“No Armbands”: The Disappearance of Teamwork in MMO Gaming

There's no "I" in "TEAM", but gamers still find the "me" in there by breaking it apart.

I’m part of a podcast called the MMO Underground. As a part of it, we have a joke drinking game.

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(“Jokebecause if you really tried to keep up odds are you’d end up damaging your liver, if not dying outright. Not exactly the kind of thing good for viewership, actually.)

But one of the rules is:

“If Tyger brings up paintball, take a drink.”

Well lucky for me, I finished my ‘Dew so I’m immune for the rest of the article. Yes, I’m talking paintball. Yes, it’s related to gaming. Now finish your drink so we can get going.

How the Paintball Field is Changing Player Behavior

It occurred to me a while back that, outside of scenario games and big games, I haven’t worn an armband to play paintball in almost five years. To gamers who don’t play paintball, this won’t mean anything really but for paintball players this is kind of a big deal. See, an armband is how you tell what team you’re on. Smaller fields have a “band / no band” team system where they put a small bit of surveyors tape on your arm and that’s your team. Bigger fields have two colors of tape and everyone wears one. Left arm only, above the elbow.  Common tactic is to tear off one tail and tie it onto the back of your goggle band so your teammates can see it and not shoot you in the back of the head.

It happens. Shut up.

But slowly, over the course of a decade, the bands have vanished. Fields went from large multi-acre woods fields to small postage stamp “speedball” fields. Trees replaced by colorful, inflatable bunkers and camouflage traded for flashy jerseys. And, somewhere in there, armbands started to vanish as well. The reason is pretty basic when you think about it. On a small field with no real room to maneuver, you can’t flank around.  So if someone is facing you, odds are it’s an opponent.  So why bother with armbands?

More importantly, it speaks to me that it’s a larger symptom. This is where gaming is about to come in so you can wake up now.

Teams are Becoming Irrelevant, Even When They are Part of the Core Gameplay

What it means to me is that in paintball, and in modern gaming, the team is basically unimportant.  Who I’m playing with in both cases will change next game anyhow so why bother having a team designation?  Why should I do anything for you?  I don’t know you, you don’t know me, and I don’t trust you to actually do something like HELP me…  So I’m just gonna play for my own sake.  Get my glory while I’m here and get what I want out of the game.  

My glory.

Over time, paintball has become more individual based. I’ve heard people brag about kill counts and ‘kill streaks’ off the paintball field, oblivious to the fact that they lost the match.

“Don’t care! I killed like 50 guys!”

An impressive feat since there’s only 10 people on the other team, but sure, you got all 50 of them. Nice job Sparky, here’s a cookie.

When I play online online PvP games, same story. No metaphorical armbands here, we swap bodies in and out so fast you can’t even type in player names. You get called by your class.

“Healer, U got this?”

“Tank get that dragon”

“Rogue kill the healer!”

“Hunter get your damn pet off my leg!” 

People will look at the group, see that there isn’t something they want in it, and leave without as much of a word. I mean if you’re lucky they won’t, most of the time it’s “ZOMG NO HEALZ? L8R LOZERS!” You can’t carry me to victory?  “Noobs.”  

It’s All About “Me”

And why shouldn’t it be? The games collectively reward individual effort and emphasizes the KILL. Whoever gets the highest kill counts gets the highest rewards. Never mind that guy who sacrificed himself to distract the other team so you could swoop in and get the kills, he should have waited for some other n00b to do it so HE could get the kill!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been yelled at in World of Tanks for trying to capture a zone.

“DON’T (censored) CAP!” “(censored) NOOB!” “CAP IS FOR LOSERS! THERE’S STILL 3 GUYS LEFT! (censored) YOU NOOB!”

(Related, is it just me or do most of these guys have a fascination with fornication?)

The reward is for killing the other team, not for achieving the stated goal. But more importantly, by achieving the team goal, you seemingly rob your teammates from their kills. Their glory. Don’t win the game for us, let me get my kills so I can win the game for us!

And I haven’t even mentioned world PvE.  Even here, it’s individual glory.  DCUO, WoW, every game that has a random grouping mechanic are plagued with the same problem. No armbands. A common theme in DCUO, a player leaving a newly formed group because “no heals”.  WoW was even worse because there’s a healer, but “OMFG GEARSCORE LOW! I’M OUT!” Until you’ve waited 30 minutes for a tank to decide to show up who will actually tolerate gearscore of 265 instead of 268, you haven’t enjoyed the “community” aspect of MMOs.

