Poll: To everyone who has ever been mad at a camper, rusher, bunnyhopper, turtler, or something similar...

[Erana]

I openly admit that I'm not good at FPSs, nor do I feel a particular need to ever be. I just enjoy the game more with a method diffrent from other people. Still, I wish people would stop attacking me for my preference of controller over keyboard.
Its one thing to just plug a "This is why my prefrence is better than yours" comment every now and then, but its another entirely for every attempt to figure out how to use the 360 controller on my computer to be summed up by this [http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?s=b22f15449d02248092189925c108dad4&p=17403357&postcount=15] post.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

Talk about immaturity. You must "play to win", because everyone that "play's to win" always seems to cry when someone has a differing look on the subject. And I never insulted you, or him, for that matter. So not only have you proven yourself to resort to immaturity when challenged, you also feel the need to defend someone that can surely defend himself. Hell, we don't see that much around these parts.

You claimed he should have his keyboard taken away, and that anyone who thinks that way should jump off a cliff. If that's not insulting, then I don't know what is. Also, I still don't see you backing up your opinions in any way.

snip

There really wasn't any sarcasm there. I actually meant it. Although in hindsight I suppose it does seem a little sarcastic. My point was that I was actually somewhat of a scrub, complaining that people were doing this or that and it got me quite annoyed at the games I was playing.

Ah, my bad then. Sorry about that. I suppose my sarcasm-detector must be malfunctioning.

 

[TZer0]

Hmm.. This is interesting. I think I'll retire the entire book.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Allrighty then, time to post some more replies. Let's start with this absolute gem:

Yes, he likes to win at all costs. He likes to be the very best. That's his idea of having fun. Are you saying he can't have fun? Is your fun that much more important than his fun? Judging by the next paragraph that's not what you're saying. So I wonder what you are trying to say here, since your message isn't really coming across clearly.

I was making a passive observation. My first opion formed apon reading how he feels about "The scrub".

You see, that's where you're wrong. You're displaying that mix of extreme ignorance and arrogance that is so prevalent in the kind of self-righteous scrubs that this thread is directed at. I'm not expecting to change your mind about this, because scrubs will be scrubs. I'll only try to explain something that fits neatly in your own self-imposed blind spot. Do with this information what you will.

You're ignorant because you cannot imagine that people have fun pushing the game to its limits. If you ever want to be good, you need to play against people like him, or you're stuck at being just one faceless guy in the mediocre masses. There's nothing wrong with that, but there are people who want more than that. Let's take for example one of the only two multiplayer games I've ever been really good at: Capcom vs SNK 2. If I just played random guys all the time from the start, I might've become good at the game, but not really good. It wasn't until I started playing people who really pushed the game to its limits that I started to learn how to get better. I wanted people to use those 'cheap' tricks against me, because to me a match like that was far more enjoyable than a match against a random scrub who could barely find the throw button. You're ignorant because you can't imagine someone having a good time on a level that's higher than you'll ever reach, and you have no other for imagining so than that you're too arrogant to simply accept that you will never be able to reach that level without surrendering your scrubby comfort zone.

To be honest, I would be hard pressed to see myself enjoying winning at all costs. Sure it would be fun at first, but eventualy I would find it dull. Not to say I like getting my ass kicked all day, but winning no contest each time would get old fast. And sure I could find more advanced players like me, but then what happens? I get better and better until I am the undefeated champion of the unniverse, and have no one left to challenge me, or I eventualy reach my limits, and become a kind of "advanced scrub", destined to be always better yet always defeated?

You're arrogant because you expect everyone to facilitate your idea of what is fun. Your idea of what is fun is to play by your personal set of "honor rules". For that, I will once again quote this piece of text:
"At least I have my Code of Honor," a.k.a. "You are cheap!"
This is by far the most common call of the scrub, and I've already described it in detail. The loser usually takes the imagined moral high ground by sticking to his Code of Honor, a made-up set of personal rules that tells him which moves he can and cannot do. Of course, the rules of the game itself dictate which moves a player can and cannot make, so the Code of Honor is superfluous and counterproductive toward winning. This can also take the form of the loser complaining that you have broken his Code of Honor. He will almost always assume the entire world agrees on his Code and that only the most vile social outcasts would ever break his rules. It can be difficult to even reason with the kind of religious fervor some players have toward their Code. This type of player is trying desperately to remain a "winner" any way possible. If you catch him amidst a sea of losses, you'll notice that his Code will undergo strange contortions so that he may still define himself, somehow, as a "winner."
Your honor is completely arbitrary, and is in no way any part of the game except in your own head. You suck too much to win, but at least you can comfort yourself with the thought that you were the "moral victor". It's extremely arrogant to expect anyone else to play by a set of rules that only exists in your own head, and of which the only purpose is to make you feel better about yourself. And it's extremely pathetic if you whine about it like a kid who got his candy taken away, or to accuse others of being 'cheap' just because they're better than you and don't follow any set of imaginary rules.

