Playing to Win, Part 1
SirlinI wrote this article many years ago. It was so widely quoted and valuable to so many that I spent two years writing the book Playing to Win. The book is far more polished than these articles, better organized, and covers many, many additional topics not found on my site. If you have any interest in the process of self-improvement through competitive games, the book will serve you better than the articles.
Playing to Win, Part 1
Playing to win is the most important and most widely misunderstood concept in all of competitive games. The sad irony is that those who do not already understand the implications I'm about to spell out will probably not believe them to be true at all. In fact, if I were to send this article back in time to my earlier self, even I would not believe it. Apparently, these concepts are something one must come to learn through experience, though I hope at least some of you will take my word for it.
Introducing...the Scrub
In the world of Street Fighter competition, there is a word for players who aren't good: "scrub." Everyone begins as a scrub---it takes time to learn the game to get to a point where you know what you're doing. There is the mistaken notion, though, that by merely continuing to play or "learn" the game, that one can become a top player. In reality, the "scrub" has many more mental obstacles to overcome than anything actually going on during the game. The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. He's lost the game before he's chosen his character. He's lost the game even before the decision of which game is to be played has been made. His problem? He does not play to win.
;)
Historical Scrub: Neville Chamberlain. He didn't even try to win, instead offering "appeasement" to Hitler. (Caution: not serious historical commentary.)The scrub would take great issue with this statement for he usually believes that he is playing to win, but he is bound up by an intricate construct of fictitious rules that prevent him from ever truly competing. These made-up rules vary from game to game, of course, but their character remains constant. In Street Fighter, for example, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations "cheap." So-called "cheapness" is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn't attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design--it's meant to be there--yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield which will protect him indefinitely. Why? Exploring the reasoning is futile since the notion is ridiculous from the start.
You're not going to see a classic scrub throw his opponent 5 times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimize his chances of winning? Here we've encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near you...that's cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, that's cheap, too. We've covered that one. If you sit in block for 50 seconds doing no moves, that's cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap.
Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is another great way to get called cheap. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can't counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn't I be a fool for not using that move? The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. The game knows no rules of "honor" or of "cheapness." The game only knows winning and losing.
A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which ones tries to win at all costs is "boring" or "not fun." Let's consider two groups of players: a group of good players and a group of scrubs. The scrubs will play "for fun" and not explore the extremities of the game. They won't find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. The good players will. The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns. As they play the game more, they'll be forced to find counters to those tactics. The vast majority of tactics that at first appear unbeatable end up having counters, though they are often quite esoteric and difficult to discover. The counter tactic prevents the first player from doing the tactic, but the first player can then use a counter to the counter. The second player is now afraid to use his counter and he's again vulnerable to the original overpowering tactic. (See my article on Yomi layer 3 for much more on that.)
Notice that the good players are reaching higher and higher levels of play. They found the "cheap stuff" and abused it. They know how to stop the cheap stuff. They know how to stop the other guy from stopping it so they can keep doing it. And as is quite common in competitive games, many new tactics will later be discovered that make the original cheap tactic look wholesome and fair. Often in fighting games, one character will have something so good it's unfair. Fine, let him have that. As time goes on, it will be discovered that other characters have even more powerful and unfair tactics. Each player will attempt to steer the game in the direction of his own advantages, much how grandmaster chess players attempt to steer opponents into situations in which their opponents are weak.
;)
Historical Scrubs: The British Redcoats. The ultimate example of being too bound up by rules to actually fight. They fought "honorably" in a row. (Caution: not serious historical commentary.). Let's return to the group of scrubs. They don't know the first thing about all the depth I've been talking about. Their argument is basically that ignorantly mashing buttons with little regard to actual strategy is more "fun." Superficially, their argument does at least look true, since often their games will be more "wet and wild" than games between the experts, which are usually more controlled and refined. But any close examination will reveal that the experts are having a great deal of fun on a higher level than the scrub can even imagine. Throwing together some circus act of a win isn't nearly as satisfying as reading your opponent's mind to such a degree that you can counter his ever move, even his every counter.
Can you imagine what will happen when the two groups of players meet? The experts will absolutely destroy the scrubs with any number of tactics they've either never seen, or never been truly forced to counter. This is because the scrubs have not been playing the same game. The experts were playing the actual game while the scrubs were playing their own homemade variant with restricting, unwritten rules.
The scrub has still more crutches. He talks a great deal about "skill" and how he has skill whereas other players--very much including the ones who beat him flat out--do not have skill. The confusion here is what "skill" actually is. In Street Fighter, scrubs often cling to combos as a measure of skill. A combo is sequence of moves that are unblockable if the first move hits. Combos can be very elaborate and very difficult to pull off. But single moves can also take "skill," according to the scrub. The "dragon punch" or "uppercut" in Street Fighter is performed by holding the joystick toward the opponent, then down, then diagonally down and toward as the player presses a punch button. This movement must be completed within a fraction of a second, and though there is leeway, it must be executed fairly accurately. Ask any scrub and they will tell you that a dragon punch is a "skill move." Just last week I played a scrub who was actually quite good. That is, he knew the rules of the game well, he knew the character matchups well, and he knew what to do in most situations. But his web of mental rules kept him from truly playing to win. He cried cheap as I beat him with "no skill moves" while he performed many difficult dragon punches. He cried cheap when I threw him 5 times in a row asking, "is that all you know how to do? throw?" I gave him the best advice he could ever hear. I told him, "Play to win, not to do ˜difficult moves.'" This was a big moment in that scrub's life. He could either write his losses off and continue living in his mental prison, or analyze why he lost, shed his rules, and reach the next level of play.
I've never been to a tournament where there was a prize for the winner and another prize for the player who did many difficult moves. I've also never seen a prize for a player who played "in an innovative way." Many scrubs have strong ties to "innovation." They say "that guy didn't do anything new, so he is no good." Or "person x invented that technique and person y just stole it." Well, person y might be 100 times better than person x, but that doesn't seem to matter. When person y wins the tournament and person x is a forgotten footnote, what will the scrub say? That person y has "no skill" of course.
Depth in Games
Scrub of the Future: Captain Kathryn Janeway. Voyager would have been home ages ago if it weren't for her silly rules. (Caution: Voyager is a bad show.)
I've talked about how the expert player is not bound by rules of "honor" or "cheapness" and simply plays to maximize his chances of winning. When he plays against other such players, "game theory" emerges. If the game is a good one, it will become deeper and deeper and more strategic. Poorly designed games will become shallower and shallower. This is the difference between a game that lasts years (StarCraft, Street Fighter) versus one that quickly becomes boring (I won't name any names). The point is that if a game becomes "no fun" at high levels of play, then it's the game's fault, not the player's. Unfortunately, a game becoming less fun because it's poorly designed and you just losing because you're a scrub kind of look alike. You'll have to play some top players and do some soul searching to decide which is which. But if it really is the game's fault, there are plenty of other games that are excellent at a high level of play. For games that truly aren't good at a high level, the only winning move is not to play.
