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)
In chess the only difference between white and black is turn order. The setup is literally mirrored. I've personally never heard the word cheap used during a mirror match. My circle uses it describe when someone uses an option that the other player doesn't have to great effect.
In Tekken 3 every character has the same throw range except for Law, who for some reason has extra range and can grab you at a distance that is 'safe' against every other character. It was called cheap about every time Law grabbed someone at his maximum distance. It was also really funny.
I believe that if chess had setup options for peice selections/placements, you would hear cheap used regarding chess quite often.
"Easiest way to explain the Akuma power issue.
Take the 2 best players in the world. First make them play as any character other than Akuma for 20 matches, both players will have victories against each other. Then give player A) Akuma for 20 matches and chances are he will now win every single match by a wide margin. Then give player B) Akuma and watch the complete opposite happen now player B will win every match by a wide margin."
But put the two players with Akuma and it would be fair again.
Why ban Akuma when two people can use Akuma? People ban it because they accept the concept of cheap and they accept the concept that the idea is meant to be fun. You can't criticize players that cry cheap if you accept that Akuma can be banned, if you accept that anything naturally present in the game can be removed.
Unfortunately Vicaris, what you've said is illogical nonsense. Why ban a game-breaking bug that removes all gameplay when both players can access it? Um, because without the bug there is a game and with the bug there is not. That is why.
Your next claim is quite a mind-blowing one. The whole idea about what to ban (which is a tournament organizer's decision, not a player who enters a tournament) is that 99% of the time, people who call for a ban are probably overreacting. And 1% of the time, the thing actually breaks the game and removes all gameplay. You have claimed that *if* we say that 99% of the time, the tactic or bug is ok, then that *IMPLIES* that it is also ok in the 1% when it actually ruins the game. A does not follow from B and that statement makes no logical sense. It really is ok to ban more than 0 things in the entire world. I'm exasperated trying to explain that to you. How can you possibly not know that it's ok to ban more than 0 things? Like a bug that crashes the game or something, is ok to ban, and that does not imply some "contradiction' when we don't ban the other 99% of things.
Sirin, from the moment that you compromise on anything it is the moment that you accept that this is a highly subjective matter and that all stands are likely equally legit.
Akuma is banned because it breaks the game, but Akuma was in the game and the developers had no problem with it. It is part of the game just like Ryu or Chun-li. So why remove Akuma, he is in the game, he is part of the game's original rules. To remove Akuma is to make up rules for what is okay and what isn't. Like I said, all players could use Akuma against each other.
People don't do that because it would friggin suck. This is the moment that people acknowledge that indeed some stuff absolutely suck in a game and that the developers certainly screwed up. Now who are you to say that your limit for what sucks is more valid than mine?
See, that is the whole problem, relying on subjectivity and then trying to justify it, saying you are "playing to win".
A does follow B if you want to maintain integrity to the original premise. If you compromise, you have no standing to say what can or can't be compromised. I absolutely agree that it is okay to ban one thing or the other, I am not stating that I think nothing should be banned.
What I'm trying to show you is how your line of thought, if it was to maintain integrity, should not allow for arbitrary banning of things.
The point is that the developers do not make a perfect game, that they make a game to be fun and that they communicate this intention to the player. The player that understands that isn't setting mental barriers, the player is doing what the developers meant. Because of that, all you can hope to do is try to find a point with other people, a point you can agree on for what is just bad in a game and should not be used and for what is okay and should be used.
There is absolutely no way to be rational about it, as it'll depend entirely on the player experience and enjoyment of the game. That is, the mental rules every single player has set up for what is fun and what isn't. The scrub and the guy that is playing to win, the only difference between each is how much of a whiner someone is. There is no real signifcant meaningful diference other than that, no different mentality.
The probem I take with this "playing to win" mentality is that it comes off as an excuse to outright break the game. To use infinites in a game and claim it is okay, because it is there in the game, when obviously those are developer mistakes. Infinites that a couple of month laters get removed.
Sometimes it even isn't a developer mistake, it is just a tactic that reduces the game to just a few repetitive elements that simply waste all the work the developers had in creating a deep fighting engine.
