OPINION: What makes a competitive fps?

OPINION: What makes a competitive fps?.

Before starting to talk about this topic, I want to make it clear that when I say competitive, I don’t just mean that it is pvp, but also that it has an adequate combat system to take it to competitions. With that cleared up, let’s get started.

What is it that makes a fps more suitable for competitions than others of the same genre? (Ignoring the money they give, but that’s another matter). I think that a determining factor when talking about competitive fps, although it seems very simple, is the time it takes to die. An example, any game of CoD. You’re in the lead, you’re on a roll and you feel like nothing can stop you, suddenly an enemy appears from behind and kills you leaving you unable to react. Is that fair? I do not think so. Yet CoD is considered a competitive game because of the masses it appeals to, not because its system is fair. Another example, just the opposite of CoD. You’re in a game of Halo, and you find an enemy with his back to you at a medium distance, you start shooting at him and lowering his shield little by little, but he takes cover and manages to run away, or even hit you with a grenade and kill you. This is fair, you have a much longer reaction time and you can take advantage of your knowledge of the map to surround the enemy even if you have little life left. That’s why I consider Halo a competitive fps, since it depends more on skill and map knowledge than on the luck of finding an enemy from behind. Even adding vehicles the game is still fair since it gives you the opportunity to take advantage of the rival’s mistakes, in this way the vehicles are not invincible, just another way to play.

I hope that it is becoming more or less clear to you, if not, I will give you another example with which you will understand it perfectly. Titanfall is a game that has two faces, when we are as a pilot we have little life and they kill us after a few successful shots, here the luck of finding an unsuspecting enemy or the reflexes when reacting have a great influence. However, the game takes on a whole other dimension when we ride the titans. We have much more life to protect, as well as a shield that reduces the damage received, we also play in a much more tactical way, depending more on the skills and the partner, favoring cooperation. In the first face we relied much more on our reflexes than our skill, however, in the second we rely on our skill with abilities, weapons, explosives, and, in some modes, cooperation with our teammates.

There are exceptions like Battlefield. I consider Battlefield competitive since, although we have little life and the luck factor plays an important role, it is important to know how to move around the map, as well as knowing how to handle weapons and vehicles, and cooperation plays a very important factor when it comes to play seriously, which, from my point of view, also makes a competitive fps.

In summary, I think that the competitiveness of an fps is based on the time it takes to die, on cooperation and, above all, on the importance given to the skill of a player versus his luck.