There is no team, there are only mobs of individuals who use each other to get the satisfaction they want out of a game. I can already hear the people screaming about tournaments, clan wars and so on and yes, that’s tourney play. Not what most of us play. Not the majority of the “community” plays.  And the community at large plays no armbands.

Work with What You’ve Got

One thing paintball taught me over the years is a small but powerful phrase. “Make it work.” Unless the teams are grossly lopsided, you can make it work. It takes a few games, but you learn that the guy with the old school ‘Mag and faded tiger stripe is a good crawler, and the guy with the racegun is happiest when he has a lane to shoot. You pair them together and watch the opponents drop. You learn that the three guys who came together in matching jerseys can work together well but don’t like to talk to anyone else, so you stick them on the other tape. That one guy over there is a dad with his kids, and even though you know he wants to sprint down the center he’s gonna hang back with his kids who are too scared to move up. You put them at the back of the firefight so they can feel like they’re seeing some action too and what do you know the kid’s got long range shooting skill.  Bonus.

But this takes time to figure out. By the last game of the day, everyone’s firing on all cylinders and you’re working together for the most part. It’s impossible to do this when bodies are swapping between games.  So in that context, why shouldn’t it be all about yourself? I mean hell, I’ll never see these losers ever again, I may as well get my kills and forget the team goal. Besides, who wants a team goal?

“Teams are for losers.”

Actually, they aren’t.  Humans work best in small groups; teams.  You may not want to admit this, but if you play to your strength, I’ll cover your weakness.  That’s how we do well as a species.  You are not Superman, even if you have a carbon copy costume.

You know what I’d love to see? A PvP system which emphasized team goals. Kills aren’t important, only achieving the goal. That and long-term scoreboards that have some weight to them. Just to toss an idea out there, a PvP game in which two teams battle small skirmishes for a day, possibly a week. Kills aren’t recorded, only objectives. Once you choose a side, you’re locked into that side for the long haul battle. At the end of the event, you get rewarded for the team goal as well as for teamwork assists like healing, tanking, sniping or sacrifice moves that end in a team victory. I’m just throwing this out there for the moment without much in-depth thought, but I think you can see the concept here.

Unrealistic you say?  I can point at one of many 24 hour scenario games in paintball that does the exact concept, and those work out pretty well I think.

Teamwork is Always More Rewarding Than a Kill Count

It allows players of all skill levels, and all play styles, to contribute to the overall goal and say “I helped win,” even if it was a small contribution. To me, that’s the most important thing.  We all contributed. You may not be the best on the field, but you held this base or stayed on this position to deny the enemy ground and did something that helped us all, and I for one am grateful for that. Something you never get when it’s all about one guy. Teamwork means you sometimes check your ego at the door so we all can achieve a goal, not just you.

It also means dedication to your team. You wear your armband with some pride, you talk to your teammates in the parking lot between games to make a better plan for next match, you figure out the team strength and the opponent weakness, and play to those.  It means you think about how to win together, not just how to rack up more kills for more XP.  It means you carry a teammate through something and let them carry you later.  It means we all go down together or we all rise up together.

I’ll admit, I’m a reality junkie.  So given a choice, gimme the real thing.  One thing about paintball over computer gaming? No HUD with red text to tell you who’s an enemy and who isn’t. Leads to some fun confusion in the woods when you don’t know if the guy you flanked is supposed to be a teammate or not. There’s a reason I wear a “Halo” style jersey sometimes, at least then people recognize it and I know if they’re friend or foe pretty quickly.


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Author
TygerWDR
I'm a gamer. I'm a reality junkie. I'm a cynic. I'm a dinosaur. I'm a writer. I'm so much more than a paragraph can say. You want more? Ok. I started a video game show on the internet some time ago. See, I've played video games since Intellivision and Atari 2600 and PONG back in the day. Retro-gaming doesn't really fire me up as much as seeing how the community ticks. And after seeing way too many "I'm too young to have played this game when it first came out but it MAKES ME SO ANGRY" reviewers who would happily eviscerate my childhood for lulz... yeah I tossed my hat into the ring. the quickly scooped it back up, I'm told I have a bald spot that needs covering. Outside of gaming... yes I go outside shut up... I like to play paintball when I can. I snowboard a lot, when I can. I go mountain biking, when I can... seeing a trend yet? I prefer reality to video games, but at 4 AM it's hard to find a paintball game going on. Lately I livestream a lot, playing video games for an audience.