Want an actual example, Sentinel in MvC3. People complained about it, they said it was overpowered, and there were others that said those were scrubs, that you should play to win. But Sentinel made playing to win boring, unless you legit enjoyed Sent, and if you didn't use Sent you'd playing down a character for the sake of fun, reducing your chances to win. And then Sent got nerfed. An obvious sign that indeed something was wrong with the characters and yet some players told themselves that there wasn't anything wrong, they had a nice excuse to abuse the game, they were playing to win.
Am I saying that OP characters shouldn't be used? Well, no, that's kind of extreme. What I do think is that there are degrees of abuse, blurry lines that a player should pay attention to. "Am I completely ruining this match for everyone in the lobby because of my tactics?" is the kind of question the player should ask him/herself, instead of thinking "but I'm playing to win, everyone can do this same thing that I'm doing, it is okay".
Advertising the playing to win mentality simply gives people an excuse to not realize that they are ruining the fun, sometimes even their own fun because some sure win tactics are just boring as all hell and reduce the game to pressing the same button at the right time over and over instead of being an enjoyable fighting game.
And you know it isn't just bugs that get banned. As you mentioned, Akuma is the perfect example of something that isn't a bug and simply sucks the joy out of the game. There are no easy answers, just common sense.
You are deeply confused here. Whether a tournament organizer should ban a gamebreaking bug or a cheat code is not "playing to win." Akuma is a cheat code, and of course he is banned. You seem to imply that nothing in the entire world should be banned. This is obviously false as bugs and cheat codes and other instantly game-breaking things do need to be banned. The fact that most things claimed ban-worthy are not is of little consequence here. Yes most things claimed to be banned shouldn't be. It does not logically follow that ALL things should remain unbanned. There would be no reason to even play the game if Akuma were allowed, so he is therefore banned, and a game exists, and tournaments happen. Only a not-playing-to-win player who is playing some nonstandard thing in his basement would practice Akuma. He is not part of the established game that everyone plays, nor can he possible be.
Sirin, like I said, I have nothing against banning things. I am showing that if one is to accept game exploits as legit ways to play, one cannot pick and choose which ones are okay and which ones aren't. If you pick and choose, you can be someone with common sense to understand what the game is about and why some things plain suck.
If you understand this, then you are on the same level as everybody else, including the sore losers who can't accept that you beat them spamming projectiles, for an instance. If you are not adhering to any rigid principles you can't create a justification for the way you play.
Players need to accept that, yes, perhaps I may be using some tactics that suck the fun out of the game in order to have the joy of victory. Kinda like how there were so many Sent players who would win against unprepared players with neutralizer spamming, for an instance. Yeah, they were winning, sure as hell wasn't fun to press the same button over and over though.
The thing is, unlike what you said, there is no estabilished game that everyone is part of. There is a game with its code and assets and that's that. There are no true rules except the ones created by the game. For an instance, Akuma being accessed through a cheat doesn't make it less legit because he is still playable and that's what matters. Like I said, he could be available and all tournaments would be Akuma vs Akuma, the game would remain perfectly playable.
This, btw, is a major point. The game would be playable but it would not be fun.
What exists, like I said earlier, is a common ground all players can reach when it comes for what is okay to do with the imperfect games that the developers create. To come up with a justification that tries to settle what is okay without any discussion with the people you'll play against, well I think that's not really productive.
For an instance, if I play against someone less experienced than me, I'll usually go easy or pick random characters I'm not used to. If I go all out, it is boring for everyone. That doesn't means I am begging for mercy from more experienced players.
But it was fun when playing against this guy I know, who is godly at fighting games, to face him against characters he isn't used to. It was fun playing SF4 online against a guy who was godly, gave me several massive beatings with Gouki and when I finally beat him he switched to Ryu, his main. Then after a while we were both using different characters to make the match more even. That happened without anybody communicating with each other, btw. If he was playing to win exclusively he would have predictably beat me 10 times in a row.
Then there are the situations when you are facing someone equally skilled as you. In this case, your opponent will want you to go all out with your best characters. I think nobody will cry cheap if someone 100% the other in one combo. However, it is likely that someone will cry cheap if you pull that off with clearly broken tactics or some bugs that might not seem like bugs. Even in even matches, playing to win can still give someone an excuse to exploit the game in very annoying ways that are just boring.
