The Biggest Problem with Online Games
First off, I want to say that I am personally a huge fan of online games. In fact it is often one of the first things I look for when considering a game to buy and stream. But there are some inherent problems with online games and especially the community involved in online gaming. This is not likely to be new information to those familiar with online gaming and especially not new to those who are active in certain games that are online-only. But my hope is to address these problems and offer alternatives and solutions while providing examples of games that already implement these solutions and those that do not.
What kinds of games are online-only?
Many games that are online-only are going to be pretty obvious. First of all, MMOs are going to be online because it’s right there in the name (massively-multiplayer-online games). The best examples of these are World of Warcraft, Star Wars The Old Republic, EVE Online, Guild Wars 2, and Final Fantasy IV (just to name a few). Other games that may be online-only are Overwatch or Apex Legends, in the first-person-shooter genre. These are games that do not have any offline mode and if you want to play, you have to play with an internet connection with and against other players. There is not always an option to just play against the computer and avoid any interaction with other people.
What's the problem?
My biggest problem with online games (and online-only games in particular) is that if you are not playing the game all the time, you are going to be at a significant disadvantage. To keep online games engaging and worth your money, these games require that you always have something new to strive for. If you could jump into an online game and accomplish everything in 20 hours, wouldn’t you feel cheated? Not only that, but if one person did and another did not, then that one who has achieved everything is going to make it hell for the players still working their way up. And while this is still a point to address in itself, there is more to it. Because gamers are often able to reach maximum potential for their characters in an online game, the game needs to be updated almost constantly so that there is a new maximum.
And this is the problem right here. This issue really stems from the player base and not actually the game itself, but the game is still made in a way that allows this to happen. It is inherent to the genre. Because a game like this requires constant updates to allow for greater and greater progression, those without the time or ability to reach their characters’ maximum potential will often become overwhelmed with content. Having a significant amount of content is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, the fact that players are in conflict with other players who have completed most of the content means that there is a significant disadvantage to those that have not completed it all. It can be frustrating at times, especially when those players who have put more time into the game inhibit the ability of the rest to reach that point. This can be seen a lot in World of Warcraft in particular with max level players going into lower level zones and killing low level players on the opposite faction over and over.
However, to say that there is just one problem with online games is like saying there’s only one problem with technology. Sure, you could find one thing that you consider to be worse than any other problem, but that’s just your opinion and it doesn’t make the other issues go away.
How it can be fixed
Solving this problem is not exactly easy as it is largely at the fault of the community and how they respond as a whole to character progression. One way this could be solved however, is by making it impossible for higher level characters to damage significantly lower level characters. Though the same would have to be done the other way (and it basically already is due to the enormous differences in health and damage based solely on levels). It could also be helpful for players to opt in or out of pvp in the world (as is with the case in World of Warcraft, at the very least), but even there a problem arises where lower level characters may simply want to fight other low-level characters in the world and not have to deal with the high-level characters. This could be done by scaling damage and health when interacting with other players in the world, but that sounds extremely complicated. Also, the higher level characters have more abilities unlocked and therefore already have an advantage anyways.
Instead of discussing problems with levels and pure character statistics, let’s address my main issue. Simply put, those who have played a game longer are just going to be better than someone who is new. Now, many games have a work around for this. Placement matches. Some games require that players complete a number of matches with other players to get an idea of their skills at the game. Overwatch is the first game that comes to my mind when I think of this concept, but I know others do it as well. The biggest issue here is the random selection of other players that you are in these matches with. I cannot even say how many times I have been working through these pre-ranked matches to get put in a bracket that was the right amount of challenging to me, just to end up with teammates that refuse to work together against a team that feels like they play together on a national level. Other times it may be the exact opposite. And you can either be placed in a bracket way higher than your personal skill range because you had teammates that carried you through those matches or you can be place in kiddie’s corner for having teammates that run around the start of the map without even attacking the enemy. My only solution to this is testing players’ abilities against AI of progressing difficulty or trying to rank each player in a match individually on personal ability instead of a win or a loss.
What are your thoughts?
I want to know how everybody else feels about this issue. Do you enjoy how online only games work? Do you think there are some issues that come with the territory and just cannot be fixed? Or do you know of some issues that you have wanted to just yell at developers exactly how to fix them? Let us know your thoughts on this topic in the comments.
