Your videos and great at all but I REALLY wish I could send them to my friends and other people who don't know those things without looking like a schizo conspiracy theorist. Those people are the ones who should be educated on all those problems but the dystopian future clickbait thumbnails and creepy hackerman stock footage during the videos really doesn't make your videos approachable to people who are the ones getting exploited by the industries you are talking about in my opinion.
To be honest, what you missed in the video is Cod is now owned by microsoft. Microsoft owns Microsoft azure cloud servies. Call of duty warzone seasons during the MW2 and MW3 years of release has server issues where the game randomly freezes causing you to perish. Even if you had giga bit interennet. Now microsoft can easily host the game on their servers, and have fast server access to fix all this, its not a game design or code issue. Yet they and activision dont care And sadly the players dont mind playing a broken incomplete glitchy junk game. On top of that, weapons get nerfed and new meta changes so much now, u cant be a casual player anymore Maxing the battle pass now takes longer, further preventing u from being a casual So in summary SBMM is not the cause of the addiction bro. Its the entire game. So i ❤ u but this video was incomplete
so thats why WZ for years constantly matched me with low level skill clueless players meanwhile everyone else has good teammates game was unplayable you dont get to play when you spawn and get taken out it puts u against tryhard sweats with aimassist softaimbot that never miss shots we always get wiped and i never want to carry im just playing for fun but am being used as an advertisement to make the corporation money even though im not on their payroll and that was every match for years even though i spent money they still shadow nab (spelt backwards) me into being used as fodder for other players or to advertise, its called msicsaf (spelt backwards) and im pretty sure when i said that in game chat thats how i ended up on their special list
This is why you stay away from games with season passes and microtransactions. There's an incentive for them to push that crap when they can monetize it.
Sort of explains, why competitive games make a lot less fun anymore these days. I also noticed the inconsistency part with enemies. I am used to that with different servers 10-15 years ago, but i would not have a ranking system telling me, 2 different enemy groups are "same skilled" - on platinum level for example - while one group has guys with far superior aiming, positioning and movement. With that in mind, superficial ranking is totally useless. Most of the times, i don´t know beforehand, if i should treat my enemies as way superior, similar skilled or less experienced/skilled. On Servers, you often had similar guys and could evaluate their skill over time and react accordingly. With Ranking systems instead of server focused systems, this is automatically done by the game for you. But after this system also got very useless for the most part, since there is a lot of variation of player skill, this just feels like a random queue, but you don´t expect that huge differences because of the ranking. Sort of kills the compassion to get better. What i wait for: Players not paying actually get a lot less good matchups provided and are there as meat for expected more paying customers. Making PvP games sort of a two class system. If it´s not a system already in place in some games for some time already.
This is why online puzzle games like That's not My Neighbor and Suck Up (puzzle + some action, and I think you pay once) are really popular because they are fun and affordable, but not trying to scam you!!!
I also encountered mostly playing KOOP games. Very few of people in my friendlists that tended to play nearly excluesively PvP do that anymore. Not sure if they just gotten older or just lost their compassion for PvP.
Only the highest scoring psychologists in their degrees go to such companies because the money is good. Low scoring psychologists go into therapy and take that sweet government funding because of wanting a stable career. It is ironic. The better qualified psychs should, theoretically, be therapists to help people. As I say, the system is designed to be broken, so everyone can be employed to fix perpetual problems the system (a.k.a. society) is causing. Highly qualified and skill psychologists paid lots of money to make people addicted or unwittingly hooked to a product, so the less qualified and skilled psychologists pretend or attempt to help manipulated individuals break free from the programming. Which does not work, therefore, the illusion of choice and success.
Facebook did the same thing. Some family members of mine don't even listen to me when I'm talking... They're on Tik Tok. Tik Tok is more important than what I'm saying. They have killed normal human interaction. I didn't have a phone that could access the internet until I was 18/19. Thanks to my mum, she saved me from brain damage. Because that's what it does to people.
Of course they thought that way. Cognitive dissonance and brazen narcissism are signs of people being manipulated into thinking that "they're the man" or "they're superior". 🙄 They always think they're right about everything even when they've literally been coerced into thinking "X" about "Y". It's embarrassing and sad, but hey... that's 90% of humanity for ya! 😂
I rarely play live service games. The only game I picked up recently that is live service is Helldivers 2, which is an anomaly in that I actually like it enough to play it regularly. Other than that, I'm mostly playing single player games - and ones that don't attach bs, at that. You know what I mean: pay-to-win mechanics, microtransactions, limited season passes, censoring, et cetera. I'm generally happier as a gamer now that I'm not chasing after as many trends as I used to.
@@zen_7748 I used to play Multiplayer games all the time in high school. But that was during the OG COD Modern Warfare and Halo days. Now I just play Fortnite and the rest are single player games. lol
I have several ssds packed with all the games and other media I have enjoyed over the years. I've just been using my library for the last 5 years or so and I only end up buying a few games a year, if that.
Someone once pointed out something quite eye-opening to me: it's in a modern game's best interest that the player makes bad decisions, and that those bad decisions are not immediately punished, giving the player time to dread them, blame themselves, and contemplate purchasing microtransactions to cheer themselves up. In old games, if you were not having fun, you'd quit playing. So the games used things like tutorials and confirmation boxes to help teach you how to make good decisions and avoid bad decisions. And when you made a bad decision, the game would convey it very quickly without stringing you along and wasting your time. But for modern games, it's in their best interest to let you make bad decisions, so they no longer stop you from, say, leveling up bad characters, using premium items at bad times that would cause them to be wasted, and so on. And when you make a bad decision, the game never tells you. It just strings you along, making you think you're doing great, leaving you to realize the mistake you made all on your own. As an example: if Mario jumps into a pit, he dies and has to start the whole level over - a harsh and immediate consequence for your mistake. If Mario were designed like modern games, he'd respawn nearby every time he dies, and then you'd get a star rating when you touch the flagpole based on how many times you died. That disconnection between the mistake and the consequence, and that fundamental conflict of interest between the game and the player, drives a lot of microtransaction sales!
Do you think it's okay for some games to have that modern game system? or would it be better to have a reward based system (points for style and good plays) rather than punishment. Mario kart wii is pretty challenging for its ranking system, you either need an extreme lead or earn time bonuses from hitting opponents with items (mechanics which aren't revealed and your rank isn't shown until the end of the cup)
Funny you mention Ion Storm's DX1. That is my favorite game of all-time. It's certainly better--by far--than literally 90% or more of what's currently on the market. Warren Spector's work (and the Ion Storm team's) was more than exemplary, it was visionary. And the "Revision" mod is bloody perfect for gameplay in 202x. "What good's an honest soldier if he can be commanded to act like a terrorist?" --J.C.
You know they use this everywhere, shopping, bills, dating apps, office apps, social, entertainment. It’s the inevitable permeation of “dark patterns” into our lives.
ye i noticed they all implement a blacklist the same way no matter the industry once you are on it you dont come off no matter if its CoD or your social media account for posting
@@PrincessFionaYT Twitter is dead lol still a lot of bots/fake profiles. You can actually pay people to follow you (Notice how I didn't use the word "literally") 50 profiles at a time.
@@PrincessFionaYT other day my tweet got liked before it finished posting by an OF bot the animation was still appearing after pressing post its like they send the robot army after you to make it seem like you have reach but its all fake
Yes. This has been slowly unfurling into society over time. When Facebook was created, it started to nosedive into the dystopian hellscape we're barreling toward.
Stop buying always-online. Stop pre-ordering. Support indie. Use your left over money (that would have been used for the more expensive game) to help with upkeep of self-hosted/rented game server. Matchmaking is still possible. Having """micro"""-transactions can still be a thing (If you are in the camp of "How to support further development?")
Gamers have done this too themselves. If masses of gamers refused to buy these games with exploitative dynamics and gambling mechanisms and make them the worse sellings games in history it would not go on to be a industry norm. Gaming I say is not in the absolute state that it is because of evil companies - which there are many - but because of gamers and what they have chosen to support year after year.
Also, read a book! 💪😎✌️ 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨ "Before I start, I must see my end. Destination known, my mind's journey now begins. Upon my chariot, heart and soul's fate revealed. In time, all points converge, hope's strength resteeled. But to earn final peace at the universe's endless refrain, we must see all in nothingness... before we start again." 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨ --Diamond Dragons (book I)
I'd add: Buy physical if possible. Digital doesn't mean ownership and they aren't even cheaper. Play old games. If you need to purchase digitally, do so on GOG.
@@napoleonfeanor Steam is fine, Steam DRM is not made to be hard to remove. "The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy and has some obfuscation, but it is easily removed by a motivated attacker" says Steam.
This is probably the main reason why most publishers insist on having their games always online. So that they can monitor the players' behavior and implement manipulative systems as described. I don't think they care about piracy because whoever pirates a game is most likely not the type of person to spend money on microtransactions.
I do this with playtest demos. When playing a game I've made myself it's really hard to scale difficulty and judge your signposting. While it may sound sinister, it can help the development of a game. When I used to make levels back in the olden days, they were always too difficult and too cryptic, and I didn't know because I knew were every item and monster was.
@GangsterFrankensteinComputer Yeah, sure, that's not the issue. Of course, you need a ton of samples and data to test a game during development and betas/alphas. The problem is gathering data in the background of a finished game without your consent (or by forcing you to consent if you want to play) and then insidiously manipulating game systems without your knowledge. I vividly remember when Bungie throttled XP gain in Destiny because players would've otherwise earned too many cosmetics, thereby losing potential revenue in the in-game shop.
That's because--in a way--you aren't. Every account is modified, tweaked, predetermined, and "massaged" to cultivate profits. A similar situation is found at casinos. Yes, the pinnacle of "gaming", lol. #GamingYOU #GANKINGyou
@@Nex_LevelWhen Overwatch launched the gaming boogeyman was loot boxes but they were optional and didn't affect gameplay. The live service bullshit of OW2 (especially locking new heroes on the battle pass) is what finally pushed me out too. Blizzard sucks. Overwatch sucks.
Because Activision has that patent that started with MWII that actually effects your hitbox, your footsteps and enemy footsteps, and your damage dealt and damage received. MW2019 wasn't as bad because even though it had SBMM that would pair you with no lifers if you had a good match, it didn't actively effect your performance except for your ping. I remember hopping on after not playing for a week and my ping was 30 to the nearest server and then after a handful of really good matches, I start getting destroyed because it'd put me in matches across the country at 80-100 ping with people in my skill. It always felt like I was garbage after that and I'd lose every match because nobody would capture the points
exactly, this is why i started playing HD2 over CoD because the bots in HD2 felt better than the bots in WZ even though they are real players, well part real since its more PvE now with their soft aimbot via rotational aimassist
I encourage everyone to go read the public patents for call of duty’s SBMM. I thought it was bad until I read through it, and then I was downright horrified. Most of those metrics gathered and psychology induced onto the players should should be illegal. But then again, what’s new it’s 2024.
I went to junior college in advertising over a decade ago to learn drawing and computer graphics and stuff they teach in psychology of advertising classes is just sickening. They treat people like cattle to be controlled.
Its even worse when you realise this is intentionally aimed at kids. Thats why whenever a new CoD or warzone comes out after a week they start filling it with immersion ruining fortnite tier and "dude weed lmao" crap in.
If you want to go deeper into this look into Halo Infinte’s SBMM. The game actively predicts (fairly accurately, you can actually view this yourself on halo’s website) what your performance will be in each given match and essentially places you in matches where you’re projected to win or lose depending on whether or not you’re statistically likely to continue playing. If you’re a good player, you’ll be matched with terrible teammates in an effort to force a loss, while bad players will be systematically handed out wins to maintain their retention. Again, you can actively see this on display by checking your past matches on halo waypoint, as it shows a graph that compares your projected K/D with your actual for your last few matches. Stuff like this is why playing competitive shooters feels so fruitless.
It honestly explains why there are several UA-camrs out there who buy stuff in game and play for a few hours will be matched with utter morons most of the time.