What I advocate is that people don't have a principle formed for how to play fighting games, because fighting games are about fun as much as they about competition. The day a serious competitive fighting game comes out will be the day there will be nothing to ban, glitch or complain about, like chess. Then this day you can legit say that absolutely EVERYONE crying cheap is wrong. In the meantime, developers are busy making the game look cool instead of giving all their attention to the engine itself.
Your claims are completely wrong again. You said that if you allow any bugs at all, you can't pick and choose. Actually you can, and all competitive games do. You allow all of them except the ones that actually break the game, or stop play from continuing, or only are possible to use by Player1, and things like that. It is common practice to ban more than 0 things and less than all things, so you seem unaware of how competitive play actually works. You should learn from what I'm telling you here.
You also said there is no established game of ST. That flies in the face of reality. Yes there is. There has been an ST tournament scene since the game came out over 15 years ago. Akuma was not even knows for the first year or two to be in the game. Once he was, he was immediately banned, for super obvious reasons. There would be no tournament scene at all if he wasn't. So yes, there is absolutely a competitive standard and you being unaware of it doesn't make it go away. The standard is that Akuma is not used.
Your entire attitude is one of super extreme "perfect is the enemy of the good." Like a game that is just fine, but has ONE thing that must be banned or we can't play the game, then the community does ban and the community flourishes, and you claim some sort of ivory tower thing where you say they shouldn't have banned a cheat code. You're really disconnected to what makes any sense to do in a competitive scene. You should be learning from someone telling you what's up instead of claiming to know things.
Sirin, I have already said many times, I think it is perfectly okay to ban some things and not others. Please, re-read what I said, I ask this earnestly, not as an attempt to insult. Read and pay attention to the differences of when I'm referring to what are the implications of the playing to win philosophy and when I am referring to what actually happens in the real world.
I'll also explain again what I meant by "there is no estabilished game". What's in the game code, that is the estabilished game. Rules people make up, no matter how old they are, they are just rules made up by the players, they aren't part of the actual game. What is in the actual game is what truly matters, like I said, the game code and its assets is the estabilished game. Understand that I am not denying that there are tournament rules, what I am telling you is that this rules aren't any more legitimate than any other random rule.
You seem to miss my point a lot of times, please re-read what I said, and do so with calm. Try to get the whole picture of what I'm saying instead of fixating on one specific point. The point I'm trying to make here is a lot larger than tournament rules, I am trying to point out that the games are intrinsically flawed and because of that player-made rules and expectations are a clutch to make the game enjoyable, because the game needs this clutch. The game need someone to cry cheap, even if it is for Akuma or Tekken characters with broken throw range.
What I am trying to show is that it is productive to listen and consider other people's points for a fighting game and that it is counter-productive to form a justification for why people are nonsensical whiners.
I also would like if you were less abrasive. It is okay to be blunt and straight to the point, but if you want to show that I am completely wrong, that my logic doesn't make sense, do so through your arguments. Doing it by straight out saying "you are completely wrong" just starts a conversation with the wrong foot and needlessly antagonizes people.
You were completely wrong though, hence why I opened with that.
If your point is that any game that needs anything banned is "intrinsically flawed" then ok, that is an obvious point. It's self-evident because the need to ban (Akuma or a cheat code that couldn't be disabled) is the flaw. So yes of course. But why even bother telling us this, really. The correct thing for players to do is still use everything they can to win. The correct thing for tournament organizers to do is still ban nothing except the things absolutely necessary to ban, even though those are rare things. Akuma is still an example of those things. There is no contradiction or problem with any of this, it's just a description of the reality of playing competitive games.
Also, this is better suited to the forums. If you post there, a much wider variety of people can call you out on your bullshit.
"So yes of course. But why even bother telling us this, really. The correct thing for players to do is still use everything they can to win."
Because my point is not just that. I keep saying that using everything to win will likely make use of the game's imperfections and that the problem is having a justification that it is okay to do everything to win. Like I said, the game is about fun as much as it is about competition and what is important is to reach a common ground on what is okay and what isn't on a case by case basis, as in, being reasonable, instead of having a rigid rule for how to play a game, a game that does not lend itself to work well with such rule. The rule being the "playing to win" mentality.