Boundaries of Playing to Win
There is a gray area here I feel I should point out. If an expert does anything he can to win, then does he exploit bugs in the game? The answer is a resounding yes...but not all bugs. There is a large class of bugs in video games that players don't even view as bugs. In Marvel vs. Capcom 2, for example, Iceman can launch his opponent into the air, follow him, do a few hits, then combo into his super move. During the super move he falls down below his opponent, so only about half of his super will connect. The Iceman player can use a trick, though. Just before doing the super, he can do another move, an icebeam, and cancel that move into the super. There's a bug here which causes Iceman to fall during his super at the much slower rate of his icebeam. The player actually cancels the icebeam as soon as possible--optimally as soon as 1/60th of a second after it begins. The whole point is to make Iceman fall slower during his super so he gets more hits. Is it a bug? I'm sure it is. It looks like a programming oversight to me. Would an expert player use this? Of course.
The iceman example is relatively tame. In Street Fighter Alpha2, there's a bug in which you can land the most powerful move in the game (a Custom Combo or "CC") on the opponent, even when he should be able to block it. A bug? Yes. Does it help you win? Yes. This technique became the dominant tactic of the game. The gameplay evolved around this, play went on, new strategies were developed. Those who cried cheap were simply left behind to play their own homemade version of the game with made-up rules. The one we all played had unblockable CCs, and it went on to be a great game.
But there is a limit. There is a point when the bug becomes too much. In tournaments, bugs that turn the game off, or freeze it indefinitely, or remove one of the characters from the playfield permanently are banned. Bugs so extreme that they stop gameplay are considered unfair even by non-scrubs. As are techniques that can only be performed on, say, the player-1 side of the game. Tricks in fighting games that are side-dependent (that is, they can only be performed by the 2nd player or only by the first player) are sometimes not allowed in tournaments simply because both players don't have equal access to the trick--not because the tricks are too powerful.
Here's an example that shows what kind of power level is past the limit even of Playing to Win. Many versions of Street Fighter have secret characters that are only accessible through a code. Sometimes these characters are good, sometimes they're not. Occasionally, the secret characters are the best in the game, as in Marvel vs. Capcom. Big deal. That's the way that game is. Live with it. But the first version of Street Fighter to ever have a secret character was Super Turbo Street Fighter with its untouchably good Akuma. Most characters in that game cannot beat Akuma. I don't mean it's a tough match--I mean they cannot ever, ever, ever, ever win. Akuma is "broken" in that his air fireball move is something the game simply wasn't designed to handle. He's miles above the other characters, and is therefore banned in all US tournaments. But every game has a "best character" and those characters are never banned. They're just part of the game...except in Super Turbo. It's extreme examples like this that even amongst the top players, and even something that isn't a bug, but was put in on purpose by the game designers, the community as a whole has unanimously decided to make the rule: "don't play Akuma in serious matches."
Sometimes players from other gaming communities don't understand the Akuma example. "Would not a truly committed player play Akuma anyway?" they ask. Akuma is a boss character, never meant to be played on even ground with the other characters. He's only accessible via an annoying, long code. Akuma is not like a tower in an RTS that is accidentally too powerful or a gun in an FPS that does too much damage. Akuma is a god-mode that can't coexist with the rest of the game. In this extreme case, the community's only choices were to ban or to abandon the game because of a secret character that takes really long to even select. They chose to ban the secret character and play the remaining good game. If you are playing to win, you should play the game everyone else is playing, not the home-made Akuma vs. Akuma game that no one plays.
My Attitude and Adenosine Triphosphate
I've been talking down to the scrub a lot in this article. I'd like to say for the record that I'm not calling the scrub stupid, nor did I even coin that term in the first place. I'm not saying he can never improve. I am saying that he's naive and that he'll be trapped in scrubdom, whether he realizes it or not, as long as he chooses to live in the mental construct of rules he himself constructed. Is it harsh to call scrubs naive? After all, the vast majority of the world is scrubs. I'd say by the definition I've classified 99.9% of the world's population as scrubs. Seriously. All that means is that 99.9% of the world doesn't know what it's like to play competitive games on a high level. It means that they are naive of these concepts. I really have no trouble saying that since we're talking about experience-driven knowledge here that most people on Earth happen not to have. I also know that 99.9% of the world (including me) doesn't know how the citric acid cycle and cellular respiration create approximately 30 ATP molecules per cycle. It's specialized knowledge of which I am unaware, just as many are unaware of competitive games.
;)
Not everyone has to know every subject. This chart is for biologists and Playing to Win is for those who want to win tournaments.
In the end, playing to win ends up accomplishing much more than just winning. Playing to win is how one improves. Continuous self-improvement is what all of this is really about, anyway. I submit that ultimate goal of the "playing to win" mindset is ironically not just to win...but to improve. So practice, improve, play with discipline, and Play to Win.
--Sirlin
Reader Comments (308)
I think that random maps actually leads to less variety than do designed maps. Map makers in Starcraft have created a wealth of battle fields from open fields, dense forests and complex mountain chains. There is much more strategical variety that comes from a well planned and lay out series of paths and ramps (not to mention aesthetic appeal) than from the generic maps generated by any random generator. The problem is that with any random generator you have to fall into a specific set of possibilities. Sure you may have different water features and colors of terrain, but it comes down to some random plains bordered by some random trees with some random water throughout. You never come to love a map like you do in Starcraft, nor does the full variety of play from any given map ever come forward.
Uhh, sure designed maps have their virtues, but so do random maps. Just a matter of personal preference. I also feel you just underestimate the random map feature of AoE2. The fact that the whole competitive community adding up to hundreds of thousands of players over the years including some of the most passionate competitive gamers out there unanimously seem to approve of it indicates to me, that it is one heck of a nice thing.
Anyway I never really wanted to argue about random maps :P You don't like it, fine, you think that designed maps allow for a bit better competition, that's fine too. Just it's a bit of a stretch to say there's something downright wrong with random maps, if such a huge competitive community has always loved them.
Play to win, play for fun. While I am to poor to get your book, or own street fighter, and as such do not entirely feel confident talking about street fighter, I do agree with what you are saying.
I would like to point out though, that it is possible for someone to play to win in some games, yet be scrubs in others. When I play something like Soul Caliber 2, I do tend to play Nightmare and knock people down repeatedly. It generally gets me perfect victories. Most of the people I play against complain I am being cheap, until I play someone just BARELY faster than me, and then they hit me relentlessly so I can't even get a hit off, and then it goes back and forth. A lot of those games, like mortal combat or soul caliber, the fact is, the way to win isnt with horribly long combos, or flashy moves. You either hit them so fast they are always in recoil and can't hit back, or you knock them down and don't let them hit you. I never use the block button, because if I am hittinjg, then I won't need it, and if I am being hit, it is probably too late to break out of hitlock.
Yet, I play some other games, and I can't help but use flashy things or horribly long complicated fragile strategies. When I play starcraft, soemtimes I do well sometimes I don't. I do well when I zerg rush.
There is no cheap move, or cheap strategy. There is win, and there is lose.