You’re on the right track. I swear Infinite messes with our aim and damage output as well. Back in the day I’d game with a clan and I always would place very high on the charts and I won a lot of matches. When I play Infinite the controls and aim feel like total garbage and I can tell my aim was being messed with. In COD we use guns that largely have a lot of kick and sway, so when your aim is sloppy it feels like it’s on us to aim better with attachments. In Halo the feel of the guns are much smoother, so when my aim feels off it’s got to be because they’re toying with my aim on purpose to force a loss. I could be wrong but after 30 years of gaming I’m pretty sure I know what I’m experiencing.
We've been telling people this stuff since the early 2000s and we were the new adult generation, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT to a lot of these companies. That's when the first models of the modern over-monetized slot casino crap first started to creep into AAA. Its all been downhill since people kept increasingly pretending its normal and squelching any of those of us that point this out (they are now called the paid shills of "gaming journalism").
The only exception I found to this after 2004 or so was--of all things--Skyrim (ES5). That's pretty much the last "newer" game I bought. The rest of my so-called gaming is still Deus Ex (original with "Revision" patch), HoM&M3 (HotA version), M&M4-5, Tradewinds (revamped version of "Taipan"), and old-school home console emulation (NES, SMS, SNES, Genesis, etc.). Otherwise, I'm too busy developing my own IP, books, screenplays, etc. 💪😎✌️
So they added equality of outcome to the game to make everyone feel better, yet doing so makes it a stale, dumbed down experience for everyone. Why am I not surprised.
@@ReigoVassal because in the end, just like in this comment section probably, people like to pretend they are offended by this or something. But when they come from work they just want to play a couple of games with some buddies and enjoy it. Also, those that truly play to compete, grind so hard that this system doesn't even apply to them.
I'm not that much of a gamer myself, but I've noticed this kind of stuff happening, too. One of the games I play is Yugioh Master Duel, and it became clear after about a week of playing it that card shuffler system is, in no way, actually random. It is designed to frustrate players just enough to want to buy gem packs with real money. I can give a couple of examples of this, being a free player who's never spent money on the game. #1: I have built every deck that I own IRL in the game. Somehow, the real life cards that I draw never brick, but the exact same deck will get a brick hand roughly 1/3 matches. #2: The game has a limited single player mode, and in this mode the biased shuffling system isn't being applied. While playing cards solo, you will get yourself far more consistent and diverse hands than while playing against other players. It's like night and day, between solo mode and ranked. #3: A large part of the game is something called The Maxx "C" Tax. For those unaware, Maxx "C" is a card that the entire game effectively revolves around. Every deck in the game has 3 copies of Maxx "C", alongside of 6 total cards meant almost exclusively to stop Maxx "C". Entire games are won and lost around this card. I'll spare the math, but this means there is a 33% chance to open with Maxx "C", but a 57% chance to open a card that beats Maxx "C". So, roughly 18.8% of games, Maxx "C" will go off without a hitch, which is roughly one out of every five games. For me, I'll go days without successfully resolving Maxx "C", weeks without it meaning anything, but against me it is successfully resolved somewhere between half and one third of all games I play. The times where I will resolve the Maxx is usually against a control deck that doesn't special summon, which in spite of being rare for this format seems to happen every single time I get the Maxx. #4: Decks become cursed over time. The longer a deck is played, the lower the win/loss ratio becomes. Inevitably, even if there are no format changes, a deck becomes a "loser" that will win, at most, 1 out of every 4 games... no matter what format or ranking it is in. Nothing changes, it is just that when the deck is used, it will consistently fail to open even a decent hand, and when it does the opponent will pull god-like and have everything necessary to beat you + extra. For example, my strongest deck atm is Unchained, which is at full power in the game right now and should, by everyone else's estimation, be ripping people to shreds in the ladder, but I'm having more luck with off-meta junk than Unchained, because somehow Unchained always bricks or my opponent opens the perfect counters. #5: Side Corollary, but they also have another game called Duel Links, which I have spent small amounts of money on. Each time money is spent there, I shoot up through the ladder on a series of improbable victories. So, my running theory is that Master Duel has a neural network that's been tasked with maximizing profit. First, it matches the combination of cards that lead to victories and losses. Second, it runs an analysis to find what combination of wins and losses is most likely to lead to somebody spending real world money. Then, once money is spent, it will give the spending player a temporary boost in the shuffle weights, coin flips, and the matchmaking system to give them more victories, but only for awhile.
Master Duel mentioned! That aside, I can say Duel Links too. Though I've started playing only casually a year ago, I can testify some similarities here too.
@@lambdachi107-gamingandmusi2 I don't get in which way you mean that, but we are kinda investors ourselves, but we aren't organized nor the brightest. But if we agree on something altogether, we shall change anything in our favor, just don't spend money on things you don't agree with. Look what happened to Helldivers 2. However, a fair chunk gamers don't understand that. That's why we have live services, FIFA, COD and AC every year.
@@lambdachi107-gamingandmusi2 Maybe you mean we gamers need get our shit together and act more like responsible investors than mindless sheep. Yes, that's it.
remember back in the day , when we had LAN parties, and all you had to do is double click on a shortcut to launch your game, and not go into a "launcher" like steam? I remember. those were teh days.
It's quite funny how a decade ago we would have games gently telling us "Remember to make a 15 minute pause every hour of game", and now we have games slyly pushing us to continue playing.
War Thunder's been doing this for years. Sometimes it doesn't matter how perfect your position, how clearly your line of sight, or how oblivious and open the enemy is. Your shot WILL bounce off their vehicle. Shots that should have gone right through are just negated. Sometimes multiple times in rapid succession because they don't know where you are. Once they find you however, duck, because they WILL one-shot you with a round that by all rights had little-to-no chance of penetrating. Whenever this happens we always look at the player level. They're usually below 30, indicating a relatively new player. We affectionately call it 'The n00b shield'.
I remember a video was made on world of tanks where the guy delved into whether the shot calculations are rigged, got data from a pro account and compared it to his "control" numbers, came to the conclusion that people who think the game cheats dont know what they're talking about. Unless people have access to the source code and can access the formula as to how shots are calculated, if there is money to be had by manipulating the game then I have to assume there are bogus elements to gameplay.
I have like 500 hours on that game and I love it compared to CoD which I know is rigged. Then again I only play air RB and I've heard that ground can be odd at times
@@LeonBelmont1000 I don't doubt that there are incidents that are just 'coincidental'. I've made my fair share of absolutely BS shots that if I were on the receiving end I would hedge my bets that the guy was cheating, and ever since they introduced volumetric armor/ammo the penetration chances are wonky and you can definitely 'get Gaijined' (Gaijin being the name of the dev studio) with some shots. But I personally have experienced such absolute BS moments that were so improbable of outcome as to be virtually impossible, and yet... I am convinced that War Thunder has certain protections for new and inexperienced uers. It's almost a necessity, especially when you routinely have full squads of veterans that prowl at the lower/mid tiers not because they necessarily WANT to seal club, but because the gameplay itself changes so drastically when you get to the upper brackets as to be an essentially different game altogether. Also some players legit only play for the WWII aspect of the game and have no interest in 'modern' warfare, so it stands to reason that new players would have armor/penetration buffs to keep them engaged long enough to get hooked.
I've played War Thunder for... a few thousand hours since it came out lol, I can agree that the damage models are a little janky, sometimes shots that should penetrate don't, sometimes shots that sould not penetrete do, but overall there is a manageable ammount of consistency once you have enough knowledge of the armor layouts of enemy tanks and the rounds you are using. I've also heard there is a small degree of randomess on the calculations for ballistics and penetration, mostly when it's not a clear 0% chance or 100% chance of beating the armor, wich might save you, or screw you up from time to time. I don't know if this is made on purpose to incentivize all the stuff said on the video, it could perfectly be, but given Gaijin's track record I'm more inclined to say... don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence.
You mean the game that has infamously people with 30000 hours play time go into BR 2 to snipe some new players from the other side of the map has a shield for new players? Sounds a little odd doesn't it.
This is why i've seen myself shifting from multiplayer games to single player / co-op, none of that eomm or whatever rigged matchmaking algorithm there is, and more quality content.
after HD2 came out i stopped bothering with WZ they give everyone softaimbot thru rotational aimassist then manipulate your aim and who you play with and against its not even a PvP game anymore its PvE and i have much more fun playing against the robots on HD2 than on WZ and in WZ they are actual real player BOTS who just only have 1 playstyle of tryhard sweating
And industry approved gaming journalists wonder why they are irrelevant and disappearing. They never would cover this story and expose these criminals.
That is why i stopped playing league of legends....always the same chatacters destroying others....despite stats being "balanced" = play certain sht to win and then buy skins for it. And for that reason I will never play - overwatch - apex legends - pubg - fortnite - valorant - ETC
F*ck matchmaking. When I was really into FPSs back in the day you just "knew" the IPs of the servers where the good people hang out. And the "bad" players for some random public fun. I hate modern gaming.
Thought the same. Its great when the ranking systems work, but when you encounter a big variation of player skill levels (very bad and exceptional players) for your own league, this takes away the argument for a rank based system. From the players side. You often kinda knew the people from the different players on the servers, their general skill levels, their vibe and teamplay. Something you totally use with a ranking system. You also loose a lot of the social aspect in the game when they are just a mate for one round. More rare to vibe so good, you´d instantly group up after matches tbh. Everything a good amount less random. Ranking was good in the beginning. But with the current systems, it even lost a good amount of their strengths.
Yeah, this aspect is really missing in today's servers. I honestly didn't care if I sucked or not as seeing my skills progress over time was satisfying on its own. However, finding a server with cool people I can play with made all the difference.
I have been saying this forever. I have been downvoted and even (temporarily) banned for saying this exact same thing. Glad to see that I am not crazy.
Overwatch 2 100% does this. I played 15 games in a row and lost 11. All matches I won came down to the wire, even feeling like winning was a fluke. This is not at all organic. I started leaving matches after this and all of a sudden Im winning matches. Stomping even.
The fact that you can patent the INTENT to squeeze money out of player by ruining their experience if they don't, shows how fucked up gaming is... That's why I just steer clear of everything that focuses on "competition".
@@rps215 true, but it's easy to forget again because that shit's going on in the background. The obvious decline in gaming experience is just a reminder that it's less and less "in the background" now.
@@BloodyMobile Not to mention back then they claimed that they won't use it. But then, why do they even filed for such patents, which is like finding some recently released thieves in the staff exit of a bank at 2PM with a backpack full of thievery equipment, and when pressed they claim that they just happen to be there and not guilty of anything.
@@rps215 in theory, having the patent prevents everyone else from doing what the patent protects. That said, the claim of not using it would only hold up if was held by a company that can be trusted, aka /none/ of the companies that can afford to "block" a patent.
SBMM has (in my opinion) been one of the largest pushes that I believe made me stop caring or bothering with PVP games or PVP modes in the past 5-7-ish years whether I realized it or not. And the modern "engagement squeezing" games in the competitive sphere have been utilizing caused me to almost completely remove myself from the player pool or customer pool of these games and over to more single player centric, MMO, or PVE/Coop games to an almost religious degree. And I was someone who LOVED playing CoD, Halo, CS, BF, etc growing up and in school. Now I don't want anything to do with games like that and I think it's because of this (not just this but this is quite foundational to my reasoning) I played those games to have fun, relax, perhaps trashtalk a little bit and get a rush, win lose or draw. But under the engagement system....There's little fun to be had, it's replaced with white-knuckle stress, disappointment and discouragement in an almost all-encompassing way. Why would I PAY to experience these emotions in a highly curated, manipulative manner? Answer: The only winning move is not to play.
Man I agree with this. I am currently playing Diablo 4 and fallout 76. These games actively hate your free time. They want you to be present 24/7 or you might “miss something” with the way the roll the content around.