You can only play to win and deligitimaze all complaints when the game isn't flawed. For as long as the game is flawed, any and all cries of cheap are an attempt of the player to make up for these problems, and they are all legit attempts. It is all very subjective, it can't be set in stone.
Like I pointed out with Akuma, he is part of the game and he sucks. Using a cheat code to unlock him doesn't make him less part of the game, the fact that people have banned him don't make him less part of the game, the fact that Akuma ruins the game doesn't make him less part of the game. Akuma is no less part of the game and there are not real reasons to contradict this.
What you seem to acknowledge, but seems to have a problem flat out saying, is that the fun in the game is important and that Akuma sucks away the fun. And if the fun is important, than every player has their mental rules.
And one more time, really, you do not need to attempt to insult. It really doesn't sound like you are trying to discuss an idea when you end your post with:
"If you post there, a much wider variety of people can call you out on your bullshit."
This makes it sound like you don't at all allow yourself to consider what someone else is saying or change your mind about things. If you aren't open to changing your mind, then I advise you shouldn't even spend your time replying to me. Because if you aren't open to change your mind you shouldn't expect that I'd be like this either.
I read your post, then I re-read it again. I read the first paragraph three times actually. It contains no worthwhile point at all that I can detect. There is no interesting or real point anywhere in there. You're telling us Akuma exists as a thing that is programmed into the game, yeah great. It doesn't change anything said about the philosophy of playing to win, about the concept of what is ok to ban, or about the concept of what is "cheap" or isn't. It also adds nothing to those concepts. It's like a tone of disagreement without actually saying anything real.
I don't know why you continue to post here, so I ask that you take it to the forums. Please post there instead of here. If your points really are more than worthless, then you'll find that a lot more people will read them there, so you'll be doing more good in the world by posting there than here. If your points are as empty as I'm telling you, then more people will tell you that. If you're so into opening your mind, wouldn't you want more people to explain why you are being worthless when you are, and for more people to be educated by your words when you're being wise? Go ahead and see how enlightening people think you are with your insights on Akuma in the forums.
In your forum post, you can include such gems as "You can only play to win and deligitimaze all complaints when the game isn't flawed." From your previous post, your definition of flawed is any game that includes anything that must be banned. So apparently you can't play to win in ST, a game with numerous tournaments (that obviously don't include Akuma) because Akuma exists as a cheat code. This seems contradicted by the actual real world we live in where people do play to win at ST all the time. You are rambling and making no sense, please, please just stop.
It is obvious that every game that requires a rule to be banned is a flawed game. I think that's a definition even you can adhere to. But the problem seems to be that you think that your definiton of playing to win is everybody's definitoin of being competitive in a game. You can be competitive in a flawed game, your definition of being competitive isn't everybody's definition. Once again, I'll say it for the third or fourth time: it is okay to ban elements from a game.
Other than that specific point you've made and that deserved replying, in your previous reply all you've done was say "you are wrong" instead of trying to show why I am wrong.
The only point of posting on your forums (which I'm sure are filled with people who you know will support you) would be if there were people there to give different or more complete insights. It doesn't make you, or anyone for that matter, more right if there are extra people supporting your opinion. I'd rather stay in a neutral ground where there isn't an audience to cheer you on. I also think you don't believe that you need any support from other people to convince me that I am wrong.
More people telling me the same thing, or just saying that you are correct, won't make a difference if this same thing isn't convincing. What matters are the ideas, not who say them or how many people say them. Adding new ides to the argument is something you seemingly decided not to do anymore in favor of saying "you are wrong".
You also continue to misunderstand what I am saying, so I'll try to put it in just as few lines as possible, because I get the impression you fix your opinion on a specific thing I've said while ignoring the rest of the post, which give it context. So here it is:
Every player should seek to be as lenient as possible for what is considered cheap, every player should try to open their minds and think "well, maybe what I was complaining isn't actually cheap, maybe it is fair game". But at the same time, every player should stop and think "well, maybe what I am doing isn't really fair". My problem here is that the playing to win mentality you advocate erases the latter, it gives people an excuse to exploit the game's flaws in their favor.
