It’s funny too because it totally depends on the game and how it’s monetized and set up as well. I had some of the most fun in games in my life playing quick play in the original overwatch with my buddies, even though I almost exclusively prefer offline single player open world games.

My skill increased dramatically with our constant playing, I switched between DPS, tank, heals and really learned the roster. Not that far off from playing N64 super smash with those same friends in college and switching to a new character when you felt like you had learned one pretty well.

I would get annoyed at losing, but it was whatever, I wasn’t trying to rank in competitive mode. I work hard enough in life and work, I’m not playing the game to work harder.

That being said, unless someone was a Smurf or hacking, I never got super mad at other players for simply being better than me, usually the characters felt pretty balanced and if we lost it was because of bad teamwork or lower skill. All characters were available to everyone, the only monetary value was skins.

Then I played overwatch 2, and immediately there were battle pass characters locked behind paywalls or engagement, and those characters were seriously unbalanced. The game was “free to play” and “pay to win” right off the bat and I haven’t touched it again, even though I put countless hours into the first game. And that sour taste I have now makes it so I refuse to play any game with a battle pass.

Real

I would still consider myself young but starting to adult (bday today :D). But in middle school and early highschool online FPS were the best. Overwatch, tf2 stuff like that. Now the most multiplayer games are helldivers and recently Deep rock but I also have a ton of single player games like modding Skyrim and occasionally playing Skyrim, dead cells, noita (I do in fact have a skill issue) no man’s sky and blade and sorcery

Now my most competition is among my friends rather than against them. Which is much less tilting