I am somebody who is relatively unaffected by losses in games. Usually if I have a bad game, I just look to see what I did wrong and how I could play better next time. A couple weeks ago I was playing Fortnite and got into a really savage losing streak that lasted almost a week’s time, sometimes not even making it to 90 players remaining. I figured there was SBMM, I figured I’d moved up a bit, but the issue I was having was that the guns were not performing as I thought they should. I’d played enough to know how the gun should feel, and while I knew I would never win every fight, I was getting out classed by grey and green guns at ranges that didn’t make sense, and I myself could not land hardly any of my hits. All my previous practice seemed to mean nothing for some reason. A couple more bad games in, I return to the lobby and am met with one of their random surveys. Their survey asked “Have you noticed any change in difficulty while playing the game?” I am not someone who likes to blame lag, the game, or cheaters when I lose. However, after that and after I said that yes, the game felt harder, I took a break from the game for a bit. Next time I played the game was back to feeling how it had felt the week before, and while I wasn’t winning every game, the guns felt how they should again. I have since decided that, in some cases, I will only win these modern games for as long as the game allows me to, much to my dismay.
i'm glad i stopped playing multiplayer games a long time ago when all mmos turned purely into monetization schemes and away from being social environments.
Battlefield 1 was the last one I really enjoyed. After that, I almost completely switched to single player. The only multiplayer I play these days are coop. For example, in Starcraft 2 I only play the coop part for the multiplayer, I have no interest in pvp.
We suspected such a system at work about half a decade ago already. Im not sure if that was just bias but the the potential itself for such application is most certeanly not surprising. Im pretty sure a bounch of popular game are already engangement optimised. For example, my player attitude was always a resilient one. If I lose a game it is very likely I play another right away, and if I win, I feel satisfied, stop playing, and I do something else. In the last few years this approach tends to yield incredibly low win rates with very high "free loss rate". Sometimes it's very obvious, especially when I finally quit, then come back a few months later, and even though Im significantly out of practice I suddenly start to win in a lot.
It's not just about pushing people to purchase, that also means they're capable of detecting which players DO NOT SPEND EVER, and use them as canon fodder, and that's exactly what they do
@@DevlVergil ikr. I play CODM and haven't become cannon fodder (or a I just too good for them to try that). Even if I match up against a person with an OP gun, I can still use the basic Ak-47 to take them out...
This feels eerily simmilar to my experience playing Wold of Tanks and World of Warships. World of Tanks especially has battles where one of the teams simply does not stand a chance and will result in a 3 minute curbstomp.
Yeah, WoWs was my immediate thought when I saw this video. Matchmaking is terrible, lots of games tend to be mostly one-sided. Gunnery rng is rubbish, I'm seriously fed up with catching ships broadside and getting nothing but overpens, meanwhile I get smashed from absolutely stupid angles. Monetization is getting ridiculous as well, but that's nothing new. Think I'm going to uninstall again, the game has become insufferable. Edit: just reached the end of the video where UE talks about rigged aiming and ranked matchmaker. Yep, that's WoWs.
Known about this for a while. This is why I stick to more cooperative titles, bots should not have the power to dictate human interaction on any level, very dangerous.
He's not making decisions? Well, yes and no. In his everyday life, man rules over the machine; Alex makes his own decisions. Now, when he engages in battle, the visor comes down and the software takes over, then the... the machine does everything. Alex is a... he's a passenger, just along for the ride. But if the machine is in control, then how is Murphy accountable? Who's pulling the trigger? When the machine fights, the system releases signals into Alex's brain making him think he's doing what our computers are actually doing. I mean, Alex believes right now he is in control, but he's not. It... it's the illusion of free will.
I have never liked matchmaking in any form. Because even the concept of skill based matchmaking is flawed from the start. A game can't actually gauge your skill, it can only gauge your previous performance. And this typically results in the problem Titanfall has always had. Where you get utterly thrashed one match, then absolutely dominate the next. And it swings wildly back and forth like that every match. Because all the game thinks is you did poorly that match, so you need weaker opponents, or you did well that match, so you need stronger opponents. Eventually, this might even out and finally start matching you with players of relatively equal skill more often. But I never had that happen in all the time I played those games. Instead, I just resigned myself to the fact than any time I won a match, I was pretty much guaranteed to lose the next. Because no good deed goes unpunished, or something like that. The other common scenario is that a player's match maker rating, or MMR, is simply an indicator of how long they've played, not how good they are. And, of course, it also can't account for when you haven't played in a while, so you've gotten rusty. Or you're simply having an off day. This can be a real problem if the matchmaker will actually lock you out of matches if your MMR is too far off. The "better" you get at the game, the fewer opponents you'll end up being able to play against. Back when simply having a server browser was the only way to play online, and you had no idea how good or bad any players were before joining, I was never really upset by imbalanced skill levels. But, since match making became the only way to play, even a slightly unfair match up has become super frustrating. Because matchmaking was supposedly going to make that a thing of the past. But it only ended up making it worse in almost every case. Plus, it encourages all the sweaty tryhards to be even more obnoxiously competitive than usual to boost their MMR. And, of course, that's before you consider all these myriad ways the matchmaking algorithm can be used to manipulate the game, and make it less fun on purpose.
Not if, WHEN. That's the part that I think is the biggest mistake here. If you only get to win because matchmaking says so, no amount of skill matters.
remember when multiplayer games had actual dedicated servers and you would build a sense of community and friendship with the follow players that would join and play every night ...now everyone is just a pawn to be used to bring in extra purchases
Funnily enough I (and probably a lot of us) already suspected this for a good while now. I 100% felt this ominous feeling that the system itself is really manipulating my inputs, changes in weird ways that can be felt every match. It made me hate these arena games so much I uninstalled all of them, especially Warzone. That one was the worst offender being a "rage game". These investigations are very welcome, thank you!
This video nails the feeling I had when I played League of Legends back in 2012-2013. The matchmaking algorithm completely destroyed the matches I got on one of my accounts. Every match was either: 1. Get stomped and utterly wrecked by the enemy team. 2. Stomp and completely wreck the enemy team. There was no in-between and it wasn't fun at all. I don't mind a win or a loss. I care about how the win/loss was achieved. And it felt like my skills and my choices didn't matter AT ALL with my LoL matches. I made a new LoL account and found that the matchmaking on a fresh account wasn't as messed up. I now quit LoL all together. Had a two month(!) losing streak and it felt like the matchmaking algorithm was screwing with me again (jungle/support main). That was back in 2016 or something.
Interesting topic indeed, thinking about it makes me sick. How a game can changue "parameters" to increase engagement or whatever and lose all consistency, probably without you ever noticing
Nowadays, I look at games with a cynical look of “the first red flag I see, I’m writing it off”. Helldivers, THE FINALS, and the death of R6 Siege have all proven to me that despite enjoying multiplayer games, I deserve better quality and respect as a customer and for my time than a majority of brainrot live service flings.
@@mr.s9783 They change anything at the whim of the pro players, there used to be 2 operators per season and the new operators are pretty lame with actually being operators and more of just a hero shooter character along with politics injected into it. The Siege team changed about 3 years ago and it just doesn't really get better anymore
@@mr.s9783 removal of anything remotely felt fun, unnecessary changes in the name of balance, then revoking them back half way, fixing few bugs, causing more bugs as a result. Releasing less content while starting to monetize more and more. It used to be 2 ops per season+1 map, now it's 2 reworked maps and 2 ops a Yr. But all the focus is on battlepass, new subscriptions etc... (the costumes are still bad, even in battlepass)
Thinking about building another PC and emulating PS1 and PS2 games on it just because every new game that comes out is somehow more multiplayer focused instead of singleplayer/story mode focused. I'm sick of MP. I just wanna chill and play alone, and not stress myself or my wallet over something that doesn't matter.
@@astanisystems Do it, be super cheap. PS2 only had a 147MHz GPU, 299Mhz CPU and 32 MB RAM. Significantly worse jhardware than a cheap mobile phone nowadays. You can use your huge TV as a monitor, and a PScontroller to USB adapter is also really cheap.
Dota 2 does this for their matchmaking when someone in r/dota2 pointed it out in the subreddit the infamous jeff hill came to defend and gaslight the game Dota 2 matchmaking literally reflect the design outcome exact same
I'm a magician and the first example of a magicians force with the math trick isn't a magicians force, that's a self working trick. The second example with the two cards is what a magicians force is. Using vague wording of the question to alter the answer to the one you want after they answer.
The first example is just a verbal version of (3x+6)/3 -x, which simplifies to x+2-x. It's just a long and drawn out way of saying a constant, and 6 is absolutely not necessary at all, you can replace it with any number you want and you'll just get a third of it as the answer. I can only imagine it's as complicated as it is to force more mistakes.
@@tristonpickens679 Yes I know all of this, you misunderstood me. I'm saying I know what words magicians use to describe these two different kinds of forces. I should have said self working math force.
Even if a game says they aren't using these systems, how could they ever prove it. Or worse, initially not have it turned on and then just turn it on after the game sales are high enough. The state of modern online gaming is disgusting.
"The AI put you there to lose on purpose, so that some guy on the other team would stay on longer and buy more stuff" I've been saying this shit for YEARS now, it never made sense how you'd be thrown into a match with people that are obviously waaay above my skill level, we weren't losing we were getting steamrolled hard.
I have been playing CoD since CoD4. In the newer games I would buy pre-owned and then only play the games for a few matches before exiting. However, ever since playing XDefiant, I have often found myself playing for hours and feeling like little time has passed because it's so fun. EOMM defintely makes a game less enjoyable, especially when you dont buy the MTX.
I'm an ex professional gamer. I went back into that game where I got top 4 placement in 2016, and... I don't know.... like 5 months ago? to see what's there, and the game rated me almost 2 times better than I was on my original account. At that moment I was something like "should I go again 'professional' and make a living out of it like back in the days or is this just a waste of time and coding/cyber security is actually more mature?!" I've chosen to stay away from it. Throughout all my experience with computers knowing that's all a scam and a waste of time and... ye, i'm really good at that game, i could make money and take advantage of idiots, but I have dignity and I know they pushed my rating and I also know my future wife wouldn't be proud of me for taking advantage of a toxic company and brainwashed players. For whoever reading this message, I advise you to play more single player games, or games like No Man's Sky, in which you have One Time Purchase... Be smart, have fun in video games (that was the point back in the days), and do not fund companies this guy describes in his video! Also, I dare to say that half of the viewers have literally no idea what this video tries to explain. I am sorry for those who feel offended, but I also talk from my personal and humble experience... Once again, go for single-player games and one-time purchases. It's the smart choice.
I guess that, 8:15, explains why i kept being placed against people with fully decked gold cards in Hearthstone, after about 10 of those i uninstalled the game
0:14 what the heck is this stock footage? One dude sitting at computer with Valorant on 2 screens at the same time? Who came up with this and then recorded it lol
Thank you for proving that I'm not paranoid or some kind of conspiracy nut. I've been trying to convince people of this for some time. What amazes me, is the sheer weight of the player base who live in denial of this, choosing to just believe that their team consists of "noobs" and "Bots". Never underestimate the power of denial...
I understand this ... I didnt play a lot of video games with in app purchases, but i did have the starbucks rewards app, and the way the interface kind of works, it sort of "plays you" too.
Would be funny if the trick was to never spend any money on cosmetics or other store items and the AI would just go like "have a free cheat approved by the devs" every time because it thinks that it can make you spend money.
I never *really* thought about the topic of "what actually makes a good matchmaking system for games" until this video. Now I find myself delving a bit more into what it actually means to be a "good matchmaking system". The gut impulse is "whatever is most fair" but fairness and enjoyable aren't /actually/ the same thing. I think the notion of trying to match players up in a way that gives them a good variance of hard matches, easy matches, and evenly matched setups is not inherently a bad thing. It is arguably better than both random and pure skill based matching (at least in the context of it not being an explicit skill ladder system). Rainbow six for example got extremely stale after they implemented skill based matching into casual; constantly having to fight people at your own skill level is simultaneously both exhausting and also you learn the least because you don't get to see how people far better than you are playing. Not everyone wants to clench their cheeks together for every single match just like not everyone wants to get absolutely slammed every single match. Purely random doesn't quite hit the right marks either if your skill level isn't on the higher end of the scale because you'll be more likely to be in matches where you just get totally slammed and if you're of a higher skill level you'll get a ton more matches where everyone is just not a challenge or even interesting to go up against. So there's an argument to be made that trying to curve matches so players get a strong /variety/ of matchups is actually the best method as far as trying to make the experience fun for everyone; at least as far as casual matchmaking (where the point isn't to climb a skill ladder explicitly). There's some ethical questions about intentionally matching users in games they are destined to win; and for team games it averages out a lot nicer in a purely random approach if the teams are larger (more variance); but overall the logic is at least reasonable. The actual problem is that companies don't actually have an incentive to make players /enjoy/ the experience. The incentive is to drive them into microtransactions or improve "retention" which is not the same thing as actually having fun. A potentially good idea perverted into an entirely unethical one by dubious actors looking only to churn a profit rather than on the health of the community they supposedly maintain. Anyways appreciated the video and the ability to actually think on this topic a little bit more than what was perhaps the goal of the video.
