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So, this has been a bit on my mind recently. For many years I have harbored this idea that online multiplayer is nowhere near as good as local multiplayer simply due to how I have found myself enjoying times when I've played against friends in the past and how, when playing online, there isn't really that same sort of drive anymore. But for years I still wondered exactly why I thought that... now with the past decade having come to pass and myself having dedicated a lot of time recently to online games like Magic the Gathering Arena and Pokemon Trading Card Game Online I think I understand exactly why that is. The short answer, I believe casual gaming is incompatible with an online environment. Basically if you're playing online, regardless of whether you want to or not you're playing competitive. Playing competitive means that if you are playing online you HAVE to know what that game's metagame is. Depending on the game there's very little room for experimentation, for trying something different. People don't play Online Multiplayer for the taking part, they play it to win. Yes, at heart we all play to win in many ways but online you have to be prepared to deal with the cheapest, most degenerate tactics in whatever that multiplayer game is. One of my earliest examples of this was playing Metroid Prime Hunters online. I would often play the game online as it was a major part of the game. I didn't get much done online in terms of actually winning games, but quite honestly I never really had much of a chance. Playing the game online means entering the competitive side of the game and frankly Hunters is terrible in terms of competitive as Sylux and Trace are so much better than every other character. That is under normal gameplay conditions but the meta for that basically became, play as Trace, Hack the game, stand INSIDE a wall where you can't be hit and snipe everyone. That's not fun... except for the person playing Trace and doing it that is! Things continued in many ways. Smash Bros is one of my all time favourite multiplayer games and was the go to many times in a group of friends in multiplayer, we loved playing it together. Online? Barely touched it. I know Smash isn't exactly a great experience online but even so, playing with friends is usually an established level of competition that you are used to, so I don't venture online as much as I'm convinced that it just wouldn't be as fun even though they have tried in the past to have a dedicated online mode for competitive gamers. Thing is, with Smash I feel that the loss of human interaction is a big minus as far as the online is concerned. I am not ever so great at Smash Bros so I feel playing that game online a lot would not be a very fulfilling experience as I'm very unlikely to win any games, my playstyle would likely see me lose a lot as I don't do some of the things that I should be doing in fighting games as I just end up goofing off. The same can be said for other fighting games in some ways. I liked playing Pokken but barely did much online as even outside of the ranked mode I was getting absolutely creamed. I was mainly playing as Chandelure who I felt was a ridiculously powerful character but that didn't really show online. Because I had no plan to deal with opposing cheap, degenerate strategies things just fell away rather quickly, I think I faced a lot of Gengar online and struggled to deal with it. Though in hindsight it looks like Gengar is one of Chandy's weaker matchups. Similarly I tried playing a few teams online in FIFA 18 Switch seasons but didn't fare too well, however I did notice a common occurance, everyone was playing as PSG and basically just passing the ball to Cavani and spamming the same long range shot over and over again and every time it was successful in going in. So in this instance I am basically punished for going online without knowing what the meta was for Seasons. This brings to present day. I have found something of a happy medium with online TCGs, mainly with Magic Arena and Pokemon TCGO. But now this goes into the live service problem in many ways. Both these games are rather generous in their opening matchmaking and allow you to play against other people with beginning level cards. However, after the leashes get taken off, my natural instinct for both is to experiment. Create some cool fun decks... the problem with that is that as a free to play player these decks can take a long time to create and end up being the objectives of my play time on the game. When your collection is limited it can be very good to create a consistent decklist but then you also have cards in your collections on both games that are just way too good not to play so I found myself putting those one ofs in to help me with a view to finishing the rest of the deck later. But here's the problem, since these games are being played online, you run into a metadeck in pretty much every game you play, with a few exceptions. Even then you'll just seen some people playing the same cheapest degenerate deck they can find within their card budget. For example on Pokemon Trading Card Game Online everyone who isn't playing a Meta deck tends to end up playing this Charizard deck, probably because it's Charizard. Admitteldy I think Pokemon's Standard format right now is a rather miserable experience because there are so many decks right now designed around stopping the opponent from being able to play or just overpowering the opponent on Turn 2 or 3, this all ties back into the meta in many ways as one of the strongest decks came about because of a ridiculously overpowered card that everyone does not enjoy facing as it basically allows you to take extra prize cards for every knockout and making it extremely easy for them to win, especially when it exists in the same format as a card that basically allows said player to choose who they knockout. It would be fine if there was a ranked mode so that players who play that deck could stay in there while a regular play queue would allow all kinds of wacky deck ideas to be played. However, experience with Magic the Gathering Arena tells me that even if there was a ranked queue people will still play competitive decks in the regular play queue. This all ties back into what I think is the modern popularity of competitive gaming. It feels like these days, in part because of Twitch, everyone wants to be a pro. With the pros so prominent on Twitch and Youtube it's easy to watch these players play the game and to watch competitive tournaments on whatever your favourite game might be. This ends up reflecting in the game's online itself, everyone just jumps on the latest trend that (insert pro here) has decided to show off recently because everyone wants to be like said pro. I also hear that MOBA games like League of Legends can be a miserable experience if you aren't playing meta because everyone else you are working with will expect you to conform to said meta. In that game's case it seems like there's so little room for deviation that it is even publicly acknowledged by Riot that this is how to play the game. The popularity of online games is also seemingly at an all time high, every big game you hear about that gets big these days is an online multiplayer game. Heck, the fact that the most popular game among kids is Fortnite gives a clear indication to the aspirations of gaming these days. A lot of people playing the game aren't just going to be playing it for fun with their mates, they want to be the next Ninja! So yeah, maybe this is just the ramblings of an ageing man who has nostalgia for the times spent playing multiplayer with friends as a teenager and is struggling to accept that kids these days won't have the same experience, perhaps I'm just deluded and should just "get gud" at these games but I thought I'd open it to a topic of discussion, is online multiplayer fun for any of you guys? Does it depend on the game? In which cases do you find local multiplayer better. Or are you someone who only enjoys games when you win? Thought this could be an interesting discussion. Tl:dr - I have mixed expreience with online multiplayer, I think it's too competitive, I think local is better, do you agree or disagree.