I just can't enjoy Rust anymore. I used to love playing on low pop friendly servers buy to spend all arvo harvesting resources and building a neat house only for someone to raid and greif it while I'm at work made it a sisyphean hell.

All I wanted to do was build cool and interesting structures, maybe bag some unsuspecting players into a barred cell and force them to fight to the death, or pave the map with landmines, fun things like that.

I also have a personal rule against playing team-based multiplayer games - losing because the other team was more skilled was tolerable, but losing because half of my team was goofing around and not even trying to win (or winning because the other team was doing that) was just a frustrating waste of my time.

It's not for everyone.

It is a heavily chaotic game with an extremely high skill ceiling. Essentially a mix of overwatch and Battlefield. Overwatch, in that if you don't play with your team, it is highly likely you will lose. Battlefield, in that you will die a lot until you learn the game flow.

I have been playing this game since launch and I can say it is fairly rare for me to run into players slinging slurs. Maybe it is just the server I am on. It is fairly common to see racist or bigoted usernames though.

By way of the cosmetics, they are all cosmetic. There are plenty of free earnable cosmetics if you play the game consistently. When compared to other live service micro transactions, their prices are VERY affordable for what you are getting. The cosmetic bundles you can get are able to be used as multiple pieces, (I.e. pants, shirt, head gear, shoes) and can be put on every class as opposed to one character. It is a free to play live service game, so it makes sense they need money to continue improving the game.

Most live service games, aside from Warframe, don't really make improvements to the overall game as they get money from MTXs. The Finals has changed so much from what it launched as, and it has been less than 3 years.

It has it's cons (Like the ai voices for two in game characters), but this is the best live service PVP FPS I, personally, have ever played when it comes to character customization, gun play, and developer dedication to improving the game.

I decided to fire up Rocket League since years ago. Only playing casual, I'm not touching competition when it's a f2p fortnight bonus game.

It's still a lot of fun in casual. There are a few crybabies, but not as bad as i thought there'd be.

I tried the Finals, for like 2 weeks... I just can't with it. It's too chaotic, weapon balance is non-existent, everyone is playing team deathmatch because maybe only 4 people in the whole lobby know what the objective is, and those 4 people are the sweatiest, nastiest, most toxic people in gaming. I have been in several matches and heard players yelling n-slurs like it was a 2006 CoD lobby.

I wanted to like it. The character customizer is super detailed with cool stuff... but the microtransaction economy of it sucks giant donkey balls. You'll never make enough playing for free to buy anything more than some finger nail colors.... and you'd have to take out a second mortgage to buy enough "points/coins/gold?" to buy all the things you want.

Basically, fuck everything about the Finals.... neat concept ruined by a greedy model, toxic playerbase, shitty balancing, and confusing gameplay. That's why the playercount is dogshit, and it'll be yet another games-as-a-service shutdown within the next year.

EDIT: and shit, I forgot to mention the invisible OHK stabby bullshit that no one, in any FPS game finds fun.

During Covid I played planetside after trying it in 2018 briefly, then putting it up in 2024/25, the game gasping for air begging for daybreak to pull the plug allowing the sweet embrace of death to take it.

Anyways my point is it was pretty fun when I was into PvP games as there were so many people my skill level, the salty vets leading squads of dumbasses, and getting that cheap lucky drop on the guy who’s been playing since 2012 felt so sweat. Basically I think mixed skill games are fun with the right conditions until you get sniped by the heavy 400m away or an air to ground mosquito cus some vets need arbitrary number that doesn’t matter to them to up, holy shit are vet shitters capitalists

I have great memories of throwing together maps and even small mods for my buddy's cs 1.6 server, what do 9 year olds have to do the equivalent today? Roblox? Minecraft isn't exactly mod friendly, but I guess you can build stuff?

Yeah, I try, but unevitably the ELO just gets wider and wider as the game sheds players becsuse the devs refuse to hardware ban smurf cheaters.

This is why I don't play PVP games these days. Either I'm bad at it, so it's not fun, or I start to get good enough that it starts to feel like a chore to keep up with the meta.

The Finals is so fkn sweaty sometimes. But it is also so fun when my team is not getting deleted in 0.2 seconds.

Sometimes people stay low because they are inconsistent, often because they have an attitude problem. It's kind of ironic that people that rage against their teammates for being bad are actively causing their teammates to be bad.

I played Enlisted for a few hours a day up until last year. It stopped being fun when I realised I was getting frustrated at topping the scoreboard in most games because my perception was that my teammates were bad or weren't trying hard enough. The problem was me playing too much and having end game gear which gave me a huge advantage.

I just stick to singleplayer games now.

Games with elo matchmaking are rife with smurfs.

Meanwhile we had consistent lobbies of varied skills on Counter Strike decades ago. It let us build communities, weed out cheaters ourselves, and provided a far healthier social environment.

Sure that one dude on the server could actually 360 noscope you (sometimes) but you also had people who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn still joining lobbies for years.

Play a game with a proper ELO Elo system. You shouldn’t be in a game where the sweaties play against the noobs. That’s not fun for either person.

Yeah, he lid about Sbren, telling she is not sbeve

He's ok because he lid

It you can't handle me at my pot, you don't deserve me at my lid

I'd just tell people I got it in Australia

Soma Ulte

Today you, tomorrow me.

Belived

sula sula omte omte sula sula omte omte

that's a decent chant. lays down a beat for something fun on top. NO ONE TAKE IT ITS MINE (just kidding, but i'm totally using it in one of my songs about being angry at the sea)

Sbren sbeve

Easily! I got the PS4 for a hundred quid from a mate.