My honour is not completely arbitrary. It is as simple as this: I do not use tactics and techniques the developer didn't intend for the game, I.e Spawn killing, glitch abusing, and SLG(Suicide Lead Gaming). Anything else I consider fair. Noob weapons, noob tactics, hell I even PLG and HLG if I get the chance. But it's these three things that probably keep me a scrub. And honestly, thats fine. I don't want to win at all costs. It maskes me feel like an asshole. That guy who "took it too far". for my example, I will actually site something from real life.

The Second Battle of Ypres was the first time Germany used poison gas on a large scale on the Western Front in the First World War

The second battle of Ypres was a major battle in World War I(atleast for Canada), a the first major use to a gas attack. The Germans wanted to win. Despite the fact that it was widely agreed that battling armies should not use gas attacks, Germany did anyway.

Approximately 6,000 French and colonial troops died within ten minutes at Ypres, primarily from asphyxiation and subsequent tissue damage in the lungs. Many more were blinded. Chlorine gas forms hydrochloric (muriatic) acid when combined with water, destroying moist tissues such as lungs and eyes.[10] The chlorine gas, being denser than air, quickly filled the trenches, forcing the troops to climb out into heavy enemy fire.

Needless to say, it worked quite well. Unfortunately for Germany, they underestimated the power of the gas, and failed to have troops on hand to exploit the 4 mile gap that had been created. Did it work? Yes. But history will vindicate them as "Those first assholes who wanted to win so badly they used gas". Yes, I know video gaming and WWI are two very different things, but it is the principle behind it that makes the same.

Good for you. If you think this is in any way a counterargument to anything I've ever said, I suggest you learn to read.

What a mature thing to say.

I want you to have fun. In the end we're just talking about games here, and games are meant to be fun.

How very true.

I do not want you to ruin other people's fun just because it doesn't facilitate your own fun.

I could say the same thing to you. Your idea of 'fun', winning at all costs, ruins my idea of fun, as much as scrubs bitching about you being "a noob" ruins your idea of fun.

If you fail to understand that, then we have nothing to talk about. If you do understand that, then there is nothing we have to disagree about.

I completely comprehend that. But you argue as though you are in the right, as though that since I am a scrub and uncapable of playing on your level, I have no right to complain. You say "I don't want people complaining about my style of play", yet you openly bash me and other scrubs because we're scrubs, "Ignorant" and "arrogant" to your style of fun. I completely comprehend your idea of fun, and do not find it fun at all. Yet you know nothing about my style of fun, as you play to win. And I respect that. Yet not playing to win, I am labled as a scrub, and looked down apon by you "elites" if you will.

Your not so different from a scrub, like two sides of the same coin. You complain that they whine "cheap" at anything that doesn't meet their criteria. Yet you talk down on them because they are "scrubs" and arn't playing to win. Very similar indeed.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Well. Bugger me. It looks like I have been a scrub for a long time. All this time I've been playing games like MW2 and MGO and I've been purposely avoiding some of the things in those games because I have been too ignorant to see the game for what it was.

Thank you for actually opening my eyes, it turns out I have a long way to go if I am ever going to improve.

I'm going to ignore your sarcasm for a moment since it's a very weak way to argue a point, and point out that nowhere did I suggest that you or anyone else are supposed to be improving your game, or that everyone should be playing to win. I don't know why people keep putting those words into my mouth, but I guess it's because the only way you can make a decent argument is if your opponent is a strawman.

All I want you to do, is to stop whining about the people who do play to win. But as I said in the first post, I doubt anyone will take that advice because most gamers seem to be spoiled manchildren who love nothing more than to ***** and whine.

It's not that you specificaly said "improve" as much as the guy who wrote that article you quote. He is very condescending to scrubs, and constantly treats them like somebody beneath him.