Funny Nightmare gets brought up. One of my friends is a really good (on a regional scale anyway) SC4 player who plays Nightmare. In a tournament a couple years back (in SC3, bleh) we were chilling with one of the guys in the tournament who claimed that he played 'honorably' and that he let his opponent get up after knocking them down. I was pretty much like 'uh why are you in the tournament?' My NM playing friend goes up against him in the next round and does 1A (large low sweep, knocks down) into looped 236 KK (which OTGs and throws the opponent really far) over and over and over into ring out. He did that for 2 games of 3 rounds (best of 5) and the guy didn't even hit my friend once. My friend went on to place 2nd, while the other guy got eliminated in the losers' bracket by a Seung Mina player who also did OTG knockdown stuff.
Anyway, if we're talking about RTS games and map advantage, giving one player even a 60/40 is disastrous. It's pretty much a sure win assuming the player with the advantage abuses terrain properly. If he doesn't, the game isn't actually being played at the highest level. I'd almost ensure this is the case, but I'm 90% positive that if AoE doesn't hold up when opponents attack your resource gatherers and it really is the dominating strategy, that AoE is a bad game for competitive play. Saying that people mostly follow the rules is kind of a given, but that doesn't mean that the rules need to be there. My guess is that attacking enemy resource gatherers doesn't render the game unplayable or even degenerate, but people didn't want to adapt to serious RTS strategies and instead chose the scrubbier way out.
PS: That SC3 tournament mentioned above had random map selection, and the #3 guy went to the losers' because of it (he could have won the tournament; the top 5 or so were very close in skill).
On Akuma, if the other characters are screwdrivers, Akuma is an electric power tool with interchangable heads, right down to the fact that if you want the best chance of winning you should pull out the power cord. He's seriously that overpowered.
"Anyway, if we're talking about RTS games and map advantage, giving one player even a 60/40 is disastrous. It's pretty much a sure win assuming the player with the advantage abuses terrain properly. If he doesn't, the game isn't actually being played at the highest level.
I have trouble understanding your interpretation, but what I mean by 40/60, is that when results between players of equal skill averaged at 50/50 from an equal starting position, due to random map slight imbalance they would now average at 40/60. So it cannot be disastrous by definition. Its' 40/60.
I'd almost ensure this is the case, but I'm 90% positive that if AoE doesn't hold up when opponents attack your resource gatherers and it really is the dominating strategy, that AoE is a bad game for competitive play. Saying that people mostly follow the rules is kind of a given, but that doesn't mean that the rules need to be there. My guess is that attacking enemy resource gatherers doesn't render the game unplayable or even degenerate, but people didn't want to adapt to serious RTS strategies and instead chose the scrubbier way out.
You have the wrong idea about something here. I don't understand what you are saying. Attacking enemy resource gatherers is not banned lol, the whole game circles around it.
"If he doesn't, the game isn't actually being played at the highest level."
It is hard for me to not disregard your comments if you keep suggesting that the competitive community of AoE2 is "lower level". It's ludicrous.
I'd almost ensure this is the case, but I'm 90% positive that if AoE doesn't hold up when opponents attack your resource gatherers and it really is the dominating strategy, that AoE is a bad game for competitive play. Saying that people mostly follow the rules is kind of a given, but that doesn't mean that the rules need to be there. My guess is that attacking enemy resource gatherers doesn't render the game unplayable or even degenerate, but people didn't want to adapt to serious RTS strategies and instead chose the scrubbier way out.
You have the wrong idea about something here. I don't understand what you are saying. Attacking enemy resource gatherers is not banned lol, the whole game circles around it.
I suspect that since the whole community makes "rules" about not having their economy touched, that they are really not trying to adapt to serious RTS strategies like Auspice mentioned. By introducing such a rule in competitive gaming, it effectively eliminates a portion out of the game (economy is the backbone for macromanagement in an RTS) and quite honestly if people can't handle bad things happening to that aspect of the game then really it does suggest that the competitive community of AoE2 is of "lower standard".
In a hrasher term I suppose, the community are full of scrubby carebears.
Hahahahahaha. What the hell is going on here. What on earth are you guys on about. Did you make a secret pact to talk nonsense in order to piss me off or what?
Secret pact? Nope. I just do not know why in competitive gaming they would remove such a crucial aspect and element in an RTS. RTS requires strats, micro and macro management and a lot of practise. The AoE2 community has taken one part of it out, which consequently reduces standards. (however I am not from the AoE2 community so I don't know what the standard is...but an RTS game removing that aspect can't be all that competitive when compared to something like Starcraft for example).
Also, the notion of competitive gaming actually should remove as much randomness as possible - thus random maps are bad. There was a big dicussion on why competitive gaming in CoH would never be taken to the progaming level simply because of the notion of randomness.
But to each their own. -shrugs-
Hahaha what are you on about? You didn't read a single word of what I said, did you. This is hilarious! XD
Auspice > Anon
It is obvious that Anon really loves AoE. (Which is a great game and it is nice that someone has such passion for it!) Unfortunately, this love has caused an emotional investment in the argument. Emotion destroys logic and the ability to be open minded. Auspice's points about balance, and "scrubby" rules designed to make it competitive seem valid to me. I agree completely that random maps create huge issues and should not be used for tournament play. The balanced, mirror maps in Starcraft are one of the things that have made it such a great game.
I'm not sure where all the bashing about Akuma is coming from. Sirlin was simply trying to point out how broken a feature should be to actually be banned. Akuma was his example. Something less than Akuma, while OP, can still be countered/beaten and should not be excluded from the game. His "scrub" commentary was mostly aimed at the mindset most of us enter where we avoid tactics/items/races in the interest of being "fair". While perhaps an honorable thing, and certainly appropriate for casual play with friends, this is not "playing to win". Complaining about someone using a cheap/OP tactic that is legal and within the design of the game (not cheating/hack/mod) is "scrubby", in Sirlin's opinion. I agree with him. Leave your "house rules" at home when playing people outside your home. (Or, at least stop b**ching when other people play the game as it is coded and don't use your internal version of the game's rules.)
Simple, really.
Anon: From (what little) I know about Akuma, lifting the ban would be like letting people use the Cobra Cars in matches. If those are allowed, all that matters is how quickly you can type in the code so you can overwhelm your opponent with massed fire.
"It is obvious that Anon really loves AoE. (Which is a great game and it is nice that someone has such passion for it!) Unfortunately, this love has caused an emotional investment in the argument. Emotion destroys logic and the ability to be open minded."
If you scroll back a little, you will see a huge post containing perfectly rational and sober explanation of my views (and questioning of what seem to me as mysterious logic leaps in Sirlin's and his proponents' claims). I have yet to see any of that post addressed properly.
The only thing I got "emotional" about, was Auspice's suggestion that the whole AoE2 competetive community, including gamers who have made tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars playing various computer games, is basically a bunch of scrubs. I will maintain that this is an absolutely ludicrous statement.
I would have been equally staunch towards similar suggestion about the Starcraft community (the absurdity of which I assume even you couldn't but agree with), even though I have never even played that game, or for an example, the AoE3 community, even though I personally hate that game.
I am not as fanatical about AoE2 as you assume. I am pretty sure that by my tastes Starcraft is a little better game for competition, despite never having played it. On the other hand, being a scrub, I personally would prefer to play a RTS that had less micromanagement than AoE2. But I do not know of any such games that have equally large multiplayer community and would simultaneously work on my crappy PC.
