Recently for my mental health I decided to stop playing competitive games. You know, your Battlefields, your Call of Duty's, your War Thunders, etc. I found myself angry more than I was having fun. For the past ten years... I don't think I ever ended a session of a player vs player match - "happy." Now I'm playing mostly singleplayer games with some MMORPGs. I am much happier. I actually look forward to gaming when I can. There is enough to get mad at in the world, I don't want my entertainment medium of choice to be anger inducing as well. I feel like the worst part about the vast majority of player vs player games is that someone basically has to not be having fun for the other person to have fun. Not universal, and probably more a matter of personal mindset but it's how I feel. I was just wondering how many if any comrades here have done the same and how it has effected you? I can confidentally say my life is better for it.
I've been playing House Flipper 2 a lot, which is a good detox from high stress games. Getting back into EU4 as well, beating up Europe at every chance I can get. Trying to learn Kremlingames games, mostly China: Mao's Legacy. Flying the MiG-19 in DCS, my favorite plane. It's been fun, and better. I do not miss War Thunder too much.
I'm not knocking people who like high action player vs player enviroments, it's just something I have grown to not enjoy anymore personally.
I quit League of Legends (checks notes) ten years ago and it was a great decision. Since then I've tried other competitive online games - Titanfall was my jam for a while, then Overwatch of course, tried to get back into Starcraft/SC2, really like Dragon Ball Fighter Z but I haven't been able to play for a while - but I always quit as soon as I cross the threshold of getting pissed more than I'm having fun.
My favorite online experiences now are all cooperative with relatively small player bases. I dug the hell out of Final Fantasy XI playing it through last year (though I still have a lot of content left if I ever go back to it again), on DCS I play on a "casual milsim" server that's mostly frequented by Australian dads where we play against a pretty hardcore computer opponent, and now that I think of it Dungeons and Dragons (and most other TTRPGs) totally has the same vibe of "coop gameplay with a small playerbase".