I think the way to go with this is to outright give the player's four options: "Laid Back" where it will range from slightly rated above you to significantly below in MM prospects. Because sometimes you just want a casual match and why not retain their playtime? "Surprise" where it has a full range from people/matches significantly against you to significantly below, likely the easiest to program by just keeping SOME bounders on it. (that relax as matchmake time increases of course.) "Challenging" where it deliberately ranges from roughly equal to significantly against you. Because there are people (and times when people) who want to get gud and accept the pain involved in the learning process. "Ranked" is always going to be roughly on your skill level if/as possible, specifically because it's openly tracking everyone. Put it in the player's hands and you can rake in all that engagement while getting a PR win for being transparent about it.
10:30 That's where "Inclusivity" is leading us. We're all forced into equity. You're a good player, but the game will handicap your aim/spread to keep the other player playing. Awful
I avoid all MMORPGs, Live services single player or multiplayer, season passes, cash shops etc. I used to have the mentality of wanting to play these games without spending money. Now I don't want to even give them the time of day. I'm disgusted with the modern video game industry.
The scary thing is, your team is always these silent bots who dont know how to play an objective or enage in supportive play. They dont respond to text or voice chat and just keep running into the meat grinder over and over. You cannot convince me these games still have real people playing them. Its like recruit AI on my team and Veteran AI on the opposite.
in wz i spent years playing with genuine new players who dont even know how to jump, essentially game was unplayable spawn and get taken out instantly by a tryhard sweat with softaimbot in their rotational aimassist never missing a shot
It's not AI and it is unsurprising. Put a bunch of strangers together and tell them to complete objective A, and of course you'll get mayhem instead. People in this case will do what they find the most fun, objectives be damned.
@@starc. yup, I remember playing Quake Live when that was new, and there were so many noobs . You'd get angry messages saying you were cheating because you were bhopping and rocket jumping lol.
I stopped playing nearly all AAA games when I observed that most AAA developers stopped making games for gamers and instead make them for themselves. They do so for both monetary and ideological reasons.
Remember those commercials saying that piracy hurts people? Yeah, wouldn't want to put these innocent people out of a job; a job that literally rigs the product against the consumer. Looks like a new version of those commercials is needed except pointing in the opposite direction this time.
this has been known/suspected for years now, but has been downplayed by players and publishers, even when we had the patents saying this stuff. Its just only now someone in the business is saying it, that people are listening. Its frustrating how stubborn people can be, and how obvious your experience can be controlled, and its fullly turned me away from the AAA gamespace almost as a whole, single player can be an exception SOME times. Its insane how things have turned out, I never wouldve guessed 10 years ago Id prefer indie titles over AAA ones, when at that time, i hated most indie titles. Cant wait for AAA to implode so we can have a reset on the market, whenever that is.
The worst part of it is that most players want this kind of thing. The number of players in a PvP FPS game who are willing to accept they're not that good and take as many defeats it takes till they learn from their enemies feels abyssmal. Most willl rage quit as soon they lose an engagement, or accuse whoever won it for cheating. I'm pretty sure that, even if a game has a real problem with cheaters, 75% of cheating accusations don't come as much from seeing proof of cheating as from someone who lost an engagement to someone with higher skill that pulled off a play the loser can't do and therefore concludes must be cheating. And in quite a few FPS YT channels I see people whining when the game presents them with an actually balanced match in which they have to try winning instead of giving them a team of newbs they can roll over.
And then people ask why don't game developers sell physical copies of games any more, or why would a single player, horror FPS game require a connection to the internet, when you play it alone the entire time? Control! Because they first need to monitor you, so they can use that data base to train their bots to more efficiently control your behavior without being noticed, but actually always leading you towards in-game micro transactions. They always want to be able to project and maximize the profit they can make on you. That's why the AI pushes you to continue playing, but subtly hints that you can pay to win if you just spend additional real money (you already bought a _digital_ copy of the game with it) so why not some in-game (digital/not real) items, skins, weapon upgrades, stronger armor etc. Never thinking they cannot be traded back even for less, when you decide to stop playing. That's because they only ever had any value to you, and the AI bot did everything to make you buy more. We still have snake oil salesmen in the 2020's, but in the form of AI bots. Another one of your well sourced, informative and gripping "WAKE UP!" videos UE! Thank you, and keep them coming!
The sheep that still line up to reward these companies are baffling to me. You are paying them to make you spend more money. You’re paying to be manipulated and scammed. Makes no sense.
EOMM has made FPS feel so soulless. It made me stop buying them entirely, and the f2p ones I don't even play without at least a full squad of friends on mic, considering that I'm a very cooperative player that will consistently would otherwise get matched with as many bad/new players as the game could fit on my team while making me go against pro-level players in casuals. Apex takes it to the next level by forcing me and my friends to constantly go against predator-level players for weeks if we so much as win a match against a group of absolute idiots. I'd be overjoyed if I could go against people of relative skill level at this point instead of being forced to be cannon fodder for literal professionals who don't want to risk their position in ranked. If SBMM was actually implemented fairly, I wouldn't be going against people with 2-20x the experience I have and my group wouldn't quit for the night after half an hour.
Hmmmm I think everyone should report this to the local gambling/alcohol agency. In America, you can report it to the ATF LMFAO imagine them raiding AAA game studios!!!!!!!!!
It's fine though if they pay off politicians to look the other way. Say what you want about big companies but remember, an honest man never seeks politics.
well we already knew that the rotational aimassist is a softaimbot with perfect robotic tracking never missing a shot provided the player uses it correctly
Server browsers and playing on the same server where you know the admin needs to become the standard again. It stops matchmaking manipulation, this is superior to any anticheat, and it fosters community better than anything else. It's the way multiplayer game should be. The only platform it's still common on is PC and that's one of the many reasons PC is superior that has nothing to do with expensive hardware or graphics.
I used to play MTG Arena for quite a while before I retired it permanently, and now that I’ve seen this video it starts to make me wonder if the accusations of the game being rigged might be more true than I originally believed.
When you realise you're a rat on a wheel like everyone else and you're playing an FPM (First Person Mover) because your Rotational Aim Assist does everything else for you and the only thing that differentiates you for the other rats is your "movement".
I've been saying this since Fortnite added SBMM a long time ago, but nobody listened because "yay this means I won't have to fight sweats." Kinda hilarious at this point.
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Your videos and great at all but I REALLY wish I could send them to my friends and other people who don't know those things without looking like a schizo conspiracy theorist. Those people are the ones who should be educated on all those problems but the dystopian future clickbait thumbnails and creepy hackerman stock footage during the videos really doesn't make your videos approachable to people who are the ones getting exploited by the industries you are talking about in my opinion.
To be honest, what you missed in the video is
Cod is now owned by microsoft. Microsoft owns Microsoft azure cloud servies. Call of duty warzone seasons during the MW2 and MW3 years of release has server issues where the game randomly freezes causing you to perish. Even if you had giga bit interennet.
Now microsoft can easily host the game on their servers, and have fast server access to fix all this, its not a game design or code issue. Yet they and activision dont care
And sadly the players dont mind playing a broken incomplete glitchy junk game.
On top of that, weapons get nerfed and new meta changes so much now, u cant be a casual player anymore
Maxing the battle pass now takes longer, further preventing u from being a casual
So in summary SBMM is not the cause of the addiction bro. Its the entire game.
So i ❤ u but this video was incomplete
Can you please put the material you quote in the description
9 x 3 = 27 -> 27 + 6 = 33 -> 33 divided by 3 = 11 - 9 = 2.... IT WORKS you sly devil.
Now off to the Clubs and impress the Ladies!!
so thats why WZ for years constantly matched me with low level skill clueless players meanwhile everyone else has good teammates game was unplayable you dont get to play when you spawn and get taken out it puts u against tryhard sweats with aimassist softaimbot that never miss shots we always get wiped and i never want to carry im just playing for fun but am being used as an advertisement to make the corporation money even though im not on their payroll and that was every match for years even though i spent money they still shadow nab (spelt backwards) me into being used as fodder for other players or to advertise, its called msicsaf (spelt backwards) and im pretty sure when i said that in game chat thats how i ended up on their special list
This is why you stay away from games with season passes and microtransactions. There's an incentive for them to push that crap when they can monetize it.
I buy every battepass and skins in destiny, apex and valorant. No one is forcing you. If you are poor keep crying
💯 never once have I bought a single micro-transaction
....unless the content has the equivalent of an expansion. Thosebare so rarely released these days.
Yeah for dumb shills who stupidly defend s that scam
Or play the game and dont buy them wtf lol avoid games with game pass? Thats dumb
So in summery a lot of newer games are completely worthless to anyone, who's looking for a fair challenge.
Of course. It's never been legitimate nor fair since... hmmm... prior to 2004? Something like that, mostly.
Sort of explains, why competitive games make a lot less fun anymore these days.
I also noticed the inconsistency part with enemies. I am used to that with different servers 10-15 years ago, but i would not have a ranking system telling me, 2 different enemy groups are "same skilled" - on platinum level for example - while one group has guys with far superior aiming, positioning and movement. With that in mind, superficial ranking is totally useless.
Most of the times, i don´t know beforehand, if i should treat my enemies as way superior, similar skilled or less experienced/skilled. On Servers, you often had similar guys and could evaluate their skill over time and react accordingly. With Ranking systems instead of server focused systems, this is automatically done by the game for you. But after this system also got very useless for the most part, since there is a lot of variation of player skill, this just feels like a random queue, but you don´t expect that huge differences because of the ranking.
Sort of kills the compassion to get better.
What i wait for: Players not paying actually get a lot less good matchups provided and are there as meat for expected more paying customers. Making PvP games sort of a two class system. If it´s not a system already in place in some games for some time already.
@@FentionX It's all pay2pay, not actual, legitimate P2P (player vs. player). I mean, it's come a long way from DOOM (original 1993 one), lol. 😂
Summary*
This is why online puzzle games like That's not My Neighbor and Suck Up (puzzle + some action, and I think you pay once) are really popular because they are fun and affordable, but not trying to scam you!!!
This is exactly why I stopped playing most multiplayer games.
Unless it's largely P vs E.
@@theprogenitor951 Sounds like even then the accuracy stuff read through could still apply if it's anything always online like an MMO at least.
I also encountered mostly playing KOOP games. Very few of people in my friendlists that tended to play nearly excluesively PvP do that anymore. Not sure if they just gotten older or just lost their compassion for PvP.
@Sub-Mythos The last time I played an online multiplayer game was Age Of Empires II back in 1999.
@@secondchance6603 hell I remember playing Warcraft 2 on Kali
there is a reason these companies hired psychologists...
Only the highest scoring psychologists in their degrees go to such companies because the money is good.
Low scoring psychologists go into therapy and take that sweet government funding because of wanting a stable career.
It is ironic. The better qualified psychs should, theoretically, be therapists to help people. As I say, the system is designed to be broken, so everyone can be employed to fix perpetual problems the system (a.k.a. society) is causing.
Highly qualified and skill psychologists paid lots of money to make people addicted or unwittingly hooked to a product, so the less qualified and skilled psychologists pretend or attempt to help manipulated individuals break free from the programming. Which does not work, therefore, the illusion of choice and success.
Facebook did the same thing. Some family members of mine don't even listen to me when I'm talking... They're on Tik Tok. Tik Tok is more important than what I'm saying.