I was annoyed by the extremely arrogant attitude, not by the fact that my game was criticised. AoE2 has plenty of flaws in my opinion.
"I agree completely that random maps create huge issues and should not be used for tournament play."
Then how do you explain the fact that the whole AoE2 competetive community, including gamers who have made tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars playing various computer games, yet still keep coming back to the game out of personal preference, have always FAR preferred random maps to custom designed ones?
"I'm not sure where all the bashing about Akuma is coming from. Sirlin was simply trying to point out how broken a feature should be to actually be banned. Akuma was his example."
And I don't agree that a feature needs to be broken nearly as bad to justify banning. Scroll back for a thorough explanation of why.
"Something less than Akuma, while OP, can still be countered/beaten and should not be excluded from the game."
Being possible to "counter/beat", and being overpowered, are mutually exclusive.
As I said before, it is true that often people consider something overpowered, that actually is NOT overpowered, due to lack of understanding of the game. This is indeed scrubby.
However, when something TRULY is overpowered, then there is nothing scrubby about banning it. At least once in a while, to create variety.
"His "scrub" commentary was mostly aimed at the mindset most of us enter where we avoid tactics/items/races in the interest of being "fair". While perhaps an honorable thing, and certainly appropriate for casual play with friends, this is not "playing to win"."
But if all involved players agree to not use these tactics/items/races beforehand, in the interest of making the game more rich and enjoyable, you can still play to win perfectly well. As the fact of top AoE2 players often using "honorable" rules (giving back each other's captured sheep, refusing to steal boar etc.) clearly proves. If you call them scrubby, then the term scrubby loses it's meaning. If you say that they are not playing to win, then this expression becomes absurd.
"Complaining about someone using a cheap/OP tactic that is legal and within the design of the game (not cheating/hack/mod) is "scrubby", in Sirlin's opinion. I agree with him. Leave your "house rules" at home when playing people outside your home. (Or, at least stop b**ching when other people play the game as it is coded and don't use your internal version of the game's rules.)"
I agree as well.
However, there is nothing wrong with such rules when the vast majority of the community reaches consensus.
"Simple, really."
Not really.
Anon: From (what little) I know about Akuma, lifting the ban would be like letting people use the Cobra Cars in matches. If those are allowed, all that matters is how quickly you can type in the code so you can overwhelm your opponent with massed fire.
There is a subtle difference here in that while Akuma vs Akuma match still probably resembles a match between other charachters (excuse my incompetence if it really does not), the hypothetical Cobra Car match is nothing like a regular match (a regular AoE2 match does not involve hammering something into the chat over and over again and getting units for it).
A better analogy would be a secret civilisation that had villagers which cost 10 food and created in 10 seconds. That would be like Akuma.
However, I never said that Akuma ban should be lifted lol.
What I have been saying, is that exploits significantly smaller than Akuma, can be perfectly bannable too.
Wow... strange conversation here. anon, some of what you say is perfectly legit, some is seriously scrubby. Now, I am happy to admit that I am, at the very least, a semi-scrub, I simply could not be bothered putting in enough time and effort working out how to do the esoteric high-level stuff for most games to be a serious competitor but I do know what the difference between scrub and non-scrub decisions are. Lemme look at your first post firtst re AoE2
*) When the randomly generated map is clearly favouring one player, the game is often restarted See, that is not a scrub decision. If one player is given a decidedly unfair advantage then a restart is OK since otherwise the outcome of the game would be determined soley by a random factor rather than skill
*) On certain maps, certain civilisations are often banned, because they are so clearly the best that they end up killing variety Again this is OK and is pretty much the same thing as the Akuma argument
*) On most maps, players must both use the same civilisation Scrub rule. This is the same as "I'm using Zerg so you have to use Zerg" or the much slammed scrub tourny rules for the SSB series of "no items, final dest, fox only" or if they decided in a SF comp that one player got to choose a fighter and the other play HAD to use the same one.
*) On certain maps, attacking before a certain time is usually banned (Nomad, where you start with so little, that the game could be decided in 2 minutes if players were aggressive immediately) Again, Scrub rule. No Rush 15 min is a rule I used to play in StarCraft, right up until I realised that rushes were easily defended against. Since learning how to defend against an early attack, the only time I have been beaten by rushes have been against players significantly better than I am and who would have won the game anyway. In Nomad in AoE an early agression player is gambling that they can deal a crippling blow to the enemy early, if they succede, they win, if they fail, they have likely fallen far enough behind that they will loose. The no rush rule is probably the most scrubby rule in the history of RTS games.
*) On certain maps, stealing other person's game and sheep is usually banned
etc. Scrub scrub scrub scrub. Why not also ban harrassing workers... heck, between this rule and no rush you might as well just say "OK, everyone build up your army and tell us when you are done, OK everyone done? Now attack"
If these are the rules used by the pro AoE2 community then yes, I am calling them all scrubs.
In terms of you saying that lesser things than Akuma gan generate a ban... yea, I'll agree to that. I'm pretty sure that the author was using Akuma because it is such an extreme example that he didn't expect there to be this much argument over it. The problem is that in cases less extreme than Akuma's 10-0 win rate the problem just isn't that severe. I'm gonna use SSBB (one game I consider myself almost competitive in, I know the meta-game, I just haven't had time to practice it yet) for an example here. Take MK, the single best character in the game. High priority attacks, low lag attacks (they both come out fast and he recovers fast from using them), incredibly high priority and fantastic recovery. He is probably 7-3 against the majority or the game's roster, does he deserve to be banned, no, not yet. Most characters have had MK counters discovered and the game is still evolving, the point with Akuma is that even after the game had evolved to its peak there were NO counters with ANY other character. The only viable choice was Akuma whereas in SSBB almost any character is still a viable choice.
I like anon's last analogy about the 10 second, 10 food villagers, I think, however, that that would be closer to MK than Akuma. Frowned upon but not so overwhelmingly powerful that there is no other viable choice. Make the villagers also have 1k life and deal 1k damage and it would be exactly like Akuma and therefore be banned.
Essentially the difference between a scrub banning and a legit banning is that the legit banning will occur when there is NO OTHER CHOICE than to ban X or ONLY use X. If in AoE nomad mode rushing would 100% garuntee a win against any non rusher then there would be 2 choices, either ban rushing or everyone learns to rush. Since it is nowhere near that unbalanced it is a scrub choice. (this is why I agreed with you that baning race X on map Y is OK because otherwise you get a situation where if map Y is chosen I have to pick race X or I loose)
the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary
this is exactly how this "no akuma" rule is laid down. Even if said ban is agreed upon by the community of serious competitive players as opposed to "scrubs" as you define them, its the same exact reasoning. Bottom line: if you wanted to play to win, you'd pick Akuma every time, no matter how broken you or everybody else thinks he is. Besides, its not like he's gamesharked or modded in, he is included
your own ideals man -_-
Response by Sirlin: You have come here only to be a jerk and not to make a real point, or possibly you haven't read the many, many times your non-clever observation has been asked and answered. I thought it would be helpful to non-jerk readers to see just how far something has to go for it to actually be banned. It's the difference between the false-belief that the game will devolve down to that tactic alone (like MvC2 being all juggernaut vs. juggernaut because of his glitch? No, not hardly) and something ACTUALLY dominating the entire game like Akuma would. It's a very extreme case where our choices are abandon the game or only play Akuma. As I pointed out above, the game didn't even have Akuma for like over a year or something because he was a secret boss character no one eve knew about.
