Yeah, the fact that you just can't do this game 'casually' is another part of why I uninstalled.
About the only game with multiplayer combat I would consider casual is Guild Wars 2 World vs World, and that's because the devs basically ignored the mode for 3 years and all the W v W guilds essentially made their own fun.
That and in a 50-man Zerg even a newbie can help on accident.
I tend to agree. It started with marketing, but frankly, players ate it up.
There's this myth out there, that some games you don't care about winning and some games you do. No. Some games you give up and don't try hard, and that decision is often made in the middle of the game, and some games a player dedicates themselves to. Usually for a proper reward or incentive.
'Serious' mode was developed. 'Ranked' and 'Climbing' which quickly became more of a myth to believe people could start yelling at others to play the way they wanted them to, and to think somehow they would be super secretly discovered e-sports stars. Now it is more turned into a belief that you can F around in not ranked games, but you shouldn't F around in 'ranked' games and try your hardest.
Not all of this is terrible. I believe it is right to have a place people can mess around in and not take seriously, and have a mode where they dedicate themselves to full play. But it stops there for me, and when one of those game modes fails, you quickly get people who separated those two mindsets now in the same game. You know, like they always used to be.
Couple that with skin purchases and 'rewards' for playing and you get the hot mess we have today. Plus a real solidification of the twin myths that the person playing knows all the things everyone else should be doing, and that somehow there is a hypothetical climb, if you do well enough, to become the newest esports team member. Oh, and if you don't, how much all those other players stopped YOU from achieving that status because you always knew YOU were the super secret, undiscovered, esports master. Gohd those other players, how absolutely awful they were, keeping you down!
'Ranked' and 'Competitive' mode is a commercial, and people suck it up, hook, line and sinker. Because it's a commercial, where you, the player, are the real star of the world.
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