Is the art of team based games dead?

[Sevren]

Hey, so being 21 and looking back on my life (playing video games wise)

 

I remember the days of tribes and tribes 2 or battlefield 1942. The kinds of games that never had personal achievements and played up the concept of help your fellow team mates and player killing was generally discouraged.. Work together to drive the enemy back.

 

I'm just wondering has this been lost? I find more and more games that emphasize achievements creating a sense of its all about me not we anymore. I miss the days where I could join a server and actually have people work together to attack the enemy base(tribes 2 katabatic servers, and even Unreal Tournament)

 

Perhaps this is because a lot of the players now are raised on games that come with several achievements and unlocks that are personal to them or their account and generally have a less emphasis on sharing resources, it seems like its more about points than a good experience

(I don't really play anymore as I'm almost through my 4 year university career and basically stopped playing video games in summer of grade 10)

 

So what are your thoughts?

[Jake]

Team Fortress 2 has achievements, but the game fails if you don't work together as a team. Same with Left 4 Dead (both co-op and versus), but that's an asymmetrical multiplayer setup so I don't know if you'd count it.

[Capn_Nacho]

Team Fortress 2 has some problems with people achievement farming (and neglecting their team) in order to get unlocks for themselves, but Valve continually strives to get rid of the issue. TF2's core gameplay is some of the most absolutely team-centric and balanced I have ever played (and I have played the Tribes games and BF1942.) I think part of what makes TF2 so effective is that even most personal successes are dependent upon your helping your team.

[Gabez]

Welcome to the forums, Sevren!

 

I can't comment on TF2, but for World of Warcraft (which I have played) there seems to have been a move in the last 4 or so years from the experience to taking it seriously and doing the best you can. But that's based on more people at higher levels (and low levels more often in the alts of high levles), and the need to be specialised and take it seriously in order to play the new instances and raids (e.g. especially killing bosses).

 

Bill Tiller talked about this in our interview with him... "I was playing it recently, and I grouped up with some other people and they said: "Oh my God! You’re level 42 and you don't know how to group! Such a noob!" I had to work out all the party etiquette. I said: "I'm sorry, I solo a lot, that's all.""

[Jillian56]

Perhaps this is because a lot of the players now are rasied on games that come with several achievements and unlocks that are personal to them or thier account and generally have a less emphasis on sharing resources, it seems like its more about points than a good experience..

[Sevren]

Perhaps this is because a lot of the players now are rasied on games that come with several achievements and unlocks that are personal to them or thier account and generally have a less emphasis on sharing resources, it seems like its more about points than a good experience..

 

Hey Jillian, Thats what I think I just want to get other peoples opinions. I guess you share mine then

[Gabez]

Welcome to the forums, Jillian.

 

The achievements system does seem to be the "big new thing." I quite like it in Portal; it makes me want go back and unlock all of them.

 

Would it be possible to have team based achievements? Maybe that's the answer?

[Sevren]

While I can see the logic for several arguments for TF2, and i do infact own it(Left 4 Dead too) I can see how they still "kinda" work... but i dont think I would put them in the same respects as to Tribes 2 or Bf1942... Im not sure how to quite put it but with Tribes 2 I felt as though every time i went online I never really saw much/had a vibe of "Im only in it for myself" While I know that i can not rule out TF2 simply based on the players farming achievements and getting unlocks, Im merely trying to see if the acheivements and the more personal based point systems are a contributing factor to the increase of selfishness i seem to be seeing online, maybe im biased, maybe im just missing all the good servers people are on?

 

@ Gabez, Unfortunatly i have not played World of Warcraft

(nor will i fancy the chance to do it since i am a "starving" student that and i do not believe that i have to continuously pay for an entertainment product I have spent money on before.. Partially due to the same reasons for not owning a 360 and refusing to pay for LIVE, but that is a different matter)

 

the above being said.. I do hear plenty of ignorance and rude attitude to new users from friends, of course nothing can really take the place of first hand experience..

 

As for the team based achievements, I wouldn't see why this wouldn't help. If players are really mostly in it for the completionist thing(get all achievements possible) then making it so that the only achievements there are requires mass cooperation of players?

I believe some games have an achievement or two that requires co-operation? Left 4 Dead seems to come to mind. However (and again please take this as a bit of a rant/bias as i am in no way a statistician --> I'm in my final year of Computer science) more often than not do i see games that only really take account you for the achievement system.

[Thrik]

Tribes 2 was quite unique in that there were a lot of point-based incentives for playing as a team, with things like defence in particular being well rewarded. This is a concept surprisingly few games have caught onto, although Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield are notable examples.

 

I played TF2 a lot and I saw lots of fantastic teamwork, although it really depends on the server. If you're a regular and you play with other regulars, typically you work together very well. It's also quite well designed in that there's not so much incentive for defending in itself, but defence-orientated techniques can be very good for your score.

 

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (which is temporarily de facto Battlefield 3 on the PC at this point) is good too, as really you're screwed without working together and again there're plenty of incentives for helping your team.

 

So no, I would say team-based gameplay is pretty much as strong as ever. Really players have always been selfish and it's up to the game designers to leverage that in the right way. Tribes 2 was just a particularly good example of this and I miss it dearly.

[urluckyday]

Yeah, I really get the sense that working together as a team (especially in shooters) isn't important or really around anymore. I think the Battlefield series is an excellent example of that. Just play Bad Company, and you will see that while people may "help you out" by shooting the guy who's shooting you, but it's not like they're doing it for any other reason than keep their score up. I think that in order for a true team-based game to work is to have more of a penalty for dying because if you don't help your teammates survive, they'll just come back 5 seconds later at a spawn point, so what's the point of helping them out?

 

You can always try a sports game lol