All I want you to do is stop whining about all the people who whine about the people who play to win. But as you said in the first post, I doubt anyone will take that advice because most gamers seem to be spoiled manchildren who love nothing more than to ***** and whine.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

Thank you! I believe that when a legitimate yet breakable defense of camping is used, I think people should stop whining.

Heck, Starcraft's Terrans are primarily campers. And they're so underpowered. So screw the haters who don't like terran camping. you're all just jealous they do it so well.

If a class is made to camp, just use its counterpart.
Any properly designed game should have counterparts to any move, if it doesn't, people will find one.
If someone uses a "Cheap Weapon" in real warfare (See below), people will adapt and develop new strategies.

 

[Fire Daemon]

Hate the game and not the player. Hmmm, I can think of plenty of instances in which a player can play to win by abusing game mechanics that all of gamers will agree are good and are a necessity to multiplayer. Most games have the option for the host to kick players, right, well lets say that this host had a play to win mindset and booted everyone from the game that posed a threat to his victory. Now he isn't exploiting the game and is only using the abilities offered to him by the game itself, what he is doing isn't necessarily cheating and if you're actually playing to win it would make sense and be expected even though it is in no way fair to other the players. It would be a scrub that would cry out against this sort of thing, call it unfair and a very cheap tactic but the statement 'hate the game and not the player' calls it the games fault for this problem in their design and that it will only be fair to not allow for people to kicked from a game in this manner.

Alright, fair enough, but what about games with no kick feature in which players from one side change teams and go around team killing, offering the other team a free kill and all around hampering one teams play. Again a scrub will call this unfair and while a pro would call it just another path in which a team can strive to achieve victory and if the goal is to win at all costs than it is a legitimate path to take. If the person can't be kicked than they a free to do this and so a pro will again state that a scrub should hate the game and not the player but were it different than a worse situation would take place in which the pro will always have the option to an advantage. There are different kicking options in games, vote kick and what have you, and while vote kick might stop the host from kicking a strong player it will not help if a full team plus another vote to cancel the ban. Maybe leave the voting to a single side and let a team kick anyone who is getting a K/D ratio below 1 or are not pulling their weight in an objective based match, but if you're playing to win then that stuff is alright and if you have a problem with it, blame the game. Of course if the game were different then you'd have another problem.

Personally I can't see anyway around this and so you might call it cheating but to that I'd say that it's an option clearly given to the player and the only rules that cover it are under the scrubs arbitrary sense of honour. Personally I'd much rather be a scrub than some pro ruining the game experience for others with my pro team and pro mentality.

I do agree that people complaining over cheap tactics and weapons than can be counted and fought against is annoying and that the should learn to adapt or stop playing the game. This thread and article/book are probably more suited for fighting games of which I don't play very often so I suppose that my above examples don't apply to those and obviously don't apply to tournaments and organized games. However those events hold limitations and rules over those games equal to or greater than the rules of the scrubs. Interesting that if a scrub follows his own arbitrary rules he's, well, a scrub, but when a tournament player does it he's just doing the normal thing. Blame the game and not the player fall apart in this instance because if someone breaks a tournament rule or a game flaw (glitch etc) the player is blamed and not the game. Why is it that BTGNTP applies over more casual games over the internet but is then applied in tournaments. Is it because it's a bullshit rule and frame of mind? Probably not, but I'm not sure why to be honest.

Me, personally, I have a level of how far I want to push a game and how much I hold myself back depending on the game and situations in the game. I have no problem doing the weapon slide in Gears of war, a glitch that protects you from getting sniped when picking up a weapon most of the time, but I don't like sniping behind a wall with only the lens of the rife pointing out because I believe that it is an unfair advantage, strange that. In CoD4 SnD I don't like noob tubing out of spawn because I believe that people deserve to get out and run for a bit but I will always have paths planed out that usually guarantee me a couple of kills early in the game before people can get kills of their own. Does doing this stuff make me a scrub, sure whatever, but I'd rather be playing this way than killing people who can't kill me. It's more fun this way and you get better at the staple skills that transcend all gaming such as aiming, reaction time, managing team location etc.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

I don't need to defend an opinion, do I?

Actually, that's the entire point of a discussion. If you want to inform people of your personal opinion without any reason to back it up, you might want to try some of the other threads I mentioned in my first post.