Yes, people need to be told that they should quit being whiners but they don't need to be told that whatever they do in the game is okay. This mentality is just useful for players that used unknown bugs, but nonetheless obvious bugs, and accuse their opponent of being a scrub if they complain about it. Basically, the playing to win argument you propose gives cheaters an excuse to be comfortable with their cheating. Then one day the game is patched.
Fighting games are flawed in multiple ways. As a game, they can be immensely enjoyable, but they are not well done. To work, they depend on clutches, and these clutches are rules made by the player, even if to ban game freezing glitches that could be used by any player to end the match and force a restart.
And this is my point in a succint manner, the reason why I object what you propose.
I'd expect that since you gave yourself the trouble to expose your ideas throughly, would be willing to discuss them instead of resorting to "you are wrong and make no sense" or apparently wanting extra help from people to say "you are wrong and make no sense".
Indeed I should stop arguing because you continue to demonstrate that you are not open to changing your mind and prefers to be rude rather than thoughtful. If you post something that isn't about me but that are about the things I've said, I'll return for a reply.
Why are you still posting here? I said to make your next post in the forums. It has nothing to do with people who will support me. It has to do with other knowledgeable people spending their time to debunk your nonsense instead of my time. You've said that it's bad to say that "you are wrong and make no sense." In general that's bad to say, I agree, but it's ok to say when the person really is wrong and really does make no sense.
Yeah I fundamentally disagree with your point. You really should do whatever you can to win if you want to play to win. You can't be bothered with wondering if the Valle CC or Juggernaut's powerup glitch or whatever is ok, not when you're a player. When something is way over the line like Akuma, sure it's time for tournament organizers to ban. Anyway your point is that the entire concept of playing to win is somehow wrong and that you should really stop and think if what you're doing is fair. Of course I disagree entirely with that. I don't even get why you'd say it. And for the record, yes people trying to win really should be told that what they're doing is ok. You're the one scrubbing it up saying that it isn't.
Your argument that "fighting games are flawed" because....what....Akuma must be banned...is just some kind of troll statement. What are we even supposed to say to that. Many, many competitive game has to ban something or other, some kind of crash or hang. You can get on your high horse and call them "flawed," yeah sure, but so what. It is what it is. It's a dumb definition of flawed. I think a more useful way to use the word flawed would be to describe a game that doesn't really work. Your (silly) definition would apply to really amazingly good games that have terrific tournament play, and one stray bug that had to be banned. That use of flawed is just for trolling I think, so you can tell us "all fighting games are flawed" rather than any kind of useful statement.
You also say I'm not open to changing my mind. But this seems disingenuous. Imagine that a person with a wrongheaded idea comes along and says worthless stuff and wrong stuff. Should I change my mind because of this? Obviously not. If you had anything worth changing my mind over, I'd absolutely be open to it. And of course it is correct to not change my mind if say...well...what you've said.
It would be really great if you stopped posting here and explained your ideas to the forums about how players shouldn't do everything necessary to win within the rules of the tournament, how they should second guess designer intent maybe, or "just know" that this bug is ok but this bug is not. I think that concept is extremely wrong, and doesn't mesh at all with competitive play. It's really you who are the one not open to things. If you are as wrong as I'm saying, you should want to learn about that and change your mind from all the forum post responses you get. It's best if I don't approve further posts here to encourage that.
Hey, i dont know if you still keep track of this thread or not, but i'd like to say that this article is beautiful. Also, I'd like to complete your Anti-Akuma argument for you, since everybody seems to be hating on it.
It's not an arbitrary rule similar to those developed by scrubs. The whole "depth" section covers that pretty well. The decision to ban Akuma was make to preserve the depth of the game, and to prevent a very shallow game. In essence, assuming Akuma is for some reason a real part of ST, he was the sole reason the game was bad in terms of depth was him, so look at the removal of Akuma as taking what is by definition a bad game, and creating a good one off of it. Is that wrong? so long as the adjustments are reasonable and necessary to prevent the detriment of deep gameplay, this is perfectly sound and should be advocated. Similar to how adding spices to different foods is more often detrimental to its overall flavor, but with the assistance of a keen inspection and smart breakdown, hell sometimes trial and error, it may be found that this food can in fact become even more savory :P
On many accounts, I agree with your article wholeheartedly, but have to take objection in one respect. Whilst playing to win brings satisfaction, and ultimately, those who do it are getting more out of their game than those who don't, the function of playing a game is ultimately to entertain. This is pertinent because the player who only plays to win, utilising the most powerful strategies at their disposal, irrespective of the skill of their opposition, is essentially limited in his or her choice of opponents.
