Online PvP games absolutely have pacing. Back then it was just about the skill ceiling and learning curve. In today's gaming era it's also matchmaking ranks and rewards and battlepass content. I do miss the days when you could buy a big budget multiplayer game and always jump in with all the tools pro players had. But it sounds like he had several complaints with the game dumbing down the skill ceiling (e.g. sniper bunny hopping) and bugs that let a novice player wipe the enemy team. A well paced multiplayer game has techniques that seem feasible to master but require a good amount of practice. A bad one only lets the top 1% of players achieve those skills after thousands of hours, or doesn't have such techniques at all.