That’s it! I’ve had enough of online multiplayer shooters. You can keep your Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remasterd, your Titanfall 2 and your Battelfield One – and don’t even get me started on Infinite Warfare.

I play games to have fun, to relax and unwind after a long day. The last thing that I want at the end of the day is to be constantly shot into oblivion by a bunch of kids who are terrifyingly good at online shooters.

I only noticed the decline in my FPS prowess during the tail end of last year. The games that forced me to face this new reality were Titanfall 2, COD Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare Remastered. After finishing the single player campaigns and feeling pretty dam good about my skillz (with a z), I ventured online. I was not prepared for what followed. Death, after death, after death, after death, hah I killed someone, oh no now I’m dead again. I spent more time watching my death cams to see how I died than I actually spent playing the game.

What’s worse is that I had more to contend with than just an overall sense of failure… the guilt, oh the crushing guilt of looking at the team scores and seeing my embarrassing kill/death ratio and knowing that my only contribution was to help the other team win.

The Solution

As apparently putting me in a lobby with people of a similar skill level is beyond developers these days, how do we fix this? Here are three solutions to this terrible problem.

1. ‘I have a full time job’ lobbies

These lobbies will be for people who can only devote a small amount of their time to their online shooter fix. A beautiful place where this collection of hard working professionals are safe from the mad, racist ramblings of pre-teens, and can engage in meaningful in-game chat conversations like: “wow, sorry I missed that kill, I had a really big meeting today and it took it out of me.”

2. Private protection service

You want to put me in a lobby full of people who are way better at this game than me? Fine, but you need to assign one of them to me as my personal bodyguard. I would feel much safer entering the fray if I knew someone actually had my back. Take away the premium DLC they paid for if I die too much, that will keep them honest.

3. Pity bots

One of the worst parts of not being good at online shooters is falling into a death spiral, where there is seemingly nothing you can do to get a kill and you can’t stop dying. After a number of deaths in a row, put some stationary enemy bots near where I spawn so I can go and shoot them. You don’t even have to give the team any points for it, I just need the boost to my self esteem.

There you have it, three fantastic ways developers can make people like me actually enjoy online shooters again. Until then, I guess I will just go back to playing Overwatch where I never really know how well I am doing because I don’t play competitive mode. I did totally get a double kill with my Pharah ult once, so yeah, you better watch out.