They have killed normal human interaction.
I didn't have a phone that could access the internet until I was 18/19.
Thanks to my mum, she saved me from brain damage. Because that's what it does to people.
It's not that simple at all. @@quietprofessional4557
When I first started noticing this years ago people told me I was crazy and it was a "skill Issue"...
Yeah I quit these games altogether after Black Ops 2.
Technically "Skill Issue" is correct, it's just that the system was rigged to ensure you were the one with the issues in the lobby.
Of course they thought that way. Cognitive dissonance and brazen narcissism are signs of people being manipulated into thinking that "they're the man" or "they're superior". 🙄 They always think they're right about everything even when they've literally been coerced into thinking "X" about "Y". It's embarrassing and sad, but hey... that's 90% of humanity for ya! 😂
I doubt the goal of this video was to reinforce some players' beliefs that the gaming companies really are rigging matches against certain players.
You just need to buy a more expensive mouse, lol.
I mostly play video games from the past. I don’t play a lot of the live service nonsense that comes out nowadays.
I avoid live services. They are not games.
I rarely play live service games. The only game I picked up recently that is live service is Helldivers 2, which is an anomaly in that I actually like it enough to play it regularly. Other than that, I'm mostly playing single player games - and ones that don't attach bs, at that. You know what I mean: pay-to-win mechanics, microtransactions, limited season passes, censoring, et cetera.
I'm generally happier as a gamer now that I'm not chasing after as many trends as I used to.
@@zen_7748 I used to play Multiplayer games all the time in high school. But that was during the OG COD Modern Warfare and Halo days. Now I just play Fortnite and the rest are single player games. lol
I have several ssds packed with all the games and other media I have enjoyed over the years. I've just been using my library for the last 5 years or so and I only end up buying a few games a year, if that.
@@ViperChief117 Fortnite is just as worse when it comes to EOMM!
Someone once pointed out something quite eye-opening to me: it's in a modern game's best interest that the player makes bad decisions, and that those bad decisions are not immediately punished, giving the player time to dread them, blame themselves, and contemplate purchasing microtransactions to cheer themselves up.
In old games, if you were not having fun, you'd quit playing. So the games used things like tutorials and confirmation boxes to help teach you how to make good decisions and avoid bad decisions. And when you made a bad decision, the game would convey it very quickly without stringing you along and wasting your time.
But for modern games, it's in their best interest to let you make bad decisions, so they no longer stop you from, say, leveling up bad characters, using premium items at bad times that would cause them to be wasted, and so on. And when you make a bad decision, the game never tells you. It just strings you along, making you think you're doing great, leaving you to realize the mistake you made all on your own.
As an example: if Mario jumps into a pit, he dies and has to start the whole level over - a harsh and immediate consequence for your mistake. If Mario were designed like modern games, he'd respawn nearby every time he dies, and then you'd get a star rating when you touch the flagpole based on how many times you died. That disconnection between the mistake and the consequence, and that fundamental conflict of interest between the game and the player, drives a lot of microtransaction sales!
Do you think it's okay for some games to have that modern game system? or would it be better to have a reward based system (points for style and good plays) rather than punishment.
Mario kart wii is pretty challenging for its ranking system, you either need an extreme lead or earn time bonuses from hitting opponents with items (mechanics which aren't revealed and your rank isn't shown until the end of the cup)
I replayed the original Deus Ex. They talked about people being wary of data mining algorithms. This was like 20 years ago.
Funny you mention Ion Storm's DX1. That is my favorite game of all-time. It's certainly better--by far--than literally 90% or more of what's currently on the market. Warren Spector's work (and the Ion Storm team's) was more than exemplary, it was visionary. And the "Revision" mod is bloody perfect for gameplay in 202x.
"What good's an honest soldier if he can be commanded to act like a terrorist?" --J.C.
That's a game worth playing
@kylefarrell25that was AI
Kojima was right
A lot of things that Deus Ex predicted came true. Playing that game today is more than a bit concerning.
You know they use this everywhere, shopping, bills, dating apps, office apps, social, entertainment. It’s the inevitable permeation of “dark patterns” into our lives.
ye i noticed they all implement a blacklist the same way no matter the industry once you are on it you dont come off no matter if its CoD or your social media account for posting
@@starc. That really explains my poor Twitter engagement 😂
@@PrincessFionaYT Twitter is dead lol still a lot of bots/fake profiles. You can actually pay people to follow you (Notice how I didn't use the word "literally") 50 profiles at a time.
@@PrincessFionaYT other day my tweet got liked before it finished posting by an OF bot the animation was still appearing after pressing post its like they send the robot army after you to make it seem like you have reach but its all fake
Yes. This has been slowly unfurling into society over time. When Facebook was created, it started to nosedive into the dystopian hellscape we're barreling toward.
Stop buying always-online.
Stop pre-ordering.
Support indie.
Use your left over money (that would have been used for the more expensive game) to help with upkeep of self-hosted/rented game server.
Matchmaking is still possible.
Having """micro"""-transactions can still be a thing (If you are in the camp of "How to support further development?")
Gamers have done this too themselves. If masses of gamers refused to buy these games with exploitative dynamics and gambling mechanisms and make them the worse sellings games in history it would not go on to be a industry norm. Gaming I say is not in the absolute state that it is because of evil companies - which there are many - but because of gamers and what they have chosen to support year after year.
Also, read a book! 💪😎✌️
🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
"Before I start, I must see my end. Destination known, my mind's journey now begins. Upon my chariot, heart and soul's fate revealed. In time, all points converge, hope's strength resteeled. But to earn final peace at the universe's endless refrain, we must see all in nothingness... before we start again."
🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
--Diamond Dragons (book I)
I'd add:
Buy physical if possible. Digital doesn't mean ownership and they aren't even cheaper.
Play old games. If you need to purchase digitally, do so on GOG.
@@napoleonfeanor Steam is fine, Steam DRM is not made to be hard to remove.
"The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy and has some obfuscation, but it is easily removed by a motivated attacker" says Steam.
Battlebit Remastered has cosmetic only DLCs that only function for supporting the devs, there is no advantage
This is probably the main reason why most publishers insist on having their games always online. So that they can monitor the players' behavior and implement manipulative systems as described. I don't think they care about piracy because whoever pirates a game is most likely not the type of person to spend money on microtransactions.
I do this with playtest demos. When playing a game I've made myself it's really hard to scale difficulty and judge your signposting. While it may sound sinister, it can help the development of a game. When I used to make levels back in the olden days, they were always too difficult and too cryptic, and I didn't know because I knew were every item and monster was.
@GangsterFrankensteinComputer Yeah, sure, that's not the issue. Of course, you need a ton of samples and data to test a game during development and betas/alphas. The problem is gathering data in the background of a finished game without your consent (or by forcing you to consent if you want to play) and then insidiously manipulating game systems without your knowledge. I vividly remember when Bungie throttled XP gain in Destiny because players would've otherwise earned too many cosmetics, thereby losing potential revenue in the in-game shop.
@@Andy_Rose90 b-but... bungie is the goat, right?
What I find the craziest thing of this, is that playing Matches in CoD feels so artificial even though you are playing against real people.
That's because--in a way--you aren't. Every account is modified, tweaked, predetermined, and "massaged" to cultivate profits. A similar situation is found at casinos. Yes, the pinnacle of "gaming", lol. #GamingYOU #GANKINGyou
CoD died when they dropped dedicated server support.
Thanks consoles!
@@Nex_LevelWhen Overwatch launched the gaming boogeyman was loot boxes but they were optional and didn't affect gameplay. The live service bullshit of OW2 (especially locking new heroes on the battle pass) is what finally pushed me out too.
Blizzard sucks. Overwatch sucks.
Because Activision has that patent that started with MWII that actually effects your hitbox, your footsteps and enemy footsteps, and your damage dealt and damage received. MW2019 wasn't as bad because even though it had SBMM that would pair you with no lifers if you had a good match, it didn't actively effect your performance except for your ping. I remember hopping on after not playing for a week and my ping was 30 to the nearest server and then after a handful of really good matches, I start getting destroyed because it'd put me in matches across the country at 80-100 ping with people in my skill. It always felt like I was garbage after that and I'd lose every match because nobody would capture the points
exactly, this is why i started playing HD2 over CoD because the bots in HD2 felt better than the bots in WZ even though they are real players, well part real since its more PvE now with their soft aimbot via rotational aimassist
I encourage everyone to go read the public patents for call of duty’s SBMM. I thought it was bad until I read through it, and then I was downright horrified. Most of those metrics gathered and psychology induced onto the players should should be illegal. But then again, what’s new it’s 2024.
I went to junior college in advertising over a decade ago to learn drawing and computer graphics and stuff they teach in psychology of advertising classes is just sickening. They treat people like cattle to be controlled.
Mind manipulation means money (M4). Therefore, rich gotta rich, poor gotta serve, suffer, and SUBMIT. 💪😎✌️ #Schlavery #Legal #ThuggLife
@@Novastar.SaberCombat you sound like you could be useful. Now figure out what that means on your own
Its even worse when you realise this is intentionally aimed at kids. Thats why whenever a new CoD or warzone comes out after a week they start filling it with immersion ruining fortnite tier and "dude weed lmao" crap in.
They give you easier matches for buying items in the shop. It’s psyoping people into making them thinking they are better for microtransactions
Remember when you played games because they were fun?
Still do. GAAS? MTX? Season Pass? AAA? Stay away.
If you want to go deeper into this look into Halo Infinte’s SBMM. The game actively predicts (fairly accurately, you can actually view this yourself on halo’s website) what your performance will be in each given match and essentially places you in matches where you’re projected to win or lose depending on whether or not you’re statistically likely to continue playing. If you’re a good player, you’ll be matched with terrible teammates in an effort to force a loss, while bad players will be systematically handed out wins to maintain their retention. Again, you can actively see this on display by checking your past matches on halo waypoint, as it shows a graph that compares your projected K/D with your actual for your last few matches. Stuff like this is why playing competitive shooters feels so fruitless.
It honestly explains why there are several UA-camrs out there who buy stuff in game and play for a few hours will be matched with utter morons most of the time.
You’re on the right track. I swear Infinite messes with our aim and damage output as well. Back in the day I’d game with a clan and I always would place very high on the charts and I won a lot of matches. When I play Infinite the controls and aim feel like total garbage and I can tell my aim was being messed with. In COD we use guns that largely have a lot of kick and sway, so when your aim is sloppy it feels like it’s on us to aim better with attachments. In Halo the feel of the guns are much smoother, so when my aim feels off it’s got to be because they’re toying with my aim on purpose to force a loss. I could be wrong but after 30 years of gaming I’m pretty sure I know what I’m experiencing.
We've been telling people this stuff since the early 2000s and we were the new adult generation, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT to a lot of these companies.
That's when the first models of the modern over-monetized slot casino crap first started to creep into AAA. Its all been downhill since people kept increasingly pretending its normal and squelching any of those of us that point this out (they are now called the paid shills of "gaming journalism").
The only exception I found to this after 2004 or so was--of all things--Skyrim (ES5). That's pretty much the last "newer" game I bought. The rest of my so-called gaming is still Deus Ex (original with "Revision" patch), HoM&M3 (HotA version), M&M4-5, Tradewinds (revamped version of "Taipan"), and old-school home console emulation (NES, SMS, SNES, Genesis, etc.).
Otherwise, I'm too busy developing my own IP, books, screenplays, etc. 💪😎✌️
So they added equality of outcome to the game to make everyone feel better, yet doing so makes it a stale, dumbed down experience for everyone.
Why am I not surprised.
It's hard to comprehend. If only there were some parallels we could draw from other aspects of life.
You'll have no fun, and you'll be consuming happily.
Actually I'm surprised they even say/talk about it instead of making it a top secret.
Marxist participation trophy BS is everywhere. Ironically working for capitalism.
@@ReigoVassal because in the end, just like in this comment section probably, people like to pretend they are offended by this or something. But when they come from work they just want to play a couple of games with some buddies and enjoy it. Also, those that truly play to compete, grind so hard that this system doesn't even apply to them.