To be honest, I would be hard pressed to see myself enjoying winning at all costs. Sure it would be fun at first, but eventualy I would find it dull. Not to say I like getting my ass kicked all day, but winning no contest each time would get old fast. And sure I could find more advanced players like me, but then what happens? I get better and better until I am the undefeated champion of the unniverse, and have no one left to challenge me, or I eventualy reach my limits, and become a kind of "advanced scrub", destined to be always better yet always defeated?

I know you're having trouble imagining there are other ways to have fun than your own, that was my entire point. And the rest this paragraph shows that you misunderstand both the reason people play to win and the way competitive gaming works.

A competitive game is in a constant state of change. Even if the game itself, the metagame (if you're unfamiliar with the term, look it up) is a fickle thing, and can be wildly different from situation to situation. Consider a game like chess. It's a centuries-old game, and still new champions keep popping up, and the game stays interesting even at the very highest levels. that's because new strategies are 'invented', counters to those strategies come up, counters to that counter show up, and sooner or later that old strategy that everyone knows the counter to starts popping up again exactly because everyone considers the strategy to be so easily countered that they don't expect people to use it. It's more or less the same with videogames. The way these things work can be amazingly interested if you manage to get that deeply into the game.

I'm not saying that kind of fun is better than any other kind of fun. I'm saying you should at least try to accept that not everyone is going to agree with your idea of what's the most fun.

My honour is not completely arbitrary. It is as simple as this: I do not use tactics and techniques the developer didn't intend for the game, I.e Spawn killing, glitch abusing, and SLG(Suicide Lead Gaming). Anything else I consider fair. Noob weapons, noob tactics, hell I even PLG and HLG if I get the chance. But it's these three things that probably keep me a scrub. And honestly, thats fine. I don't want to win at all costs. It maskes me feel like an asshole. That guy who "took it too far". for my example, I will actually site something from real life.

The Second Battle of Ypres was the first time Germany used poison gas on a large scale on the Western Front in the First World War

The second battle of Ypres was a major battle in World War I(atleast for Canada), a the first major use to a gas attack. The Germans wanted to win. Despite the fact that it was widely agreed that battling armies should not use gas attacks, Germany did anyway.

Approximately 6,000 French and colonial troops died within ten minutes at Ypres, primarily from asphyxiation and subsequent tissue damage in the lungs. Many more were blinded. Chlorine gas forms hydrochloric (muriatic) acid when combined with water, destroying moist tissues such as lungs and eyes.[10] The chlorine gas, being denser than air, quickly filled the trenches, forcing the troops to climb out into heavy enemy fire.

Needless to say, it worked quite well. Unfortunately for Germany, they underestimated the power of the gas, and failed to have troops on hand to exploit the 4 mile gap that had been created. Did it work? Yes. But history will vindicate them as "Those first assholes who wanted to win so badly they used gas". Yes, I know video gaming and WWI are two very different things, but it is the principle behind it that makes the same.

Oh, but it is arbitrary. You just refuse to see it because it allows you to be the moral victor. How do you know the devs don't want people to spawncamp? They're certainly not doing anything to stop it, so unless you're psychic you're just making stuff up. They don't want you to abuse glitches? Then why haven't they patched them out yet? There are several well-documented cases of things considered glitches by some that eventually became valued and integral parts of the game. Look at Wavedashing in SSBM for a popular example. Or Ryu's red fireballs in Street Fighter. Or Roll Canceling in Capcom vs SNK 2. Again, unless you're psychic, you have no way of knowing "what the devs want".

About the WWI example, you're quite right that a WW1 situation is something very different from a videogame. But you're even more wrong than that. Take a moment to what I wrote about 'hard' rules vs 'soft' rules in <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.170536.4660255>this post.

I could say the same thing to you. Your idea of 'fun', winning at all costs, ruins my idea of fun, as much as scrubs bitching about you being "a noob" ruins your idea of fun.

So you're saying your fun is more important than my fun? Again; arrogance. And besides, I'm not telling anyone to change the way they enjoy the game. I'm telling everyone to stop whining about it. You're the one who expects other people to change the way they play the game because your fun is more important than anything else.

I completely comprehend that. But you argue as though you are in the right, as though that since I am a scrub and uncapable of playing on your level, I have no right to complain. You say "I don't want people complaining about my style of play", yet you openly bash me and other scrubs because we're scrubs, "Ignorant" and "arrogant" to your style of fun. I completely comprehend your idea of fun, and do not find it fun at all. Yet you know nothing about my style of fun, as you play to win. And I respect that. Yet not playing to win, I am labled as a scrub, and looked down apon by you "elites" if you will.