Anyway, your very low level of understanding of this subject is not appreciated.
I know I am a little late on this post but the article really intrigues me.
Guys, what he is saying is that Akuma was essentially a cheat code and should not have been used in competitive play.
easy. just like power overwhelming never worked in multiplayer starcraft. if it did, would you still say his theory was stupid?
Response by Sirlin: Yeah obviously you're right. The people arguing aren't even trying to grasp the issues. They are trying to be "clever" by pointing out a contradiction that isn't a contradiction at all. Akuma is analogous to a cheat code as opposed to a tactic that appears, at first glance, to be powerful.
"*) On certain maps, certain civilisations are often banned, because they are so clearly the best that they end up killing variety
Again this is OK and is pretty much the same thing as the Akuma argument"
But, this is nothing like the Akuma argument. We are talking about probably only 6:4 factor here. It's not "you will never, ever, ever win if you choose anything else". It's "you have slightly worse chances". The thing is though, in an RTS, extremely few people will choose something even if it has only slightly worse chances. Even the difference between two civs is only 45:55, it is not "playing to win" mentality to choose the slight underdog. So at certain maps, 99% of the time same civ gets chosen. Which is boring, so bans are sometimes used to create variety. Not because they are *overpowered*, because they have that 5%-10% edge.
"*) On most maps, players must both use the same civilisation
Scrub rule. This is the same as "I'm using Zerg so you have to use Zerg" or the much slammed scrub tourny rules for the SSB series of "no items, final dest, fox only" or if they decided in a SF comp that one player got to choose a fighter and the other play HAD to use the same one."
And can you please explain WHY this rule is a scrub rule? What makes it scrubby?
I am actually totally unaware of why this rule exists lol. So I can't give further explanation to this one.
Maybe, maybe it's to avoid loops like, civA>civB, civB>civC, civC>civA, causing civ choice to potentiall put one player in a better situation than the other and arguments about whow gets what civ.
"*) On certain maps, attacking before a certain time is usually banned (Nomad, where you start with so little, that the game could be decided in 2 minutes if players were aggressive immediately)
Again, Scrub rule. No Rush 15 min is a rule I used to play in StarCraft, right up until I realised that rushes were easily defended against. Since learning how to defend against an early attack, the only time I have been beaten by rushes have been against players significantly better than I am and who would have won the game anyway. In Nomad in AoE an early agression player is gambling that they can deal a crippling blow to the enemy early, if they succede, they win, if they fail, they have likely fallen far enough behind that they will loose. The no rush rule is probably the most scrubby rule in the history of RTS games."
And you are actually contradicting yourself here. Because this rule is largely there to avoid luck factor. How such an early battle would resolve depends mostly on luck (how starting villagers are placed and who happens to find whom), not skill. You yourself said before that this is to be avoided.
"*) On certain maps, stealing other person's game and sheep is usually banned
etc.
Scrub scrub scrub scrub. Why not also ban harrassing workers... heck, between this rule and no rush you might as well just say "OK, everyone build up your army and tell us when you are done, OK everyone done? Now attack""
Same as previous point.
"If these are the rules used by the pro AoE2 community then yes, I am calling them all scrubs."
Once again, I will maintain that this is an absolutely absurd statement. It causes the term "scrub" to lose its meaning.
"In terms of you saying that lesser things than Akuma gan generate a ban... yea, I'll agree to that. I'm pretty sure that the author was using Akuma because it is such an extreme example that he didn't expect there to be this much argument over it."
Even in one of the posts above, Sirlin says he specifically brought Akuma as an example of how broken something must be to justify banning. No, it doesn't have to be NEARLY that bad.
"Take MK, the single best character in the game. High priority attacks, low lag attacks (they both come out fast and he recovers fast from using them), incredibly high priority and fantastic recovery. He is probably 7-3 against the majority or the game's roster, does he deserve to be banned, no, not yet."
I know nothing about this game, but if he is 7-3 against majority of the roster and banning him would leave us with a much more balanced game (and not the second MK), then it makes perfect sense to me to ban him. This is exactly what I'm saying, that MK-s deserve a ban too, at least once in a while.
"Most characters have had MK counters discovered"
This is totally contradicting with what you said before it. I am confused. If most charachters have MK counters, then how can he be 7-3 against majority of the roster?
"I like anon's last analogy about the 10 second, 10 food villagers, I think, however, that that would be closer to MK than Akuma. Frowned upon but not so overwhelmingly powerful that there is no other viable choice. Make the villagers also have 1k life and deal 1k damage and it would be exactly like Akuma and therefore be banned."
No, you don't understand.
If I chose that civ, and you chose something else, then you could never ever ever ever win. Never. Ever. Even if you were by far the best AoE2 player in the world.
And I mean I am an awful player.
^_^
"Essentially the difference between a scrub banning and a legit banning is that the legit banning will occur when there is NO OTHER CHOICE than to ban X or ONLY use X."
That is only one of a number of reasons to ban something. As shown, reducing luck factor can cause a ban. Just anything that all players do not like can cause a ban.
Scrub bannings are bannings that reduce skill factor, and bannings that stem from delusions due to lack of understanding of the game.
I'm not even sure it's right to call a just useless rule that doesn't fit these criteria a "scrub rule". It would be just a bad stupid rule, not a scrub rule.
"If in AoE nomad mode rushing would 100% garuntee a win against any non rusher then there would be 2 choices, either ban rushing or everyone learns to rush. Since it is nowhere near that unbalanced it is a scrub choice."
Hahaha what? So funny how different our understanding of the thing is. Rushing guaranteeing 100% victory against a non-rusher would be a ridiculously scrubby reason to ban rushing! That is not the reason why rushing is banned on Nomad! What's wrong with the game being all about rushing?!
In AoE2, there is a map type called Arabia, where it is usually very hard to wall your base. Because of this, at decent skill level, rushing 100% guarantees a win against a non-rusher. Guess what? It is by far the most popular map type, because tense battling starts very soon. Rushing is the best part about this map, it takes a lot of skill to rush effectively.
Among total n00bs however, maps where it is impossible to rush are the most popular. I am a scrub myself and even I tend to find those maps way too scrubby.
In Nomad map however, as I explained, the result of the instant aggression would be decided by luck, not skill, and that is the reason why it is banned. Same for the maps where stealing boar or use of water is not allowed.
Guys, what he is saying is that Akuma was essentially a cheat code and should not have been used in competitive play.
But it seems in other similar games, secret charachters unlocked by cheat codes are used without second thought?
It's not about Akuma being a cheat code, it's about Akuma being infinitely stronger than anyone else in the game.
If Akuma appeared on the charachter selection screen like any other charachter, would it change anything?
Wow, All I c an do is apologize to You sirlin for having to deal with all the bullshit you did in the beggining, you shouldnt have even responded to the fools arguing the ST Akuma topic, they just cant seem to understand that even though, bugs/glitches may be powerful, maybe even a little "Overpowered" they are still beatable.
