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Playing With Friends Makes You a Better Gamer
An anonymous reader writes "Computer scientists at the University of Colorado and the Stevens Institute of Technology have shown that gamers that play with friends play better. The study used the blockbuster FPS Halo: Reach as a testbed, and combined ground truth data on friendships from an anonymous survey with data about the multiplayer competitions extracted using the Reach Stats API. They found that the more friends you have on your team, the more assists, the fewer betrayals, the more you score, and the greater the probability your team wins, and that this 'friends for the win' effect goes above and beyond the benefits of playing with skilled strangers. (They also show that older gamers are statistically better than younger players, contrary to popular opinion.) Study lead Prof. Aaron Clauset, writing on his blog, says that friends 'may be able to effectively anticipate or adapt to each others' actions or strategies without an explicit need for verbal (and thus time consuming) communication or coordination,' and 'these effects may be fairly universal, and not merely limited to the traditional domains like sports and war, where practicing together has a long tradition.'"
This just in: teams of people with mutually-known skillsets perform better than teams of people with no mutually-known skillsets. Film at eleven.
"They found that the more friends you have on your team, the more assists, the fewer betrayals, the more you score, and the greater the probability your team wins"
Why do we do these studies again? They only information that is irrelevant, widely inaccurate, or more and more frequently, both.
I honestly believe that I would have been faster at playing through the co-op modes of these games with a stranger than with one of my best friends. The number of times I dropped him (and him me) into the acid, grinding machine, flames or caught him (accidently!) with a rocket launcher is phenomenal.
We engage in friendly competition to find extremely creative ways of killing the other person that I'd never do to a stranger.
If you got friends or clan buddies on your team, chances are huge you also have them on audio coordinating what you do. That hugely increases your odds and is something most don't do with random strangers.
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Anyone who games any amount should not be surprised by the "friends ftw" factor.
However, as for the younger games being better than older debate: my experience is that their reflexes are generally superior (see citations below) and they have a lot of time to practice, but their ability to think strategically can be pretty limited and consequently it is possible to outmaneuver them.
I'm not that old yet at 29, but I'm definitely noticing I'm not as good as I was at 15.
Citations: It looks like late 20s might be the fastest age group due to a superior combination of youth + experience:
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/biology/lesson-plan/63835.html
http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2009/Projects/J1319.pdf
Can anyone find any other sources on this? I used to believe teens had the fastest raw reaction time of any age group, but I'm unable to find any support for this.
Most of the "older" gamers got tired of teenagers shouting abuse at them and generally sucking the fun out of multi-player FPSs. Those that remain often do so for the pleasure of being able to beat the annoying little twerps. Now get off my lawn .......
www.day9.tv - Be a better gamer.
I've noticed while playing TF2 with some people who don't chat or speak during the game that they just... adapt. They know when you want that uber charge, they know when to sap the sentry, they know where they are needed. Granted this is with people I play with often and not new players, but it's rather neat seeing how they just seem to fit in where they need to without instruction, therefor, a better gamer.
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It's too bad playing HALO just makes you an overall bad person.
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This is common sense, established teams working together will always perform better than random teams. Especially when established teams balance roles and such... (MEDIC!!!!!)
Most multiplayer matchmaking systems have/had provisions for ages to match pre-arranged teams with other pre-arranged teams to avoid 'gank fests' for that very reason
People always act differently with their friends, usually for the worse.
This study was not peer reviewed so it should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Because playing with yourself makes you blind.
Their results would have been different had they chosen EVE Online instead of Halo...
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I'm at work, so I'll post as AC.
The study used the blockbuster FPS Halo: Reach.
For fucks sake, really? All that needed to be said was "used the FPS Halo: Reach".
Something like that. Though actually, i'd say it's not even just KNOWING the skillsets, but being used to doing certain things as a group.
It's something that's been known in the army for example for, oh, maybe a couple thousand years now: a legion of 5000 people acting as a group and already being used to act as a group, beats a horde of 10,000 uncoordinated barbarians any day, even if maybe individually they're better warriors.
Furthermore, that as long as a unit stays cohesive, it has a fighting chance, and when it lost cohesion it's pretty much already defeated. They just may or may not know it yet.
I wouldn't even necessarily write it under "being a better gamer". It's more just about the group. If everyone is used to the rest of the group acting in a certain way, and viceversa, essentially they've formed some group tactics. It doesn't even have to be stated, and in fact it's even better if you don't have to. You just already know that that guy will try to flank, that other guy prefers to keep the distance and snipe, etc, and most importantly you found SOME way to do all that, that SOMEHOW works. And that by itself will beat the same number of uncoordinated players, even if maybe individually they can aim better or react faster or whatever other "good player" criterion one may take.
And it's not just about "knowing" that that guy's skillset includes sniping, or that other guy can sneak around, which might still leave one wondering if they will. It's already being used to what each of those will do, and already being used to dash in a certain situation because you're already used that there's someone counter-sniping for you while you do that.
That said, if army taught me anything, I'd say that limiting their conclusions to "friends" is misleading. Sure, you want bonding between them and all, but ultimately what matters even more than friendship is exactly that being already trained to apply the same group tactics as a group. If I had to go to war and had to choose whether to entrust my life to my best buddy who can't tell a gun's butt from its muzzle, or to that guy I thought to be the biggest douchebag in the company, I'd pick the douchebag any day. Because friendship is grrreat, but already having the reflex to provide cover fire and when to provide it is better.
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I'm a lot more likely to troll a friend than I am a stranger.
...So I shoot him other places.
In Halo 2, I use to always shoot my brother in the foot until he was near death. One time I didn't realize he was already near death, I shot him in the foot and he died. Now every time we play a shooting game together he says "Don't shoot me in the foot!"
As usual, slashdot points out the obvious. I swear, the people who review these sumbissions are fucking monkeys.
Does it make you a better friend?
Obviously you didn't poll my friends. It's a freaking TK fest with the group I know.
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Clearly you've never played League of Legends.
In all games that pair you with random players this is going to be true and it is quite obvious and hardly required in-depth research to discover. Take for example World of Warcraft. If I use the random dungeon finder to find random players instead of pulling people from my guild, I am much more likely to have no issues screwing people over since I will never see those random players ever again. *rolls need*
Gaming with friends... real friends.... not your (xbox live or PSN friends... because we all know how true those friendships really are) can help with some gaming skill. I have found they are more willing to stand idlely by if you are attempting maneuvers and try new things... and that's great and all, but you tend to pick up on your friends' maneuvers, hiding/camping spots... so then, they're much easier to predict. We all have our own style of playing and when you play with the same people, it becomes predictable over time. I find that playing with strangers (xbox live friends) helps improve skill a whole much more than with a friend because you're exposing yourself to different styles of game play and skills. Learning to adapt to other players i think helps out a gamers skill much more than just with a friend. Now if you're talking about team play with a friend, where you're playing with a friend or friends against a team of strangers, then that i believe has the same effect when it comes to team work in that sense. But i think it still falls under the same principle that gaming with strangers gives that variety of game play to learn to adapt too. For example, i used to be heavily involved in league and tournament bowling. When you bowl in the same house, you are able to get a good feel for the lanes, oil patterns, etc.. If all you do is bowl in the same house, it's much more difficult to adapt to the lane conditions in other houses... because they take care of them differently... especially in tournament play. I knew guys who averaged above 220 in the house they're used too, but could barely break a 140 in tournament play.
I have no friends to play with, so I just play with myself.
....likely to make you laugh a lot more during the game (especially when you TK them)
Playing without friends makes you a real gamer.