Your not so different from a scrub, like two sides of the same coin. You complain that they whine "cheap" at anything that doesn't meet their criteria. Yet you talk down on them because they are "scrubs" and arn't playing to win. Very similar indeed.

Way to put words into my mouth. First of all, I do not always play to win. As I've mentioned before, there have been only two games in my life I've ever considered myself 'good' at (Jedi Knight 2 and Capcom vs SNK2, if anyone's interested). For pretty much every other game I've ever played, I did not play to win. But that doesn't mean I started whining like a child everytime someone sniped my ass from across the map, or blew me up two seconds after respawning, or anything like that.

I've been saying over and over again that everyone should play the way they want. If playing to win was really the only way to play a game, there would be very few gamers left on this world. Hell, I wouldn't even be a gamer myself.

Again, I'm not telling anyone to change the way they play. I've never insulted someone just because they were a scrub. I'm just telling everyone to stop expecting others to change for them.

It's not that you specificaly said "improve" as much as the guy who wrote that article you quote. He is very condescending to scrubs, and constantly treats them like somebody beneath him.

As I said before, the article is not my point. It is something I use to illustrate and clarify my point. And (also as I said before) just because you don't like the guy who wrote it, doesn't mean his points are suddenly invalid.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

First of all, thank you for taking the time to write such a long post. I think this deserves to be said before anything else.

Hate the game and not the player. Hmmm, I can think of plenty of instances in which a player can play to win by abusing game mechanics that all of gamers will agree are good and are a necessity to multiplayer. Most games have the option for the host to kick players, right, well lets say that this host had a play to win mindset and booted everyone from the game that posed a threat to his victory. Now he isn't exploiting the game and is only using the abilities offered to him by the game itself, what he is doing isn't necessarily cheating and if you're actually playing to win it would make sense and be expected even though it is in no way fair to other the players. It would be a scrub that would cry out against this sort of thing, call it unfair and a very cheap tactic but the statement 'hate the game and not the player' calls it the games fault for this problem in their design and that it will only be fair to not allow for people to kicked from a game in this manner.

Such behavior actually goes directly against the "playing to win" mentality, because he's using something that is only available to himself, and can never be done by anyone else (at least not on his server). Spawn camping can be done by anyone. Using glitches to your advantage can be done by anyone who cares to find out how. A host kicking his players can only be done by the host, so it doesn't fall under the playing to win idea.

And even though the host in this scenario is a cheating douchebag, it's still his server. His server, his rules, so your best bet would be not to play on the server of someone who blatantly cheats like that.

Alright, fair enough, but what about games with no kick feature in which players from one side change teams and go around team killing, offering the other team a free kill and all around hampering one teams play. Again a scrub will call this unfair and while a pro would call it just another path in which a team can strive to achieve victory and if the goal is to win at all costs than it is a legitimate path to take. If the person can't be kicked than they a free to do this and so a pro will again state that a scrub should hate the game and not the player but were it different than a worse situation would take place in which the pro will always have the option to an advantage. There are different kicking options in games, vote kick and what have you, and while vote kick might stop the host from kicking a strong player it will not help if a full team plus another vote to cancel the ban. Maybe leave the voting to a single side and let a team kick anyone who is getting a K/D ratio below 1 or are not pulling their weight in an objective based match, but if you're playing to win then that stuff is alright and if you have a problem with it, blame the game. Of course if the game were different then you'd have another problem.

If it's possible to just switch teams and start killing your own (new) teammembers, then that's a serious flaw in the game. I wouldn't like to play in such a situation, and I can see why you wouldn't. But again, as long as the game doesn't prevent this, all you can do about it is inform the devs (or admins, or what have you) of such behavior. If they rule that this is illegal and enforce that rule, then you're getting somewhere. Whining about it ingame accomplishes absolutely nothing. And you're mistaken if you believe this kind of behavior is normal in higher-level games, but then again higher-level games don't take place on public servers.

However those events hold limitations and rules over those games equal to or greater than the rules of the scrubs. Interesting that if a scrub follows his own arbitrary rules he's, well, a scrub, but when a tournament player does it he's just doing the normal thing. Blame the game and not the player fall apart in this instance because if someone breaks a tournament rule or a game flaw (glitch etc) the player is blamed and not the game. Why is it that BTGNTP applies over more casual games over the internet but is then applied in tournaments. Is it because it's a bullshit rule and frame of mind? Probably not, but I'm not sure why to be honest.