But if Akuma is played ina basic manner, He is in fact UNBEATABLE.
As well as, all the high level players came up with this, I've been playing ST for a while , and never ONCE seen Akuma played, Though I have seen failed scrub inputs
Regardless of what all of you fools who wish to argue think, Akuma is Broken, if you dont know what the word entirely means then dont speak upon it, Its hard for you all to understand the mindset and vocabulary of a top player when you'll never be there.
And Sirlin, Keep up the awesome reads
(all this directed towards haters and scrubs)
-Aleri
Sirlin goofed somewhat here so far as I can see
It is possible to "play to win" with any arbitrary ruleset. The problem with actual scrubs is that there is no ruleset, the scrub objects to being beaten, and their "rules" are post-hoc justifications. It's like playing against a small child, you mustn't win or they'll cry. Boo hoo. The big tip off that you're playing against a scrub is that after you defeat them they want to add another rule forbidding whatever you did to beat them, but when they beat you, it's "fair and square"
If you really play to win then it doesn't matter what the game or ruleset is, either you want to play (and to win) or you don't. Personally I like to play Chun Li. So I am not much interested in a game where Chun Li is forbidden, but I might still be interested in a game where some of Chun Li's strongest tactics are forbidden, because it would be interesting to see how well I can play "with one hand tied behind my back".
Video game players tend to get some odd ideas about this whole scrub thing because some (but not all) of the rules are enforced mechanically, unlike in say a Grandmaster game of Chess where very little mechanical enforcement is provided. This is a bad mistake - punching your (actual, human) opponent in the face isn't prevented by the arcade machine, but it's not "playing to win" it's simply cheating.
If the majority of experienced AoE players want to forbid opening rushes, then serious AoE players need to learn to play to win without opening rushes. That includes modifying their early defense strategy not to need to withstand such a rush. Any sufficiently popular "house rule" becomes just as much part of how the game is played as the "out of box" rules, and indeed there are plenty of historical examples where newer versions incorporated such house rules wholesale.
Now for a hopefully illustrative anecdote to show why the problem with Akuma isn't his domination of the game. Carmageddon is a pretty old PC game that most of you won't have tried to play competitively. The majority of the game as delivered and (when I last played) even as patched, is not suitable for competitive play. It's broken by design. However one mode is playable, and I spent a long period of time back when I was a student playing it. After months of spending far too many hours per week playing, discovering ever more obscure & extreme tactics, we found a small issue even in this mode however. The issue was a cliff on one particular map. Most cliffs in the game a skilled player would drive off without a thought - the shortcut time made damage to the vehicle obviously worthwhile. A few you would never drive off - the damage would 100% write off your car, inevitably losing the game. But this particular drop was right on the threshold. Sometimes, you'd barely survive, other times you'd be out. We could find nothing except chance separating the two (it was possible to "do it wrong" as with any cliff and have 0% survival chance, but no amount of player skill seemed to make survival better than 50/50).
This cliff caused a problem. In a simple two play match there are now three possibilities:
0. First player goes off the cliff. Their car is smashed. The other player now needs only basic driving skill to win.
1. First player goes off the cliff. They survive. The other player must jump since otherwise they can't catch up. If the second player's car is written off, the first player easily wins with basic driving skill, otherwise the game continues as usual.
2. First player goes the long way. The other player must weigh whether to chase them (perhaps winning on skill) or jump (lose immediately on luck vs chance to win easily with basic driving skill due to the shortcut)
Since the cliff occurs quite a long way into a fairly intense map, the possibility that the outcome will be resolved by essentially a coin toss at that point is frustrating and makes the game no fun, win or lose. So we banned jumping off that cliff. And THAT is the reason to ban Akuma - because competitive games with Akuma are no fun. Even if Akuma's ability caused him to instantly win 50% of the time, and instantly lose 50% of the time, he'd still be no fun and thus banned.
If Sirlin wants to play us (he may need to go back in time) at Carmagedon, he needs to accept the "no cliff jump" rule. Jumping off that cliff, even if he survives, is cheap. No matter that he's "playing to win", if you aren't playing the same game as everyone else you can't win whatever you do.
A related phenomenon is "King making". Suppose you have a four player game with no teams. Player 1 is clearly winning, unless he screws up it seems he's certain to win. And player 4 is clearly losing, it seems impossible for him to win. But - there is a trick, player 4 can sacrifice himself, losing even the last minuscule chance to win in exchange for significantly improving player 2's chances. Since players 4 and 2 are buddies outside the game, player 4 would like player 2 to win rather than player 1. This is "king making". In a few games this is part of the overall strategy - but in most games the rules not only don't explicitly cater for it, but they don't consider it at all. Most game players would agree that, in the absence of explicit rules either way, "king making" is forbidden, at least in tournament play, and every player is obliged to try to win, rather than aid one opponent in preference to another.
Response by Sirlin: "Nick goofed here somewhwat so far as I can tell." Consider how helpful my articles and book have been to dozens and dozens of gaming communities before you make inflammatory statements like that. Incidentally, if you're playing an RTS and your community has decided to use the "no rush rule" then your community has some deep problems. Why not play some other RTS that doesn't seen such a squishy rule that goes against the very nature of the genre?
Anon, I'll try to put this in very simple terms.
On certain maps, stealing other person's game and sheep is usually banned
This is so scrubby. If stealing sheep gives you a larger chance for victory, that is no reason to ban it. It's a reason for the other guy to do it too. If one of them does it better without forgetting to do other stuff, he wins. Saying he shouldn't is like saying "no throws". You've made up a rule to eliminate a tactic that both sides can employ (if someone steals sheep, why didn't the other guy steal his back? He sucks?).
So why is it banned? All I can think of is that the randomness of the map makes it likely that one guy has a much easier time stealing sheep than the other and that by doing so he is given an unsurmountable advantage. That's a sign that something is broken with the game (the randomness of the maps frequently allowing one side to steal sheep easier, or sheep having too much worth, or whatever).
Either you are all scrubs for eliminating a tactic both sides can use, or the game is broken for sometimes allowing one side to gain a huge advantage regardless of the other side's actions. If the former, well sorry, you're a scrub. If the latter, the point people are making is that there are other games you could play that are not broken.
Or you could make up some rule to get around the games brokenness, which seems to be what you have done. This is fine, and you can compete that way, but it doesn't change that the game is broken. "It's not broken if we apply our rules" means it's broken. It's fun for you apparently, which is great. But it's broken.
Or you're all scrubs for not wanting to deal with something that both sides can do. I don't know which it is, but logically it's one of them.
@Nick:
While it is possible to "play to win" with any arbitrary ruleset, some arbitrary rulesets clearly favor competitive play much more than others.
"If you really play to win then it doesn't matter what the game or ruleset is"
Okay, but what the game or ruleset is clearly matters as to wether anyone would reasonably want to play it competitively.
Let's take that hypothetical "no rush" rule (kind of ticks me off how everyone now seem to think that the whole coompetitive AoE2 community uses such a n00b rule just because some guys who wanted to argue me had zero reading comprehension, but w/e). What is it's purpose? To allow players to enjoy building a nice base and an army that looks impressive, I think. Someone who is truly playing to win has no interest whatsoever in playing sim city in his base, nor does not care about how epic the battles will look like. He just wants to whip his opposition, and he does not want any limits to it.
