I'm glad they rage quit early but it's employing the "coin flip" style all-in strategy in the first place that boils my blood.

[ColdCamV]

This is true and I'm glad we can find a common ground on the annoyance of an all in early rush, specially as that is the turn it took (or atleast used to) back before SC2 came out in the C&C Tiberium wars ladder matches, it wasnt who can build the base and have the better stratergy as we see nowadays, it was all about who could build heaps of units then sell all their buildings and rush first in that all or nothing strategy.

While I personally see nothing wrong with a one last ditch all or nothing effort, that is what it should be..one last ditch effort not the first move you make.