There is very limited enjoyment, if any, to be had from repeatedly beating up on a scrub by performing throws that he does not know how to counter. Not for the scrub, and not for the skilled player either. Does this make the scrub and the skilled player incapable of enjoying the game if they are to play together for extended periods? Well no, not really. All the skilled player has to do is to agree to the scrub's set of admittedly arbitrary restrictions, handicapping himself as it were, to create an environment where the contest can be mutually entertaining.
Elite footballers do not utilise their full abilities when playing yard games with their families. If they did, their families would most likely have little interest in playing at all. They would feel out of their depth and incapable of doing much beyond watching their elite relative run circles around them. Their elite relative would have essentially stopped them from playing the game. This is essentially how a scrub feels when matched against a skilled player who performs actions he doesn't know how to counter.
There is nothing wrong with playing down to your opponent in order to make the shared experience a little more enjoyable for them.
On an unrelated note, as far as the whole 'abusable skills' argument is concerned, it's worth considering the case of MMORPGs, which often chop and change the makeup of character skills on the basis of player accusations of 'cheapness'. In Dragonica, for example, the easy cancelability of the Wizard's skills led, early on, to the Wizard class becoming the preferred class for PVP combat. Players considered the skill-locking that the Wizard was capable of 'cheap' and many players simply refused to play against any player who abused them. A few months later, a new patch came out, and the Wizard's skills were nerfed, with new equipment granting other classes freeze immunity, and the ability to cancel removed from the game. The Paladin followed as the game's most dominant class, with the ability to infinite combo, automatically block attacks, and reflect a portion of almost all damage. Again, the player base responded by ragequitting, and the game's developers responded by systematically nerfing every 'abusable' option the class had.
A similar situation transpires in Ragnarok Online, which recently underwent the Renewal patch, which retooled instantly cast skills to give them non-reducible charge times and which completely changed all the damage mechanics. The game is constantly in a state of flux, and for the most part it is player-led.
The notion of 'fairness' may be nebulous and fundamentally subjective, but it's an important one. 'Character balance' is so prized in fighting games because it leads to an open metagame. I'm not really sure there's anything wrong with effecting arbitrary rules aimed at creating that where the game's developers have been unable.
This was a very interesting article and I can see where a LOT of it makes sense. HOWEVER, it stopped making sense once you went against your own argument with the whole Akuma rule. B/c, whether or not it's a game-breaking thing, as you have said in many of your rebuttals to other posters, both players have access to the character AND the character was put in ON PURPOSE both the developers.
According to you, the whole point of playing is playing to win. So why wouldn't someone who is playing to win pick Akuma? Just b/c it is commonly accepted that you shouldn't pick Akuma? B/c it's game-breaking? Maybe b/c it's ... gasp... CHEAP!? Nope, sorry. Playing to win would mean you should obviously pick Akuma.
Using the newest MK (Mortal Kombat) game as an example... there is a glitch where Johnny Cage can use his x-ray move over and over without using his super meter at all (when using an x-ray is supposed drain the entire meter). I'm almost certain you would say that this should be utilized while playing to win. It's also game-breaking and available to both players. So what's the difference? B/c it wasn't intended to be in the game? No, that can't be it b/c you stated that it's ok to use bugs and glitches to win.
So, whether you want to admit to it or not, no matter how super powered and game breaking Akuma is, you were being a bit of a hypocrite.
If it's acceptable to use bugs and glitches (things that are NOT intended to be in a game), then it should MOST DEFINITELY be acceptable to use something that WAS intended to be in the game, aka Akuma.
Furthermore, you say how elite players don't have a sense of honor (or cheapness). YET, the top players all consider choosing Akuma to be without honor or cheap. Once again, doesn't make sense.
And for the record, NO... I wouldn't choose Akuma just to get a free win. I also believe that using bugs and glitches to win is wrong and EXTREMELY cheap. Call me a scrub if you will... but playing within the rules of the game I'm playing (this means ONLY using things INTENDED to be in the game), I do, in fact, play to win.