Furthermore, in AoE2, such a rule actually reduces the skill factor, and quite significantly. People only want that rule, if they suck at rushing, they suck at fast thinking, when they get rushed they don't know what to do and panic. If rushing is not allowed, instead of being able to employ every bit of his ability from the start a good player is just forced to basically jack off all this time without having an outlet for his superior skill, which greatly reduces his edge over weaker players. It is like, he is forced into using little else, but what the weaker player can use as well. Sure, he can still play to win, but it's a much worse game for competition.
A scrub doesn't equal immature douchebag, it means someone who is just not being competitive. Attempts to reduce stronger players' skill over weaker players, equals not being competitive, equals scrub. They don't have to be idiots or lame human beings. It is the scrub that is the standard, and the competitive player that is the exception.
The Carmageddon cliff jumping ban is good for competition, because it reduces luck factor.
Likewise, the ban of king making is good for competition, because it equalises players' starting position. Otherwise the game would just turn into teamwork.
"Now for a hopefully illustrative anecdote to show why the problem with Akuma isn't his domination of the game.
...
Since the cliff occurs quite a long way into a fairly intense map, the possibility that the outcome will be resolved by essentially a coin toss at that point is frustrating and makes the game no fun, win or lose. So we banned jumping off that cliff. And THAT is the reason to ban Akuma - because competitive games with Akuma are no fun. Even if Akuma's ability caused him to instantly win 50% of the time, and instantly lose 50% of the time, he'd still be no fun and thus banned."
Some strange things you are saying here.
Akuma isn't banned because he is dominating the game, but because he is no fun? But it is domination of the game, that he makes it no fun! What do you mean, that it is somehow inherently more boring to play Akuma than any other charachter? No, it's that a game where Akuma is not banned is basically a Street Fighter game with one charachter and one charachter only: Akuma. Which would be a super lame game. Hence ban.
If he had an ability which caused him to instantly win 50% of the time and instantly lose 50% of the time, it would turn the whole game into a simple coin toss. You word it like it would be better, just still no good? "Even if"? What are you trying to say here?
@MamiyaOtaru:
All I can think of is that the randomness of the map makes it likely that one guy has a much easier time stealing sheep than the other and that by doing so he is given an unsurmountable advantage.
Bingo! You know, it would make things a lot easier if you actually read my posts before trying to address them.
That's a sign that something is broken with the game (the randomness of the maps frequently allowing one side to steal sheep easier, or sheep having too much worth, or whatever).
Yes, thankfully, it is absolutely effortlessly fixed with a simple rule to not steal each others boar and sheep! =)
If the latter, the point people are making is that there are other games you could play that are not broken.
Or, you could stop stealing each others sheep and boar! Which just *REALLY* is not a big deal!
Abandoning the game for something so little is ABSURD. Likewise, why just live with even a small problem, if you can fix it so effortlessly?
The point I have been making is that between accepting a flawed feature and "living with it", and abandoning the game altogether, there is an endless number of perfectly valid and often the best choices to impose little rules to FIX some of these flaws in the game. Why does everyone only see "live with it" and "abandon the game" as the only two options? What is so damn hard about using additional rules?
The end of the article has this whole picture of some chemical cycle and an example of how the author doesn't have this other, specialized knowledge in what appears to be an attempt to imply he isn't looking down on 'scrubs', but throughout the article they're given this funny name. People who play a certain way (any way that isn't the most effective, even/especially if on purpose) are scrubs. Other players don't have any such appellation, unless he described them as professional...
I can see the logical process. Accept reality and learn strategies to deal with it. Adapt and evolve. This improves the player. But at what? Success in a virtual game is unrelated to success in the real world. I had always assumed that people played games for recreation. If the goal is to sharpen the mind, surely some linguistic or mathematical exercises would be more effective. It seems video games fall somewhere in between as an activity that can be done both to draw interest and to hone a person's faculties.
So in the end, this is a rationalization of one person (clearly in the minority, 1%) who claims his group or method is superior. It is kind of funny that the Akuma example backfired so quickly on the author, because the banning of the character was completely subjective, and only held because a majority (say 99%) subscribed to the belief. I have to agree the majority is right about Akuma, and disagree with the minority about 'scrubs' and how a game should be played. Tournaments aren't there to find the best players, they're there to find the players who win the most. A player who appreciates the game and explores it more completely will enjoy more than the quickest route to a victory, but it would certainly be known to him.
Response by Sirlin: Sigh. Where to begin with that. First of all, realize that what you call a minority and the views of one person is probably one of the most widely read articles in gaming. It crosses the genre boundaries and is linked to in the new player forums of dozens of games for the past 10 years. Next, the Akuma example did not "backfire." It's useful to show how far something can go before a rule of thumb breaks down, and that is what I showed.
Your misunderstandings also include the word "scrub" itself. Why did I choose that word? Why did I give a label that sounds bad? Is it because I intend it to sound bad and look down at people? No, the reason is that the term was ubiquitous already and in common useage already, 10 years ago, when I wrote this. I was explaining what an already existing term meant. It would have been very strange indeed for me to construct an entirely new term when everyone was already using that one.
Worst of all though is that you've missed the entire point of "playing to win." It's something that is directed at people who are trying to win at games (obviously not toward you), and it helps them win at games. That's what it is and that's what it does, so what's all this about success in the real world? Incidentally, it's hard NOT to take some lessons from winning at games and apply them in the real world but that is neither here nor there and is not mentioned in my articles or book.
anon: I would cite a reason why I didn't reply to your reasons post but it would be really derogatory. In the nature of keeping my argument civil, I will suffice it to say that I didn't agree with anything you said.
I would like to clarify Akuma again in ST. If you want to provide a proper analogy for him in an RTS game it would go something like this:
1) Akuma has no secondary resource (gas, food, or wood). His units only consume gold/minerals to produce.
2) Akuma's ranged units have three times the range of the longest range units in the game and push back the opponent one tile every time they hit.
3) Akuma's melee units immediately kill anything they hit. While they are attacking, they are invulnerable to damage.
If you think for some reason this is exaggerating, let me assure you that it is not. I think most people who played ST Akuma would consider it slightly understating him. He really is invulnerable to damage in many cases at close range, and if he hits you with any significant hit he can combo you into a dizzy, redizzy, and kill. His air fireball controls so much of the playfield it is ridiculous and it is almost impossible to even get Akuma into a close range battle in the first place. Even in an Akuma vs. Akuma match it will be two Akumas throwing air fireballs at each other over and over. This does not even closely resemble a real match, even between two Old Sagats who spend a large portion of the match throwing tiger shots, as there is real jockeying for positioning and punishing tiger shots thrown at the wrong time. There is no such thing for an Akuma vs. Akuma fight, since most of the time Akuma will be jumping backwards. I don't see why this is so ridiculous of a notion to accept. He is a cheat code.
