Sunday, December 25, 2016

About first person shooter etiquette...

As it is the first person shooter I play the most these days, I mainly will be focusing on Destiny as my main example. When I speak of etiquette, I’m referring to the things that a player should or shouldn’t do when playing first person shooters online. Online gaming has become a gigantic community with its own set of rules, which although mostly unwritten, increases in importance on a daily basis. Although these rules govern a complex set of expectations, this article will only include five basic concepts mainly aimed at helping Destiny players.

We’ve got our own stats and our own personal standards when rating our performances. If you are playing with a team, however, the individual still matters but the team should become your priority. At the most basic level, don’t do anything to your teammates if you would dislike the same being done to you. You may end up getting less kill and more assists, but your teammates also are likely to die less to balance things out. Even when we get deep into our online personas or avatars, we all still have feelings and we all are trying to enjoy this gaming experience, in which concepts like death hurt. If you don’t care about any of that, single player or free-for-all game modes could be a better choice for you.

I understand that the internet is full of obnoxious and mean-spirited people but I still suggest using your mic with or without a fireteam. That is a good way to learn how to communicate and improve your teamwork. Of course you might be able to make some friends as well. Thoughtful communication is the foundation of all positive relationships, including the ones in team dynamics. Even without going into detailed “MLG-sweaty-tryhard” callouts, letting your teammates know what you are doing, where the opponent is, or if you are going to attempt capturing an objective can be helpful.

At more advanced levels, map awareness can improve both your solo and team gameplay. Try inventing or adopting names for various areas of maps so that you can more accurately direct your teammates. Familiarizing yourself with commonly used sniper sightlines and covered locations can help you and your team survive especially at the beginning of games. In order to avoid traps and to also create traps yourself, learning where choke points are on the map is necessary. Spending time exploring maps will improve the number and quality of your team’s angles of approach and sightlines. With practice, this also will help you understand where to go in relation to the rest of your team.

Regardless of their given name, special weapons in Destiny very often abandon their intended secondary purpose to be used as primary weapons. Their ability to eliminate targets instantly sometimes even from a relatively safe position, arguably makes them more valuable than primaries. Given their importance, controlling special ammo spawn locations and sharing it with your teammates by letting them know when you’re picking it up, can greatly affect battles.

The last concept I’d like to discuss has to do with super use. Destiny has a unique concept in which you can charge your super meter but picking up orbs generated by your teammates’ super use. Some supers create orbs open activation and other require specific action such as landing kills. With the smart and accurate communication, being an attentive and caring teammate will help create a flow of orbs. Whether you save your supers to counter other supers, to aggressively push and control heavy or special ammo spawns, or to get out of a sticky situation, let your teammates know where you’ve popped and where your trail of orbs is.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been what I like to call a natural observer. So in college I was drawn to various areas of social studies and that’s where I seemed to fit. Basically I’m very interested in understanding what people do, the meaning of it, and why they do it. Video games also have been a huge part of my life on both a casual and sometimes competitive way. When you consider what people play and how they play you can tell a lot about who they are since the technology has become advanced enough to simulate various aspects of human success and struggle.