I'm not that much of a gamer myself, but I've noticed this kind of stuff happening, too. One of the games I play is Yugioh Master Duel, and it became clear after about a week of playing it that card shuffler system is, in no way, actually random. It is designed to frustrate players just enough to want to buy gem packs with real money. I can give a couple of examples of this, being a free player who's never spent money on the game.
#1: I have built every deck that I own IRL in the game. Somehow, the real life cards that I draw never brick, but the exact same deck will get a brick hand roughly 1/3 matches.
#2: The game has a limited single player mode, and in this mode the biased shuffling system isn't being applied. While playing cards solo, you will get yourself far more consistent and diverse hands than while playing against other players. It's like night and day, between solo mode and ranked.
#3: A large part of the game is something called The Maxx "C" Tax. For those unaware, Maxx "C" is a card that the entire game effectively revolves around. Every deck in the game has 3 copies of Maxx "C", alongside of 6 total cards meant almost exclusively to stop Maxx "C". Entire games are won and lost around this card. I'll spare the math, but this means there is a 33% chance to open with Maxx "C", but a 57% chance to open a card that beats Maxx "C". So, roughly 18.8% of games, Maxx "C" will go off without a hitch, which is roughly one out of every five games. For me, I'll go days without successfully resolving Maxx "C", weeks without it meaning anything, but against me it is successfully resolved somewhere between half and one third of all games I play. The times where I will resolve the Maxx is usually against a control deck that doesn't special summon, which in spite of being rare for this format seems to happen every single time I get the Maxx.
#4: Decks become cursed over time. The longer a deck is played, the lower the win/loss ratio becomes. Inevitably, even if there are no format changes, a deck becomes a "loser" that will win, at most, 1 out of every 4 games... no matter what format or ranking it is in. Nothing changes, it is just that when the deck is used, it will consistently fail to open even a decent hand, and when it does the opponent will pull god-like and have everything necessary to beat you + extra. For example, my strongest deck atm is Unchained, which is at full power in the game right now and should, by everyone else's estimation, be ripping people to shreds in the ladder, but I'm having more luck with off-meta junk than Unchained, because somehow Unchained always bricks or my opponent opens the perfect counters.
#5: Side Corollary, but they also have another game called Duel Links, which I have spent small amounts of money on. Each time money is spent there, I shoot up through the ladder on a series of improbable victories.
So, my running theory is that Master Duel has a neural network that's been tasked with maximizing profit. First, it matches the combination of cards that lead to victories and losses. Second, it runs an analysis to find what combination of wins and losses is most likely to lead to somebody spending real world money. Then, once money is spent, it will give the spending player a temporary boost in the shuffle weights, coin flips, and the matchmaking system to give them more victories, but only for awhile.
This is an excellent write up and it also describes my experience in Master Duel 100%.
The tractable decay of deck RNG is really sad. It's an example of not putting in enough randomness to hide the trend well enough. Greed over brains.
@@Sorain1 Sad but true.
Master Duel mentioned! That aside, I can say Duel Links too. Though I've started playing only casually a year ago, I can testify some similarities here too.
It just confirms that the REAL customers of any game company are actually the investors and WE, the gamers, are the product.
Maybe we the gamers need to become the investors so that our interests will come forward to the company.
@@lambdachi107-gamingandmusi2 I don't get in which way you mean that, but we are kinda investors ourselves, but we aren't organized nor the brightest. But if we agree on something altogether, we shall change anything in our favor, just don't spend money on things you don't agree with. Look what happened to Helldivers 2. However, a fair chunk gamers don't understand that. That's why we have live services, FIFA, COD and AC every year.
@@lambdachi107-gamingandmusi2 Maybe you mean we gamers need get our shit together and act more like responsible investors than mindless sheep. Yes, that's it.
Games playing us
Single player games all the way... I'm so tired of this "maximising the profit".
Especially since a lot kids are the target audience.
Great vid!
As long as it doesn't require you to log in
@@rhaven090 I can take that as piracy protection and without a specific launcher.
As if single player games aren't doing exactly the same thing to keep you playing
@@B3Band Single player games have and ending bruh and it's your choice if you want to start a new profile, new game+, or play the campaign on hard
@@B3Band A single player game does not have code to keep you playing. They are mostly driven by the story since there is little else to pull you back.
remember back in the day , when we had LAN parties, and all you had to do is double click on a shortcut to launch your game, and not go into a "launcher" like steam? I remember. those were teh days.
now we have launchers within launchers and like 4 accounts to log into just to enjoy being manipulated in a 'game'
Worst it had was PunkBuster
It's quite funny how a decade ago we would have games gently telling us "Remember to make a 15 minute pause every hour of game", and now we have games slyly pushing us to continue playing.
Agreed! On the Ps4 and Heck Ps3 and Psp it says to take a 15 minute break
Suddenly CCP become a hero, how far has the industry has fallen
Warframe still does this. It sends you a message every hour with the number of hours you have played continuously and asks you to take a break.
War Thunder's been doing this for years. Sometimes it doesn't matter how perfect your position, how clearly your line of sight, or how oblivious and open the enemy is. Your shot WILL bounce off their vehicle. Shots that should have gone right through are just negated. Sometimes multiple times in rapid succession because they don't know where you are. Once they find you however, duck, because they WILL one-shot you with a round that by all rights had little-to-no chance of penetrating.
Whenever this happens we always look at the player level. They're usually below 30, indicating a relatively new player.
We affectionately call it 'The n00b shield'.
I remember a video was made on world of tanks where the guy delved into whether the shot calculations are rigged, got data from a pro account and compared it to his "control" numbers, came to the conclusion that people who think the game cheats dont know what they're talking about. Unless people have access to the source code and can access the formula as to how shots are calculated, if there is money to be had by manipulating the game then I have to assume there are bogus elements to gameplay.
I have like 500 hours on that game and I love it compared to CoD which I know is rigged. Then again I only play air RB and I've heard that ground can be odd at times
@@LeonBelmont1000 I don't doubt that there are incidents that are just 'coincidental'. I've made my fair share of absolutely BS shots that if I were on the receiving end I would hedge my bets that the guy was cheating, and ever since they introduced volumetric armor/ammo the penetration chances are wonky and you can definitely 'get Gaijined' (Gaijin being the name of the dev studio) with some shots.
But I personally have experienced such absolute BS moments that were so improbable of outcome as to be virtually impossible, and yet...
I am convinced that War Thunder has certain protections for new and inexperienced uers. It's almost a necessity, especially when you routinely have full squads of veterans that prowl at the lower/mid tiers not because they necessarily WANT to seal club, but because the gameplay itself changes so drastically when you get to the upper brackets as to be an essentially different game altogether. Also some players legit only play for the WWII aspect of the game and have no interest in 'modern' warfare, so it stands to reason that new players would have armor/penetration buffs to keep them engaged long enough to get hooked.
I've played War Thunder for... a few thousand hours since it came out lol, I can agree that the damage models are a little janky, sometimes shots that should penetrate don't, sometimes shots that sould not penetrete do, but overall there is a manageable ammount of consistency once you have enough knowledge of the armor layouts of enemy tanks and the rounds you are using. I've also heard there is a small degree of randomess on the calculations for ballistics and penetration, mostly when it's not a clear 0% chance or 100% chance of beating the armor, wich might save you, or screw you up from time to time.
I don't know if this is made on purpose to incentivize all the stuff said on the video, it could perfectly be, but given Gaijin's track record I'm more inclined to say... don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence.
You mean the game that has infamously people with 30000 hours play time go into BR 2 to snipe some new players from the other side of the map has a shield for new players? Sounds a little odd doesn't it.
This is why i've seen myself shifting from multiplayer games to single player / co-op, none of that eomm or whatever rigged matchmaking algorithm there is, and more quality content.
after HD2 came out i stopped bothering with WZ they give everyone softaimbot thru rotational aimassist then manipulate your aim and who you play with and against its not even a PvP game anymore its PvE and i have much more fun playing against the robots on HD2 than on WZ and in WZ they are actual real player BOTS who just only have 1 playstyle of tryhard sweating
I recall back in 1998 a little game called Metal Gear Solid was advertising that it had adaptive difficulty.
And industry approved gaming journalists wonder why they are irrelevant and disappearing. They never would cover this story and expose these criminals.
they aren't aware they are part of the same group thats making the games like that too
That is why i stopped playing league of legends....always the same chatacters destroying others....despite stats being "balanced" = play certain sht to win and then buy skins for it.
And for that reason I will never play
- overwatch
- apex legends
- pubg
- fortnite
- valorant
- ETC
Why would criminals expose other criminals 😂
They would instead lie and say that EOMM is a good feature
F*ck matchmaking.
When I was really into FPSs back in the day you just "knew" the IPs of the servers where the good people hang out. And the "bad" players for some random public fun.
I hate modern gaming.
dedicated servers are basically dead in modern gaming yea
@@hertzwave8001 et:legacy is a thing. just recently found out that the community is still alive. and i love it.
Battlebit Remastered :) fun times
Thought the same. Its great when the ranking systems work, but when you encounter a big variation of player skill levels (very bad and exceptional players) for your own league, this takes away the argument for a rank based system. From the players side. You often kinda knew the people from the different players on the servers, their general skill levels, their vibe and teamplay. Something you totally use with a ranking system. You also loose a lot of the social aspect in the game when they are just a mate for one round. More rare to vibe so good, you´d instantly group up after matches tbh.
Everything a good amount less random. Ranking was good in the beginning. But with the current systems, it even lost a good amount of their strengths.
Yeah, this aspect is really missing in today's servers. I honestly didn't care if I sucked or not as seeing my skills progress over time was satisfying on its own. However, finding a server with cool people I can play with made all the difference.
I have been saying this forever. I have been downvoted and even (temporarily) banned for saying this exact same thing. Glad to see that I am not crazy.
i got put into those lobbies with bad teammates against sweats for saying it in game
Where did you say this & get banned?
@@Micchi- pick a social media place at random and you can probably get it there
@@Micchi-”downvoted” would indicate Reddit.
Don't worry, the truth is always censored.
"The truth is, the game was rigged from the start."
This is rampant in Magic the gathering: Arena, and undercovered.
Overwatch 2 100% does this. I played 15 games in a row and lost 11. All matches I won came down to the wire, even feeling like winning was a fluke. This is not at all organic. I started leaving matches after this and all of a sudden Im winning matches. Stomping even.
Holy shit, everyone who plays online multiplayer games, and/or knows someone who does needs to share this with them.
The fact that you can patent the INTENT to squeeze money out of player by ruining their experience if they don't, shows how fucked up gaming is...
That's why I just steer clear of everything that focuses on "competition".
On the other hand this isn't new. Some people have covered this as early as 2015. I mean the those patents that EA and Activision had filed.
@@rps215 true, but it's easy to forget again because that shit's going on in the background.
The obvious decline in gaming experience is just a reminder that it's less and less "in the background" now.
@@BloodyMobile Not to mention back then they claimed that they won't use it. But then, why do they even filed for such patents, which is like finding some recently released thieves in the staff exit of a bank at 2PM with a backpack full of thievery equipment, and when pressed they claim that they just happen to be there and not guilty of anything.
@@rps215 in theory, having the patent prevents everyone else from doing what the patent protects.
That said, the claim of not using it would only hold up if was held by a company that can be trusted, aka /none/ of the companies that can afford to "block" a patent.
SBMM has (in my opinion) been one of the largest pushes that I believe made me stop caring or bothering with PVP games or PVP modes in the past 5-7-ish years whether I realized it or not. And the modern "engagement squeezing" games in the competitive sphere have been utilizing caused me to almost completely remove myself from the player pool or customer pool of these games and over to more single player centric, MMO, or PVE/Coop games to an almost religious degree. And I was someone who LOVED playing CoD, Halo, CS, BF, etc growing up and in school.
Now I don't want anything to do with games like that and I think it's because of this (not just this but this is quite foundational to my reasoning) I played those games to have fun, relax, perhaps trashtalk a little bit and get a rush, win lose or draw. But under the engagement system....There's little fun to be had, it's replaced with white-knuckle stress, disappointment and discouragement in an almost all-encompassing way. Why would I PAY to experience these emotions in a highly curated, manipulative manner? Answer: The only winning move is not to play.