The idea that victory is a function of pride is really silly. I'm sure some (most, even?) players do pursue recognition in their ascension to greatness. But really, I do not think this is the end goal of most pro players. Most very good players acknowledge that the reason they play is because they enjoy playing at a high level. They enjoy playing the game. Playing to win is not about actually winning. It's about walking the path to greatness and improving yourself along the way. If you are only interested in winning you will not last long on this path, because the road to victory is paved with failure. All good players has lost numerous matches trying to learn the winning strategies and formulas. Even Daigo, quite possibly the best SF player in history, admitted that he was beaten a lot when he was first starting out. The goal is not to win (ironic?) but to improve. This is the crutch of Playing to Win. You may never become the next Valle, but you can certainly walk the road and make yourself a better player.
Exploits of game mechanics, whether intentional or not, are part of the game and should be abused. There are of course exceptions, particularly if it causes things like freezing the game. It might also be reasonable to ban exploits if they are discrete entities and can be reasonably banned. By discrete entities, I mean, if a character has a particular move which somehow exploits the game in a way that makes the game degenerate, it might be worth it to ban the character (banning the move is less discrete and harder to enforce) in order to create a more balanced game.
Bringing up the issue of professional sports, we come to an unusual problem. If we take a look at pro athletes and see whether or not they should do "dishonorable" things within the game, the problem is that a pro athlete's financial career is more hinged on his reputation than on the performance of his team as a whole. So doing things like intentionally fouling people in basketball who have bad free throw percentages in order to get a turnover could be construed as dishonorable, and the public's view of you might diminish. This would be much worse than if you lost a couple points in the long haul, so you should probably only do this kind of tactic in a situation where winning a game (such as in the playoffs) is more important to your reputation than the public's view of you as a moral person.
Of course, if your reputation is not a factor, you should ALWAYS perform the best maneuver possible. There is no reason to do otherwise. Making a 'more honorable' play that favors the opponent is always a bad move. You could claim that the AoE 'pro' community makes plays like this, but we have already established that they are not a real pro community and play a kid gloved version of the game. If good SC players learned to play AoE they could probably destroy the best AoE players, and easily. I'm sure they would do something in response like ban APM over 200 because they think that's cheap too.
I'm going to pro basketball again to look at this reputation thing a little more. It's been somewhat statistically shown (I'm avoiding using the term 'proven') that doing a free throw underhanded greatly increases the accuracy of your shot. Obviously in regular play, throwing underhanded leads to more blocked shots, but if there are no blockers, you should use the most accurate method possible to place the ball in the scoring area. This is common knowledge, and a small number of players have adapted this strategy to greatly increase their free throw percentages. However, the majority of the NBA has not adapted this strategy. Why?
Because shooting underhand looks less 'cool' and playing basketball is a lot more about looking cool than it is about winning.
As for the argument that playing to have fun is better than playing to win, I retort with an argument that is in the article posted by Sirlin: Playing to win is much more fun than playing like a scrub. Sure, there are obviously degrees of playing to win, but playing with mental constraints is way less fun. In fact, telling me to stop tick throwing pretty much ruins my enjoyment of the game every bit as much as getting tick thrown ruins a scrub's enjoyment of the game. I prefer games where I get tick thrown when I wasn't expecting and it's like "man, nice throw." Or when someone busts a reversal SPD in the middle of my dropped link combos and I get thrown, it's like "wow, that was really skillful." When I get done playing with my friends, we usually talk about "aw man, when you did this, I knew you wanted to go for x, but I guessed you would go for y, I never thought you would actually go for x, because I was sure you knew I knew." From experience with scrubby players, usually their play session ends in "I'm bored."
Auspice, you as a participator in this... "discussion" are very nicely summed up in this sentence:
"You could claim that the AoE 'pro' community makes plays like this, but we have already established that they are not a real pro community and play a kid gloved version of the game. If good SC players learned to play AoE they could probably destroy the best AoE players, and easily."
Thanks for making it clear that I'm just never ever getting through.
@ Auspice: You do a really good job of explaining special knowledge of SF and basketball in terms that are understandable to laymen. You also made a very interesting and provocative point about the relative merits of coolness vs winning*. The statement about SF players being more l33t than AoE2 was pointless, inflammatory and embarrassing. Anon called you on it fairly.
I don't think anyone here but Anon plays AoE2, myself included. Addressing whether his AoE2 community's rules are scrubby or not would require more special knowledge of the game than presented so far. Let's just drop that sidebar completely.
Meanwhile, the Akuma discussion, screwdriver metaphors notwithstanding, has through the thread produced enough explanation of why Akuma's presence is disruptive: Not only do his capabilities render all other fighter options redundant, but the structure of his moveset (air fireball in particular) reduces the player to essentially no interesting choices. The number of heuristics are highly limited. The usual complex flowchart is broken.
This article is good, but the statements about Akuma's imbalance are merely anecdotal to those without insider knowledge. Auspice did a good and brief breakdown of this, and my opinion is that the article would better communicate to the reader with inclusion of something to that fact. Regardless, thank you for providing, Sirlin.
* A great NY Times article recently discussed something along the lines of coolness vs greatness, which is really personal win vs team win.
I've noticed how you've changed the images and some parts. The pictures add a good touch of humour an article that might seem harsh for a scrub to read.
Reading the article again (article before site renovation...?) makes me reflect back on the time when I used to play Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge online (what a mouthful). I was more or less a textbook scrub at the time, though I started 'advancing' from scrubdom near the end of my "online career" in the game. The main problem I thought was the general lack of options during games. As the Allies, there were (I use past tense as strategies may have since changed) about four main attack units in the game: Battle Fortresses, Prism Tanks, Rocketeers and Grizzly tanks, though the latter were only practical early-mid game. The Allies worked almost the opposite to the Soveiets, who couldn't hold up well late-game. The Soviets had fewer options, which were: Rhino Tank rush, Rhino Tank stampede, Seige Choppers (which demanded a lot of micromanagement, but it more than paid off), and maybe Desolator support if the specific side was Iraq (very effective against almost anything lightly armoured, so you could focus on the real threats). Possibly Flak Tracks, but solely as a counter unit.
Very few people played as Yuri, and the player had to create a mix of units and required a lot of stategic use to be effective. Also was't used that much because it was "cheap" but more validly, "unbalanced", especially their one naval attack unit, the Boomer. The Boomer submarine is one of the most expensive naval unit, but is the most destructive and versatile because it can be used to destroy bases with missiles as well as anything at sea. This isn't helped by the fact that unless there's another unit capable of dectecing them, the player could reposition them, and attack elsewhere, forcing more focus on defense. This basically forced the player under attack to build only anti-air material if they weren't able to destroy them with their own navy. They took a lot of damage, too.
I eventually dismissed the game as "boring" after playing for a long time, but here I don't know if it was either scrubness, or the very game mechanics, or the fact that yes, almost everybody is a scrub (given what we know). I think it's a mix of all three, the latter skewing the game mechanics in the first place. On the other hand, the game is not balanced well, or as I recall- I'll have to play again sometime. But I can safely say that I encountered a lot of textbook scrubs.
With my change in outlook since not playing the game, what are the chances that I'll win more matches? I won few matches then, and I think this was because I did not adopt, understand, or try to counter the strategies that some players used. This would have helped a lot, since I persisted in turtling. That, and some players were completely beyond me in the first place (the rare non-scrubs methinks).