I think M:tG was ruined by this too.

Back in the day, you could try out new things and play 10-20 turn games where both sides had winning chances. The odds that your opponent had anything approaching an optimal meta was zero.

Now, especially online (Arena), you’re just going to get curb stomped if you aren’t playing one of the few optimal metas. And since the games hinge upon either side getting an unstoppable engine going by turn 3 or 4, if you get a drought or flood (or mulligan), you’re basically completely dead in the water. Same for your opponent.

The net result is that it feels like something like only 15%–25% of games are actually competitive, because either you or your opponent gets fucked by too many, too few, or wrong color land draws, or for whatever reason you don’t draw the cards you need within the first few turns.

A game where 80% of matchups are effectively no contest is not fun.

> It's amazing the degree to which streaming/online communities around video games have destroyed the games themselves

I think they might destroy the streaming/online communities, but I wouldn't say it destroys the game itself. I play BAR, but never with random strangers, the game works fine, but I also don't participate in any "video game" communities or watch/play with streamers, so what you're saying sounds very foreign to me, and is more about the communities than the games themselves.

I remember playing Malzahar support before it was meta, because that was the only character I could play well in League of Legends.

Sometimes people would even rage quit. But I could do really well as support, even if it was slightly worse than some other characters. It made for a very fun playthrough.

And I would totally get the people. Sometimes somebody in a bad mood joins your game and just messes everything up because they didn't get to play mid. And I might have looked like someone like that.

But dealing with toxic players is surprisingly easy.

I initially looked down at LoL, but later wanted to learn to play to spend time online with my younger brother that was having a hard time. So I had a friend show me something.

First time I played jungle, I died on the first monster. Before people could finish typing flaming messages, my friend typed into the chat /ignore all

Voila - silence and no flaming.

Later I stopped preemptively ignoring everyone. Just used no second chances tactic. If anybody cursed, was mean or even used the word noob, I instantly ignored them and then kept playing.

Sometimes told a teammate that had a bad steak to do that to the flaming person. Many games I've one because of being nice to my teammates, trying to keep their spirits up. Wasn't super hard - 25 year old at that time and reading some philosophy books and meditating vs regular 13 year olds.

It was still important to ignore people before they could push your buttons and anger you.

I wonder if it's the same in other games. Definitely not the case in Eve online when I played that. But over there you meet the same people again and by having no style and being a bad winner and a bad loser didn't give you any respect.

Yes and the worst part of that is that I really enjoy working out my own strategies. My best RTS memories are on StarCraft 1, playing with friends in the early 2000s, and we all just were figuring it out for ourselves.

I think that's a normal evolution of these games? In the end they are cooperative so your teammates depend on you. Although you'll find plenty of people at the top of the ladder spamming werid strategies and being successful.

I wish LLMs played games, I'd never need to see a human again.

I think Overwatch and League of Legends are the best examples of this effect. Both games are entirely unrecognizable today compared to 2016.

Somehow Starcraft 2 emerged from the other side of esports mostly unscathed, despite being arguably the most significant progenitor of the entire genre.

Meta-gaming is a natural progression in all human games. Chess players find "metas" like openings. It's just that video games are too simple and have very restricted meta set.

You and the parent comment just described academia in a nutshell

Seems people in general have started to project their lifes disappointments, stresses, and greater human needs onto a digital dimension like video games. Growing up they used to be about fun. I have endless memories as a child playing Mario N64 and it not needing to be about playing a particular way; only as a I got older and competition and disappointments being human as an adult added up did I notice this shift you mention in online game communities.

I like to ask now, "have you heard of playing for fun?" It's surprising how little people seem to remember that games are made for fun & learning ("play" as a human construct).

edit2: taking back this edit on political conjecture to say something shifted that I'm not sure what. edit: in online games I played growing up too, this negativity/anti-fun change came probably around 2004 with bigger changes in the US political climate as well.

It's amazing the degree tencent shills have taken action to stop people in the west from enjoying games online. This is not natural and it didn't used to be this way.