SBMM and censoring our voice chat is lame af nowadays. Gaming ain't what it used to be.
Man I agree with this. I am currently playing Diablo 4 and fallout 76. These games actively hate your free time. They want you to be present 24/7 or you might “miss something” with the way the roll the content around.
I am somebody who is relatively unaffected by losses in games. Usually if I have a bad game, I just look to see what I did wrong and how I could play better next time.
A couple weeks ago I was playing Fortnite and got into a really savage losing streak that lasted almost a week’s time, sometimes not even making it to 90 players remaining. I figured there was SBMM, I figured I’d moved up a bit, but the issue I was having was that the guns were not performing as I thought they should. I’d played enough to know how the gun should feel, and while I knew I would never win every fight, I was getting out classed by grey and green guns at ranges that didn’t make sense, and I myself could not land hardly any of my hits. All my previous practice seemed to mean nothing for some reason.
A couple more bad games in, I return to the lobby and am met with one of their random surveys. Their survey asked “Have you noticed any change in difficulty while playing the game?”
I am not someone who likes to blame lag, the game, or cheaters when I lose. However, after that and after I said that yes, the game felt harder, I took a break from the game for a bit. Next time I played the game was back to feeling how it had felt the week before, and while I wasn’t winning every game, the guns felt how they should again.
I have since decided that, in some cases, I will only win these modern games for as long as the game allows me to, much to my dismay.
i'm glad i stopped playing multiplayer games a long time ago when all mmos turned purely into monetization schemes and away from being social environments.
Same. I used to play those primarily until I noticed the shift and walked away.
Battlefield 1 was the last one I really enjoyed. After that, I almost completely switched to single player. The only multiplayer I play these days are coop. For example, in Starcraft 2 I only play the coop part for the multiplayer, I have no interest in pvp.
It's funny how they can have such intricate systems manipulating players, but can't fix cheaters.
I've already solved this issue. I no longer buy games from big companies, especially online games.
Stuff like this is why I quit all live-service video games.
We suspected such a system at work about half a decade ago already. Im not sure if that was just bias but the the potential itself for such application is most certeanly not surprising. Im pretty sure a bounch of popular game are already engangement optimised.
For example, my player attitude was always a resilient one. If I lose a game it is very likely I play another right away, and if I win, I feel satisfied, stop playing, and I do something else. In the last few years this approach tends to yield incredibly low win rates with very high "free loss rate". Sometimes it's very obvious, especially when I finally quit, then come back a few months later, and even though Im significantly out of practice I suddenly start to win in a lot.
This is not even just FPS
Its any online PVP game
It's not just about pushing people to purchase, that also means they're capable of detecting which players DO NOT SPEND EVER, and use them as canon fodder, and that's exactly what they do
unpaid employees are called sevals (spelt backwards)
Who does that? Definitely not in COD. I never spend money and I still have my solid 1.0 k/d, exactly how SBMM has intended.
@@DevlVergil ikr. I play CODM and haven't become cannon fodder (or a I just too good for them to try that). Even if I match up against a person with an OP gun, I can still use the basic Ak-47 to take them out...
I don't understand how this isn't trending. It is quite literally showing that skill is no longer a major factor in competitive games...
This feels eerily simmilar to my experience playing Wold of Tanks and World of Warships. World of Tanks especially has battles where one of the teams simply does not stand a chance and will result in a 3 minute curbstomp.
And let me guess. You missed 99% of shots in that match?
I was just thinking the same thing mate, no way WG isn't well up on this idea.
@@BlackDeej I'm not talking about a single match specifically. I've been on both ends of 3 minute curbstomps.
Yeah, WoWs was my immediate thought when I saw this video. Matchmaking is terrible, lots of games tend to be mostly one-sided. Gunnery rng is rubbish, I'm seriously fed up with catching ships broadside and getting nothing but overpens, meanwhile I get smashed from absolutely stupid angles. Monetization is getting ridiculous as well, but that's nothing new. Think I'm going to uninstall again, the game has become insufferable.
Edit: just reached the end of the video where UE talks about rigged aiming and ranked matchmaker. Yep, that's WoWs.
@@Bullminator >.>
Known about this for a while. This is why I stick to more cooperative titles, bots should not have the power to dictate human interaction on any level, very dangerous.
well, every politician is a ...
He's not making decisions?
Well, yes and no. In his everyday life, man rules over the machine; Alex makes his own decisions. Now, when he engages in battle, the visor comes down and the software takes over, then the... the machine does everything. Alex is a... he's a passenger, just along for the ride.
But if the machine is in control, then how is Murphy accountable? Who's pulling the trigger?
When the machine fights, the system releases signals into Alex's brain making him think he's doing what our computers are actually doing. I mean, Alex believes right now he is in control, but he's not. It... it's the illusion of free will.
Hocus Pocus by Focus was in that movie.
Shh Robocop great movie but the original will always hold a special place in my heart.
Since TF2 is being talked about*...Meet the Pyro.
*yeah yeah putting it lightly.
then what do you need alex for if the robocop machine does everything
@@starc. the PR. did you not watch the movie?
I have never liked matchmaking in any form. Because even the concept of skill based matchmaking is flawed from the start. A game can't actually gauge your skill, it can only gauge your previous performance. And this typically results in the problem Titanfall has always had. Where you get utterly thrashed one match, then absolutely dominate the next. And it swings wildly back and forth like that every match. Because all the game thinks is you did poorly that match, so you need weaker opponents, or you did well that match, so you need stronger opponents. Eventually, this might even out and finally start matching you with players of relatively equal skill more often. But I never had that happen in all the time I played those games. Instead, I just resigned myself to the fact than any time I won a match, I was pretty much guaranteed to lose the next. Because no good deed goes unpunished, or something like that.
The other common scenario is that a player's match maker rating, or MMR, is simply an indicator of how long they've played, not how good they are. And, of course, it also can't account for when you haven't played in a while, so you've gotten rusty. Or you're simply having an off day. This can be a real problem if the matchmaker will actually lock you out of matches if your MMR is too far off. The "better" you get at the game, the fewer opponents you'll end up being able to play against.
Back when simply having a server browser was the only way to play online, and you had no idea how good or bad any players were before joining, I was never really upset by imbalanced skill levels. But, since match making became the only way to play, even a slightly unfair match up has become super frustrating. Because matchmaking was supposedly going to make that a thing of the past. But it only ended up making it worse in almost every case. Plus, it encourages all the sweaty tryhards to be even more obnoxiously competitive than usual to boost their MMR.
And, of course, that's before you consider all these myriad ways the matchmaking algorithm can be used to manipulate the game, and make it less fun on purpose.
Player to another player "Git Gud"
Game AI "You're only Gud if I say you're Gud"
Not if, WHEN. That's the part that I think is the biggest mistake here. If you only get to win because matchmaking says so, no amount of skill matters.
remember when multiplayer games had actual dedicated servers and you would build a sense of community and friendship with the follow players that would join and play every night
...now everyone is just a pawn to be used to bring in extra purchases
Funnily enough I (and probably a lot of us) already suspected this for a good while now. I 100% felt this ominous feeling that the system itself is really manipulating my inputs, changes in weird ways that can be felt every match. It made me hate these arena games so much I uninstalled all of them, especially Warzone. That one was the worst offender being a "rage game".
These investigations are very welcome, thank you!
recovering Apex Legends addict here. i can confirm this was more or less the experience i had in the 2+ years i've consistently played that game.
The internet was a mistake.
Putting our trust in government to regulate it properly was a mistake.
@@mitchellterry4961 they did regulate it properly, for their own benefits. Without the internet we wouldn't know about it
Depends, in the way most people use it, I agree. For myself, it has been a godsend as I use it to learn things.
This video nails the feeling I had when I played League of Legends back in 2012-2013.
The matchmaking algorithm completely destroyed the matches I got on one of my accounts.
Every match was either:
1. Get stomped and utterly wrecked by the enemy team.
2. Stomp and completely wreck the enemy team.
There was no in-between and it wasn't fun at all. I don't mind a win or a loss. I care about how the win/loss was achieved. And it felt like my skills and my choices didn't matter AT ALL with my LoL matches.
I made a new LoL account and found that the matchmaking on a fresh account wasn't as messed up.
I now quit LoL all together. Had a two month(!) losing streak and it felt like the matchmaking algorithm was screwing with me again (jungle/support main). That was back in 2016 or something.
Leave it to independent developers to carry the industry into the future
Interesting topic indeed, thinking about it makes me sick. How a game can changue "parameters" to increase engagement or whatever and lose all consistency, probably without you ever noticing
Nowadays, I look at games with a cynical look of “the first red flag I see, I’m writing it off”. Helldivers, THE FINALS, and the death of R6 Siege have all proven to me that despite enjoying multiplayer games, I deserve better quality and respect as a customer and for my time than a majority of brainrot live service flings.
What happened to Siege?
@@mr.s9783likley has to do with a new subscription model they added to earn loot
Thats what i was thinking @mr.s9783
@@mr.s9783 They change anything at the whim of the pro players, there used to be 2 operators per season and the new operators are pretty lame with actually being operators and more of just a hero shooter character along with politics injected into it. The Siege team changed about 3 years ago and it just doesn't really get better anymore
@@mr.s9783 removal of anything remotely felt fun, unnecessary changes in the name of balance, then revoking them back half way, fixing few bugs, causing more bugs as a result. Releasing less content while starting to monetize more and more. It used to be 2 ops per season+1 map, now it's 2 reworked maps and 2 ops a Yr. But all the focus is on battlepass, new subscriptions etc... (the costumes are still bad, even in battlepass)
This is why retro gaming is making a comeback. 😂😂
Thinking about building another PC and emulating PS1 and PS2 games on it just because every new game that comes out is somehow more multiplayer focused instead of singleplayer/story mode focused. I'm sick of MP. I just wanna chill and play alone, and not stress myself or my wallet over something that doesn't matter.
Battlebit Remastered 😄 beat all modern Battlefield games at once imo
@@astanisystems Do it, be super cheap. PS2 only had a 147MHz GPU, 299Mhz CPU and 32 MB RAM. Significantly worse jhardware than a cheap mobile phone nowadays.
You can use your huge TV as a monitor, and a PScontroller to USB adapter is also really cheap.
Dota 2 does this for their matchmaking when someone in r/dota2 pointed it out in the subreddit the infamous jeff hill came to defend and gaslight the game
Dota 2 matchmaking literally reflect the design outcome exact same
UE just proved that math is scary......
all of my childhood allegations of match rigging are proving to be true. what a time to be alive.
I'm a magician and the first example of a magicians force with the math trick isn't a magicians force, that's a self working trick. The second example with the two cards is what a magicians force is. Using vague wording of the question to alter the answer to the one you want after they answer.
The first example is just a verbal version of (3x+6)/3 -x, which simplifies to x+2-x. It's just a long and drawn out way of saying a constant, and 6 is absolutely not necessary at all, you can replace it with any number you want and you'll just get a third of it as the answer. I can only imagine it's as complicated as it is to force more mistakes.
@@tristonpickens679 Yes I know all of this, you misunderstood me. I'm saying I know what words magicians use to describe these two different kinds of forces. I should have said self working math force.
This is why I don't play competitive FPS, because it's filled with bs like this.
Even if a game says they aren't using these systems, how could they ever prove it. Or worse, initially not have it turned on and then just turn it on after the game sales are high enough. The state of modern online gaming is disgusting.
"The AI put you there to lose on purpose, so that some guy on the other team would stay on longer and buy more stuff" I've been saying this shit for YEARS now, it never made sense how you'd be thrown into a match with people that are obviously waaay above my skill level, we weren't losing we were getting steamrolled hard.
I have been playing CoD since CoD4. In the newer games I would buy pre-owned and then only play the games for a few matches before exiting.
However, ever since playing XDefiant, I have often found myself playing for hours and feeling like little time has passed because it's so fun.
EOMM defintely makes a game less enjoyable, especially when you dont buy the MTX.
I'm an ex professional gamer.
