Competitive Esports Are Making First-Person Shooters Worse

screenrant.com:

When professional esportscause balance changes to occur, it can negatively impact the majority of a gaming community. By balancing games such as Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege on the performance of the top percentage of players, new and casual players are left struggling to learn new mechanics, play around nerfs or buffs, and try to enjoy the game through consistent changes. This is especially true for FPS games, or first-person shooters, as the skill gap between players just starting out and professionals at the top can cause more damage to the overall gameplay than it does to help.

For players just coming into the genre, first-person shooter games have evolved from a simpler time to a mechanically complex affair. The old-school style of FPS has become obsolete when compared to the dynamic combat of modern games. This creates a general pattern of expectation for the game style and requires more complex options while in a game's match to defeat other players, even if it means a complete remaster to accomplish that. If something proves to be too effective by the elite players of the game, the feature will typically be adjusted or re-tuned to make it appropriately balanced for professional players, rather than for casual players.

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The concept of ranking systems installed into these FPS games further harms player bases with its implications in esports. By introducing the concept of skill being equivalent to rank, a sense of elitism comes from hardcore gamers belittling and driving off players that do not meet the standard shown by the top percentage. It becomes a learned behavior to enforce that players to mimic and follow the top pro players in popular esports games like