Tournament rules are fundamentally different from your personal code of honor because of two very important reasons:

First of all, tournament rules apply to everyone. Your personal rules are just that, personal. If you want to play in a tournament, you obey their rules, just like everyone else. If you don't like those rules, you can just choose not to compete. It's as simple as that. They don't target the players, they target the game, which is exactly what I've been advocating all along.

Second, tournament rules are enforceable. Someone breaks a tournament rule, they either have to do the match over or they simply get disqualified. If someone breaks your personal rules on a public server, the only thing that happens is that they have to listen to your impotent whining. This is why I keep stressing the importance of private servers. Want to keep people from doing 'cheap' things? Set up your own server where you can enforce your own rules.

Me, personally, I have a level of how far I want to push a game and how much I hold myself back depending on the game and situations in the game. I have no problem doing the weapon slide in Gears of war, a glitch that protects you from getting sniped when picking up a weapon most of the time, but I don't like sniping behind a wall with only the lens of the rife pointing out because I believe that it is an unfair advantage, strange that. In CoD4 SnD I don't like noob tubing out of spawn because I believe that people deserve to get out and run for a bit but I will always have paths planed out that usually guarantee me a couple of kills early in the game before people can get kills of their own. Does doing this stuff make me a scrub, sure whatever, but I'd rather be playing this way than killing people who can't kill me. It's more fun this way and you get better at the staple skills that transcend all gaming such as aiming, reaction time, managing team location etc.

And that's perfectly fine. I never have and never will tell you that you shouldn't do that. It's just the people who are telling other people that they shouldn't be playing a certain way that rub me the wrong way.I'm not just saying that their way of playing should be respected, I'm saying that your way of playing is every bit as valid.

And I do hope that you can see from the examples you posted just how arbitrary these rules can get. You don't mind glitch A, but you do mind glitch B. Another person might hate glitch A but use glitch B to his advantage all the time. That just makes the whole thing too pointless to be worth whining about, if you'd ask me.

 

[ReallyStupidIdiot]

First I'd like to point out I love your name, we have a lot in common.

The main point of this post: lets say I found the game of my dreams. My favorite game ever. Best game (to me) in the universe. Alright. One problem, though: the developers put in one gun, character, move, potion, or what have you that completely obliterates anything and everything in an instant. I think its a lot more fun not to use this particular item or character.

Am I whiner just because I suggest that the game be more fun if we use strategy and thought to win instead of...pressing A?

OR: what about the nuke boosters in Modern Warfare 2? You know, the people that go in a corner on opposite teams and shoot eachother until one of them calls in a nuke. Obviously they are "playing to win", but am I a whiner just for telling them to fuck off?

 

[G-Force]

Alright, fair enough, but what about games with no kick feature in which players from one side change teams and go around team killing, offering the other team a free kill and all around hampering one teams play. Again a scrub will call this unfair and while a pro would call it just another path in which a team can strive to achieve victory and if the goal is to win at all costs than it is a legitimate path to take. If the person can't be kicked than they a free to do this and so a pro will again state that a scrub should hate the game and not the player but were it different than a worse situation would take place in which the pro will always have the option to an advantage. There are different kicking options in games, vote kick and what have you, and while vote kick might stop the host from kicking a strong player it will not help if a full team plus another vote to cancel the ban. Maybe leave the voting to a single side and let a team kick anyone who is getting a K/D ratio below 1 or are not pulling their weight in an objective based match, but if you're playing to win then that stuff is alright and if you have a problem with it, blame the game. Of course if the game were different then you'd have another problem.

Personally I can't see anyway around this and so you might call it cheating but to that I'd say that it's an option clearly given to the player and the only rules that cover it are under the scrubs arbitrary sense of honour. Personally I'd much rather be a scrub than some pro ruining the game experience for others with my pro team and pro mentality.