I went back into that game where I got top 4 placement in 2016, and... I don't know.... like 5 months ago? to see what's there, and the game rated me almost 2 times better than I was on my original account. At that moment I was something like "should I go again 'professional' and make a living out of it like back in the days or is this just a waste of time and coding/cyber security is actually more mature?!"
I've chosen to stay away from it. Throughout all my experience with computers knowing that's all a scam and a waste of time and... ye, i'm really good at that game, i could make money and take advantage of idiots, but I have dignity and I know they pushed my rating and I also know my future wife wouldn't be proud of me for taking advantage of a toxic company and brainwashed players.
For whoever reading this message, I advise you to play more single player games, or games like No Man's Sky, in which you have One Time Purchase... Be smart, have fun in video games (that was the point back in the days), and do not fund companies this guy describes in his video!
Also, I dare to say that half of the viewers have literally no idea what this video tries to explain. I am sorry for those who feel offended, but I also talk from my personal and humble experience... Once again, go for single-player games and one-time purchases. It's the smart choice.
I guess that, 8:15, explains why i kept being placed against people with fully decked gold cards in Hearthstone, after about 10 of those i uninstalled the game
0:14 what the heck is this stock footage? One dude sitting at computer with Valorant on 2 screens at the same time? Who came up with this and then recorded it lol
Its should be 4 monitors, 4 different instances of the game, and a dude playing with both hands and feet, cause nobody can defeat blank.
Also the tape machine he keeps showing doesn’t have the meters moving when he talks… really is distracting to anyone familiar with audio equipment 😂
maybe he crosses his eyes to see the game in real 3d ??
I suppose it could have been worse. At least it's not on the green screen booty shorts of some insufferable ethot.
maybe streaming it and having that stream on his second monitor
Thank you for proving that I'm not paranoid or some kind of conspiracy nut. I've been trying to convince people of this for some time. What amazes me, is the sheer weight of the player base who live in denial of this, choosing to just believe that their team consists of "noobs" and "Bots". Never underestimate the power of denial...
Ubisoft been doing this for YEARS in For Honor
I understand this ... I didnt play a lot of video games with in app purchases, but i did have the starbucks rewards app, and the way the interface kind of works, it sort of "plays you" too.
An ai will give me auto aim if it thinks that’ll make me spend more money? This feels like pay to win with smoke and mirrors and some extra steps…
Would be funny if the trick was to never spend any money on cosmetics or other store items and the AI would just go like "have a free cheat approved by the devs" every time because it thinks that it can make you spend money.
I never *really* thought about the topic of "what actually makes a good matchmaking system for games" until this video. Now I find myself delving a bit more into what it actually means to be a "good matchmaking system". The gut impulse is "whatever is most fair" but fairness and enjoyable aren't /actually/ the same thing.
I think the notion of trying to match players up in a way that gives them a good variance of hard matches, easy matches, and evenly matched setups is not inherently a bad thing. It is arguably better than both random and pure skill based matching (at least in the context of it not being an explicit skill ladder system).
Rainbow six for example got extremely stale after they implemented skill based matching into casual; constantly having to fight people at your own skill level is simultaneously both exhausting and also you learn the least because you don't get to see how people far better than you are playing. Not everyone wants to clench their cheeks together for every single match just like not everyone wants to get absolutely slammed every single match.
Purely random doesn't quite hit the right marks either if your skill level isn't on the higher end of the scale because you'll be more likely to be in matches where you just get totally slammed and if you're of a higher skill level you'll get a ton more matches where everyone is just not a challenge or even interesting to go up against.
So there's an argument to be made that trying to curve matches so players get a strong /variety/ of matchups is actually the best method as far as trying to make the experience fun for everyone; at least as far as casual matchmaking (where the point isn't to climb a skill ladder explicitly). There's some ethical questions about intentionally matching users in games they are destined to win; and for team games it averages out a lot nicer in a purely random approach if the teams are larger (more variance); but overall the logic is at least reasonable.
The actual problem is that companies don't actually have an incentive to make players /enjoy/ the experience. The incentive is to drive them into microtransactions or improve "retention" which is not the same thing as actually having fun. A potentially good idea perverted into an entirely unethical one by dubious actors looking only to churn a profit rather than on the health of the community they supposedly maintain.
Anyways appreciated the video and the ability to actually think on this topic a little bit more than what was perhaps the goal of the video.
I think the way to go with this is to outright give the player's four options:
"Laid Back" where it will range from slightly rated above you to significantly below in MM prospects. Because sometimes you just want a casual match and why not retain their playtime?
"Surprise" where it has a full range from people/matches significantly against you to significantly below, likely the easiest to program by just keeping SOME bounders on it. (that relax as matchmake time increases of course.)
"Challenging" where it deliberately ranges from roughly equal to significantly against you. Because there are people (and times when people) who want to get gud and accept the pain involved in the learning process.
"Ranked" is always going to be roughly on your skill level if/as possible, specifically because it's openly tracking everyone.
Put it in the player's hands and you can rake in all that engagement while getting a PR win for being transparent about it.
10:30 That's where "Inclusivity" is leading us. We're all forced into equity. You're a good player, but the game will handicap your aim/spread to keep the other player playing.
Awful
I used to chalk it up to lag, but that's clearly not the case, Hard to build up skill if the parameters are always changing
I avoid all MMORPGs, Live services single player or multiplayer, season passes, cash shops etc. I used to have the mentality of wanting to play these games without spending money. Now I don't want to even give them the time of day. I'm disgusted with the modern video game industry.
Very wise decision and time is far more valuable than money.
How in the world were they able to secure a patent like that?! As if it’s some sort of ingenious idea.
Avoid battle passes like the plague.
The scary thing is, your team is always these silent bots who dont know how to play an objective or enage in supportive play. They dont respond to text or voice chat and just keep running into the meat grinder over and over. You cannot convince me these games still have real people playing them. Its like recruit AI on my team and Veteran AI on the opposite.
cheating before was about aimbot. cheating now is about getting your character killed so you get easier players.
in wz i spent years playing with genuine new players who dont even know how to jump, essentially game was unplayable spawn and get taken out instantly by a tryhard sweat with softaimbot in their rotational aimassist never missing a shot
before people cheated using aimbot. now people cheat by AFK loosing games to get into easier games
It's not AI and it is unsurprising. Put a bunch of strangers together and tell them to complete objective A, and of course you'll get mayhem instead. People in this case will do what they find the most fun, objectives be damned.
@@starc. yup, I remember playing Quake Live when that was new, and there were so many noobs . You'd get angry messages saying you were cheating because you were bhopping and rocket jumping lol.
Thanks!
I stopped playing nearly all AAA games when I observed that most AAA developers stopped making games for gamers and instead make them for themselves. They do so for both monetary and ideological reasons.
Remember those commercials saying that piracy hurts people? Yeah, wouldn't want to put these innocent people out of a job; a job that literally rigs the product against the consumer. Looks like a new version of those commercials is needed except pointing in the opposite direction this time.
this has been known/suspected for years now, but has been downplayed by players and publishers, even when we had the patents saying this stuff. Its just only now someone in the business is saying it, that people are listening. Its frustrating how stubborn people can be, and how obvious your experience can be controlled, and its fullly turned me away from the AAA gamespace almost as a whole, single player can be an exception SOME times. Its insane how things have turned out, I never wouldve guessed 10 years ago Id prefer indie titles over AAA ones, when at that time, i hated most indie titles. Cant wait for AAA to implode so we can have a reset on the market, whenever that is.
The worst part of it is that most players want this kind of thing. The number of players in a PvP FPS game who are willing to accept they're not that good and take as many defeats it takes till they learn from their enemies feels abyssmal. Most willl rage quit as soon they lose an engagement, or accuse whoever won it for cheating. I'm pretty sure that, even if a game has a real problem with cheaters, 75% of cheating accusations don't come as much from seeing proof of cheating as from someone who lost an engagement to someone with higher skill that pulled off a play the loser can't do and therefore concludes must be cheating.
And in quite a few FPS YT channels I see people whining when the game presents them with an actually balanced match in which they have to try winning instead of giving them a team of newbs they can roll over.
most players are not aware of EOMMSBMM
And then people ask why don't game developers sell physical copies of games any more, or why would a single player, horror FPS game require a connection to the internet, when you play it alone the entire time?
Control! Because they first need to monitor you, so they can use that data base to train their bots to more efficiently control your behavior without being noticed, but actually always leading you towards in-game micro transactions. They always want to be able to project and maximize the profit they can make on you. That's why the AI pushes you to continue playing, but subtly hints that you can pay to win if you just spend additional real money (you already bought a _digital_ copy of the game with it) so why not some in-game (digital/not real) items, skins, weapon upgrades, stronger armor etc. Never thinking they cannot be traded back even for less, when you decide to stop playing. That's because they only ever had any value to you, and the AI bot did everything to make you buy more. We still have snake oil salesmen in the 2020's, but in the form of AI bots.
Another one of your well sourced, informative and gripping "WAKE UP!" videos UE! Thank you, and keep them coming!
The sheep that still line up to reward these companies are baffling to me. You are paying them to make you spend more money. You’re paying to be manipulated and scammed. Makes no sense.
This is what no quality standards do so people they keeplaying trash
"I dont lose.. 'cause the algorithm"
"I lose... 'cause im cheeks.."
😂😂
EOMM has made FPS feel so soulless. It made me stop buying them entirely, and the f2p ones I don't even play without at least a full squad of friends on mic, considering that I'm a very cooperative player that will consistently would otherwise get matched with as many bad/new players as the game could fit on my team while making me go against pro-level players in casuals. Apex takes it to the next level by forcing me and my friends to constantly go against predator-level players for weeks if we so much as win a match against a group of absolute idiots. I'd be overjoyed if I could go against people of relative skill level at this point instead of being forced to be cannon fodder for literal professionals who don't want to risk their position in ranked. If SBMM was actually implemented fairly, I wouldn't be going against people with 2-20x the experience I have and my group wouldn't quit for the night after half an hour.
But in Soviet Silicon Valley, the games play you!
does that not sound like gambling? like thats literally what casinos are doing to keep gamblers playing longer, now we have that in video games???
It's been around a while. He made a video about candy crush being like this some time ago.
Hmmmm I think everyone should report this to the local gambling/alcohol agency. In America, you can report it to the ATF LMFAO imagine them raiding AAA game studios!!!!!!!!!
Well, it's the reason Raid Shadow Legends is owned by a company that primarily designs and builds gambling machines.
It's fine though if they pay off politicians to look the other way. Say what you want about big companies but remember, an honest man never seeks politics.
Oh wow I feel so justified for hating AAA games, now.
10:10 Holy shit dude. If this doesn't open people's eyes, nothing will. "Competitive" gaming is a JOKE
well we already knew that the rotational aimassist is a softaimbot with perfect robotic tracking never missing a shot provided the player uses it correctly
Fromsoft modded skyrim & DmC. That's the extent of my gaming.
I thought I could get an answer that wasn't 2. Took me 5 minutes to realize.....
I'm being delusional!
The only online games I play now are co-op games. I stopped playing multiplayer games altogether since I quit valorant a year ago.
Quit Valorant? My dude is back, he's finally here!!
Server browsers and playing on the same server where you know the admin needs to become the standard again.
It stops matchmaking manipulation, this is superior to any anticheat, and it fosters community better than anything else. It's the way multiplayer game should be. The only platform it's still common on is PC and that's one of the many reasons PC is superior that has nothing to do with expensive hardware or graphics.
thats why i still play css
I used to play MTG Arena for quite a while before I retired it permanently, and now that I’ve seen this video it starts to make me wonder if the accusations of the game being rigged might be more true than I originally believed.
When you realise you're a rat on a wheel like everyone else and you're playing an FPM (First Person Mover) because your Rotational Aim Assist does everything else for you and the only thing that differentiates you for the other rats is your "movement".
I am stuck with simulators and sandbox games from a decade ago.
Make your own gameplay.
I've been saying this since Fortnite added SBMM a long time ago, but nobody listened because "yay this means I won't have to fight sweats." Kinda hilarious at this point.