LinKuieRules: I'm sorry to hear that your understanding of the subject is so weak. When both players have access to a game-breaking cheat code, it does not logically follow that tournament organizers should allow this, and hold "tournaments" with no actual gameplay. It also does not logically follow that if 99% of claimed cheap things are actually ok, then the other 1% that crashes the game, halts gameplay, etc, is also ok. They are wholly different concepts in their nature.
Next, developer intent is irrelevant in determining these matters, of course. There is a very long list of bugs and surely unintended interactions are just fine to allow in many game tournaments (my examples from MvC2 were the iceman cancel bug and juggernaut bug), and we do not need to consult the developers about whether or not those things are ok. Their ok-ness or not-okness stands, regardless of what the developers say. In the case of Akuma, if they say "yes we intended to release a wonderful tournament game, played for years, then to reveal a cheat code to pick Akuma that puts an end to all tournaments," then of course we just ignore their opinion. Of course their opinion would not be this anyway, because it's absurd. A non-insane answer from the developers would be that they put in such a cheat code for fun and that it's obviously not intended for tournament play, as it destroys all actual gameplay. The point is, their intent is not relevant here.
Finally, yes of course you're a scrub, as you stated yourself in your last paragraph. Let's go over that iceman bug, as it might open your eyes. You launch, then do an air combo of a few normals, then do an air super. That's the non-bug version. OR, just before the super, can do a special (icebeam) but cancel it instantly so you don't even see it. In this case it's: normal attacks, (a few frames of) icebeam, super. If you do it that way, you'll fall differently and the super will do more damage. So you, the honorable player, will not do this higher damage combo? I mean it's ridiculous to not do it, why would you not? You probably don't even *realize* it's a buggy and unintended situation, and consulting the developers on this is just as silly of an idea. It's fine, just do it, who cares. It's infeasible to ban anyway, in addition to be unwarranted to ban.
You'll reach the next level of understanding when you learn that there mountains and mountains of such things that are bugs, unintended, and that you should use. And you'll reach another level still when you realize that something like Akuma that actually really and truly breaks the game is warranted to ban. It's hard for me to even fathom anyone taking the stance that NOTHING EVER is feasible to ban. Crash bugs and Akuma are exactly the right examples here.
Sorry, but all you're doing is trying to draw the line between what's cheap enough to be allowed and what's not cheap enough to ban. And unless you get enough people to agree with where you draw the line, it's not gonna work.
I'm not sure why you're framing that as a problem. All you said is what the reality of competitive games is. The reality is the most things are not ban-worthy and that there exist more than 0 things in the world that are. That's not something you can really disagree with, it's simply a fact of the world we live in. It's actually infeasible to ban zero things ever because of extreme cases like crash bugs (or Akuma). So yes of course there are two categories of things, that is the entire point. And that 99% of things are in one category and 1% are in the other.
And yes OF COURSE people have to agree. Here's an example: everyone who knows anything at all about Street Fighter knows to ban ST Akuma. So again, it's a lot more helpful to give an example of something like that in the 1% category than it is to give no example, or to pretend that no such things exist, when they absolutely do.
Next time, use Starcraft cheat codes as an example. Any idiot can tell that a game in which both players have invincible units isn't really a game at all.
A cheat code in Starcraft (were it possible to enable somehow in a tournament match) would be a good example of something to be banned. But ST Akuma is *also* a very good example. So a reader is better off knowing the Akuma example than not knowing it.
Getting away from the Akuma debate for a moment, I would like to step in and say that the principals in this article and elsewhere on this site apply to a surprising variety of things, including those that you would not expect.
For example, Dungeons and Dragons. You might already be tempted to reply to this by saying that that's a cooperative game, not a competitive one and that the principals here do not apply for that reason. A reasonable conclusion, but a false one, due to the rather somewhat workings of this game.
To illustrate, let's compare to a competitive game.
Let's say you are playing a competitive game which you are not that good at. Perhaps you're new to the game and haven't learned how to be good at it yet. Perhaps you have mental barriers preventing you from being good at it. Whatever the case, you are not a strong player of that game. It goes without saying that any strong player will destroy you easily. You can still play that game against weak players though, which both means that you have opportunities to overcome your weaknesses and that if you can't, or don't want to you can at least play it casually.