I do agree that people complaining over cheap tactics and weapons than can be counted and fought against is annoying and that the should learn to adapt or stop playing the game. This thread and article/book are probably more suited for fighting games of which I don't play very often so I suppose that my above examples don't apply to those and obviously don't apply to tournaments and organized games. However those events hold limitations and rules over those games equal to or greater than the rules of the scrubs. Interesting that if a scrub follows his own arbitrary rules he's, well, a scrub, but when a tournament player does it he's just doing the normal thing. Blame the game and not the player fall apart in this instance because if someone breaks a tournament rule or a game flaw (glitch etc) the player is blamed and not the game. Why is it that BTGNTP applies over more casual games over the internet but is then applied in tournaments. Is it because it's a bullshit rule and frame of mind? Probably not, but I'm not sure why to be honest.

Me, personally, I have a level of how far I want to push a game and how much I hold myself back depending on the game and situations in the game. I have no problem doing the weapon slide in Gears of war, a glitch that protects you from getting sniped when picking up a weapon most of the time, but I don't like sniping behind a wall with only the lens of the rife pointing out because I believe that it is an unfair advantage, strange that. In CoD4 SnD I don't like noob tubing out of spawn because I believe that people deserve to get out and run for a bit but I will always have paths planed out that usually guarantee me a couple of kills early in the game before people can get kills of their own. Does doing this stuff make me a scrub, sure whatever, but I'd rather be playing this way than killing people who can't kill me. It's more fun this way and you get better at the staple skills that transcend all gaming such as aiming, reaction time, managing team location etc.

First of all when Sirlin wrote "Playing to Win" he wrote it as a guide to those who wish to better themselves in competitive tournament play of the game of their voice. Your example of a player abusing their host powers would never fly within a tournament setting as such actions would result in an immediate disqualification.

Also you ask why BTGNTP is used to defend one's actions when using "cheap" tactics and weaponry while tournament play has these same restrictions that casual players impose on themselves yet no one calls the tournaments "scrub events". The main reason why is that tournament rules are not arbitrary unlike a players moral code and it's restrictions are followed by all players. Playing to win is about one using all the tools provided before them in order to come out the victor, if you lose because someone decided then that loose is your own undoing. There is no "moral victory" in competitive play and a loss is a loss and a win is a win. If there was a football team out there that thought that points scored by field goal kicks were "cheap" and lost games because of it, you'd be quick to question their strategy, the same applies here with video games.

Another reason why players are blamed for violating tournament rules and not the game is the simple fact that many tournaments publicly post their rules online and take extra care into making sure that all those who wish to enter are aware of them. When you register for a tournament, you are making an agreement to the organizers that you will abide by their restrictions. Boxing matches are a test of one's abilities in physical combat yet the sport only allows the athletes to strike with their fist. If I were to suddenly kick my opponent and knock them out, people would call the foul on me even though the "game" yielded such a restriction.

 

[enzilewulf]

I see what you are saying here and I have to agree. Saying"Cheap tacticks" (Epic fail spelling) is just saying that you didn't think of it first, you don't have it in your mind set of rules, or you can't beat it.

Also if you say sniping is camping go fuck off because most games these days offer some way of getting around a sniper. How are you suppost to move while sniping if your playing a game like Modern Warfare where it's a little hard to move around in a small map area. The only game that offers that much space is a game like BF Bad company.

 

[enzilewulf]

Thank you! I believe that when a legitimate yet breakable defense of camping is used, I think people should stop whining.

Heck, Starcraft's Terrans are primarily campers. And they're so underpowered. So screw the haters who don't like terran camping. you're all just jealous they do it so well.

If a class is made to camp, just use its counterpart.
Any properly designed game should have counterparts to any move, if it doesn't, people will find one.
If someone uses a "Cheap Weapon" in real warfare (See below), people will adapt and develop new strategies.

Yeah its called EMP or else deactivation codes lol.

let it fall in the water..Damn whales.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

First I'd like to point out I love your name, we have a lot in common.

The main point of this post: lets say I found the game of my dreams. My favorite game ever. Best game (to me) in the universe. Alright. One problem, though: the developers put in one gun, character, move, potion, or what have you that completely obliterates anything and everything in an instant. I think its a lot more fun not to use this particular item or character.

Am I whiner just because I suggest that the game be more fun if we use strategy and thought to win instead of...pressing A?

OR: what about the nuke boosters in Modern Warfare 2? You know, the people that go in a corner on opposite teams and shoot eachother until one of them calls in a nuke. Obviously they are "playing to win", but am I a whiner just for telling them to fuck off?

In both cases, your concerns are valid. I don't claim that you should just ignore everything that's bad about a game, or that you should ignore good games that have one or two annoying flaws.

