I actually like the idea of BR games, but I often find myself getting frustrated because I can't keep up with the skill level of a lot of players these days, it seems. Especially now that I have a job and devote less time of my life to gaming. Add to that that I've lost aiming accuracy in my hand and that I'm probably dealing with RSi in my right hand, and that has more or less led to me just enjoying highly competitive shooters less. For that reason I mostly just casually play Fortnite every now and then, but it doesn't really scratch the shooter itch for me (I hope CS2 will do it for me, but I'll probably be completely demolished). Back in the day I was super into playing Quake 3 Arena and just loved strafe- and rocketjumping while landing railgun shots (ocasionally), but little of that really transferred to modern shooters. I do still enjoy playing arena shooters, though, but they're very niche.

Battle royalist are interesting but i think they have some mechanical flaws that havent been solved yet. I like the tension of a good match, but I feel like there is kinda a problem where the best way to play is rarely the most fun. I'm a very competitive player mostly, but I haven't seriously played BRs.

I feel like BRs aren't really for me, very few have ladders and I'm not a fan of tpp (the fpp lobbies are usually much smaller), but I have fun with fortnite no build mode with friends. For me the anxiety and nerves (which I would call adrenaline!) Is the appeal of the games, but I can get why it isn't for everyone.

Battle royals are at their best when you are constantly chasing or being chased, staying at the edge of the circle and moving in. Camping is probably the best strategy for winning in most BRs but it's not very fun. Hot dropping is more or less just death match, and while I can see the appeal (I do it too sometimes) I think it's bad for the overall game most of the time. There have been lobbies where I hit top 20 before I even leave me drop location because so many people hot dropped, which leads to a boring game. They need to do more to incentivise fun strats. Seems like every BR tries something, but imo none have really succeeded yet.

I think for me, the main frustration is the way those games are structured. You run around for a few minutes and when you finally have decent equipment, someone shoots you out of nowhere and you get kicked out, have to requeue and start over again.

On the other hand, when I die in Overwatch, Valorant, Counter Strike, Quake, Unreal Tournament (yes, I'm old...) I know that I'll be back in the action in a few seconds, I didn't lose much progress and I can still win this.

I dont like battle royales

Most of the time is spent just trying to get equipment or running from point A to point B, and by the time you've spent 15-20 minutes just running, one encounter means you lose

I play CS:GO. I like it because its more constant decision making, and the shorter rounds means less time investment into a single round. But it has gotten so bad with cheaters. I have played CS for over 15 years and yet I constantly run into brand new accounts or accounts that were clearly boosted (500+ commends in each category), bought, and used by cheaters who said that "it was cheaper than rust..." The matchmaking is so atrocious, I have people at the bottom of the ranks on my team and top of the ranks on theirs; the averages arent even close. I'm not playing CS:GO anymore and if CS2 doesnt fix the cheating problem, I'm not going back.

Honestly, it's mostly a mindset change. I very recently picked up fortnite with some friends. Running quads is more of a "let's see if we can bully people with weird strats" instead of "I need to win or I'm not having fun." Its more about dicking around with friends and having fun than winning everything. Chances are you are not making money by playing, so why be concerned about it?

I play pretty much everything. Some of my friends rage quit stuff when Im still 100% calm.

When it comes to BRs specifically, they can be very frustrating. Your winrate is inevitably low, due to there only being “one” winner per match, still me and my friends enjoy both Apex and Hunt: Showdown.

In both cases we started having a lot more fun when we started taking the games much less seriously, and not caring about whether the game told us we won.

In Apex, instead of wins, we’d count squad wipes. We began playing much more aggressively, not caring as much about our gear, and going TOWARDS action instead of away from it. This led to less time “wasted” meaning if we died, we did so fast and early, and so we'd get to the next game faster. If we won, we’d score gear off the players we just defeated.

Similarly, in Hunt we’d head towards the first firefight we could hear, and either get kills or get killed. Pretty much always playing free hunters with cheap loadouts we wouldn’t care about losing.

And we never, ever, even considered caring about or grinding rank.

I play to maximize fun, not progress. I min/max for enjoyment, not stats. It’s one of the reasons I have chat entirely disabled in Overwatch, voice and text, because I don’t wanna hear it if someone is screaming at me over my pick. I don’t care. I here to have a good time.

I've been playing some Fortnite with friends. It's mainly us getting trashed and messing with people.

I found taking it much less seriously increases the fun, but that's just me. Apex is another animal in regards to play style. I can't play it.

I think BRs are fine, I'm just glad that the market has moved away from the BR mania that it was once in. BRs intrinsically need a large player base to succeed and it was exhausting hearing about this "sick new BR" only for it to shut down 6-8 months later

They're not really my cup of tea so I usually dont try them. The only two battle Royale games i enjoyed though are Tetris 99 and Super Mario 35.

I spent lots of time in Erangel one spring/summer several years ago.

I had fun, but I don't knowdwhy every big game had to become battle royale. I had my fill of fun, and was on to the next thing.

Those games seem like they're for the hyper competitive types, and that's just not me. Back when I was in high school in the late 90s we would play the original team fortress over the lan in the computer lab. The best part about it for me was trying to come up with funny things to say in the chat.

I can honestly go one step further and say I'm just tired of shooters. Unfortunately that seems to be all my friends want to play, so I typically just hang out in voice and chat instead of game with them nowadays.

I feel like as I get older, I prefer action games that reward strategic placement and high level decisions, rather than the precise millisecond actions.

Things like bunny hopping/sliding in Apex, lean spamming in R6S, etc, tend to make most shooters unappealing to me. Even a game like Deceive Inc has the general idea of stealthy strategy, but in the end all that matters is landing headshots.

Theoretically, this would mean I’d like “realistic” squad warfare FPSes, but those aren’t really aimed for fun. Mostly I’d like an arcadey shooter with movement abilities, but one that has you make decisions between offense, movement, defense; not spam multiple at once.

If you enjoyed apex except for the high stakes format, check out titanfall 2. There's a community made client called northstar which fixes EAstrash servers and offers mods/silly game modes and customization

There's a lot of multiplayer games that causes a lot of rage.

Most competitive games stresses me out. I have probably 1k hours in WoT and WoWS. I know I should be enjoying the small moments and not worry about winning as much, but I just can't do it.

Yeah, online competitive games just feel like I'm sitting an exam nowadays. I can do without the stress.

Also it feels like you spend ages running around in an empty field with nothing happening interspersed with seconds of not that great shooting gameplay