D&D however is a cooperative game in the sense that you are not playing directly against anyone... however you are playing a character that goes up against other fictional characters, and that very much is a competition. It is this very thing that makes the points listed here applicable, because while your opponents in a competitive game run the gamut from terrible to terribly skilled, your opponents in a D&D game are largely predefined. In simple terms, the in game mode is the entire game.
So while a player who is not up to par with a given group of players in a competitive game can choose to fight weaker opponents, a D&D player doesn't have that luxury. They can either defeat their opponents or they cannot. And if they cannot that leads to another series of problems... Presuming you are not in a tournament, losing in a competitive game doesn't have any real drawback beyond the loss itself. You can just play again. Ideally you've learned from the mistake and became better for it. In D&D, losing means death or worse, and that is very difficult to recover from, which in turn makes it harder to recover from mistakes, or even realize that you made them. So let's say you make a new character, or revive the existing one. You're back either in the same or a similar situation. If you haven't improved you're likely to repeat your previous performance. After about 4-5 times, or sooner for the less patient you're likely exasperated at not being able to get it.
So what's all this mean? The emphasis is on getting it right quickly, preferably the first time, as it's unlikely you will get many second chances. Once you do that, enemy difficulty can be raised from the default to keep the experienced player engaged, but it cannot be lowered, which is why it's so important to learn what works and why in a manner other than learning it the hard way.
Not everything translates over - after all, a cooperative game featuring an in character competition is not the same thing as a direct competition but much of the same mindset, terminology, and thought processes apply. I would say the most important element is the tactic/counter tactic/counter counter tactic chain, as there are too many examples of this to list and this is usually what ends up winning or losing engagements within that gaming system.
Akuma is banned. That is the reason you shouldn't play him. The reasons for the Akuma ban are beyond the scope of 'Playing to Win, Part 1'. You can argue with Sirlin all day, but people with the right credibility decided and that is the way it is.
From 'Playing to Win, Part 2: Mailbag' we read "You should use any *tournament legal* means to win."
I say again, Akuma is not tournament legal. You should not use Akuma as a means to win.
I would appreciate it if Sirlin wrote a bit on how much it really takes to determine something is 'imbalanced' or deserving of a ban. There is probably an assumption that Akuma was banned on a whim.
funny you mention D&D, cause until every player has decided to "play to win", its a very direct competition to be the most generally powerful character, basically competing with each other player through each enemy encounter. And its even funnier still since that competition is played directly for fun, since I would kick everythings ass and make everyone else feel worthless, so i was really the only one playing for awhile, so for the sake of having fun and being able to play the game, they had to work and compete.
Have to disagree on DnD as a competition. The simple reason being, the DnD game system is one of the most hideously imbalanced things known to man. The core rulebook alone has whole chunks of it that make Akuma look wholesome and fair. Here's a few examples...
-Polymorph spell/Druid Wildshape. Allows you to turn into creatures with certain types within your hit dice. The actual result is that the user of the spell will go through one of the zillion splatbooks to find some poorly designed monstrosity and proceed to morph into it every combat and eviscerate the enemies. Even if you only look in the straight monster manual, there's still quite a few options. Also, it lets caster classes full on duplicate the functionality of the warrior classes, rendering them obsolete, while letting the caster bypass all of the supposed drawbacks of his own class.
-Wish. O.M.F.G. The spell straight up lets you do anything. The caveat is, if you deviate from a specified list of uses, the DM is allowed to use it against you. However, plenty of players can outsmart the DM to avoid getting screwed over by their OP wishes. As it turns out, that's not even necessary; within the "protected uses" list, there's an option for wishing for a magic item, and they forgot to list a value limit on what items you could wish for. Ergo, the moment I hit level 17, I wish for a no-slot item that gives +2 billion to my intelligence. Uhmm. Yeah...
Granted those are the most egregious offenders in core, but they're still pretty bad. When you start including splatbooks, you eventually end up with the ability to gain infinity in all stats, gain all abilities in the game, and ascend to godhood at level 1. I'll let you do the research and figure out exactly how that one works. Does this sound like a good format for competition? Heeeeeell no. Any competition in DnD is only through an arms-reduction truce and DM fiat.