>>714312232
I'm just talking out my ass here, but I think it's a combination of things. The biggest of them is focusing HARD on esports. So many of these games immediately turned to shit when they tried to appeal to the top .1% of players. You could see it in everything from gameplay mechanics to map design. Then you have the fact that the entire skill set to play them was replaced. I'll use Halo as my best example just because it's the one I played the most, but even in >>714335624 and >>714335695 you can see what I'm talking about. These games were slower, more methodical. It was more about positioning and map awareness than it was about reflexes. Halo felt like a dance or a game of chess, now you look at these games and it's spinning all over the fucking place to the point I don't even think the people playing know what is going on. A lot of modern shooters lack the ability to have varied playstyles. They want you to play the game in specific way because that's the only thing that's viable. There's 50 different weapons, but only 2 or 3 are actually worth using. You look at Halo's sandbox and barring a select few weapons, everything could be used in a wide range of situations. Other things that contributed to this is the erasure of social features. Pre/post game lobbies, custom servers, voip, etc. Now we live in HR world and nobody talks to anybody. Trash talk was half the fun. SBMM also absolutely fucking RUINED these kinds of games.