What I'm saying is that you shouldn't complain about it to the players. I call that whining because not only is it pointless, it's also you trying to impose a certain play style on someone else when you have no legitimate right or power to do so. If you tell someone that they shouldn't be playing the game in a ways that's perfectly legal within the existing limits of the game (so this doesn't include third-party cheats or hacks), then yes, I'd say your whining. What I'm saying is that these are problems that should either be handled by the developers of the game, or you should go to (or set up) a private server that actually enforces these rules. If rules are enforced for everyone playing the game, then they cease to be arbitrary and meaningless.

That's why I keep saying that you should get upset and your fun is very important. Just direct your anger at the developers who made a poorly balanced game (and I'm not saying the devs suck for this either, because games can be incredibly hard to balance and player ingenuity will almost always be one step ahead of game design) or the admins running a poorly balanced server, because in a public server environment those are the only people with both the ability and the right to enforce the rules.

 

[hittite]

This takes me back to a few years ago. I was doing an all-night game fiesta with some friends, and in a break between murdering each other in Halo, we decided to break out a Naruto fighting game (the name escapes me). After a few games, we soon learned that there were certain characters that certain people simply could not use in the interest of balanced gameplay.

I was the first to be banned from Akamaru (yes, the stupid little dog) since the unstoppable finisher moves simply don't work on him, I'd just jump attack them to death and there wasn't really anything they could do about it. Then someone else had to be dragged away from Gaara. Then came one of the variations of Sasuke. And so on from there.

Then we had a great idea. For one match only, all of the "cheap" characters would be allowed and we would see who was really the best at the game. Long story short, it wasn't me, but it was the craziest match I've ever been in.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I'll play Devil's Advocate since no one is arguing against the article.

There is a big difference between using "cheap" tactics and using exploitive tactics that the article does not address. Cheap, like using the same move in a fighting game or just bombing the football to Randy Moss every play are things that are not fun to play against, but are beatable and can be countered. The reason people whine against this is because it's not fun to play against. You could destroy those tactics with your own moves but it's not exactly fun to do a Protective Coverage every play while running the score against them (well...sometimes it's fun to do utterly destroy a player using cheap tactics).

My problem that this article skips is the exploitive tactics that have NO counter. For example, "pre-game Grenade Launchering" in the beginning of a map in MW2. You have no way to move before your hit, but according to this article, that's an OK move because you are playing to win. Not playing to win with honor, not playing because you want to have fun, but playing because another W for yourself is all that matters.

That's why people "whine" against these tactics (the cheap ones and the exploitive ones), because the "Play to Win" guy is ruining the fun, something I imagine is the reason that most people video games.

second this completely

there is a difference between cheap and exploitive, if someone kills me from having c4 on the flag while im trying to capture it, thats a cheap yet affective tactic, and can be beaten, however if i do get noob tubed across the map in the first second, you cant tell me i shouldn't have "been there", because i can't help it i started there and possibly a second later than the other person, especially when it fires that fast

im not a whiner, im just agreeing that there is a difference, and i know you will go back to your whole "email the creator" and crap, but when they are already racking in so much dough, they wont care, they wont change it, they dont care if its perfectly balanced or not, then it becomes an onslaught of exploiting tactics till the game is demolished

 

[Katana314]

im not a whiner, im just agreeing that there is a difference, and i know you will go back to your whole "email the creator" and crap, but when they are already racking in so much dough, they wont care, they wont change it, they dont care if its perfectly balanced or not, then it becomes an onslaught of exploiting tactics till the game is demolished

This is exactly the reason people need to wait at the very least, a week before buying a game.

(MW2 for random example)
Week 1: OMG Modern Warfare 2 will be amazing!!!
OK.
Week 2: IT'S OUT! WOW LOOK AT ALL THE AWESOME GUNS!
Maybe I'll get it...
Week 3: OMGWTF STUPID DUAL-SHOTGUN GUY KILLED ME AGAIN
Let's see how Bad Company 2 is looking.
Infinity Ward: Curse you, lost customer.

Once again, kids; Vote with your wallets. If more than two seconds of close observation shows the game is so easily exploited, you know it's not going to survive a month on your favorites list. The unfortunate thing is that you're still right; in a short term there's little that can be done to fix an exploit when the company just doesn't care.

 

[ininvertedcommas]

"Cheap is what you use to beat me. Strategy is what I use to beat you."

I think the self imposed moral codes are biggest problem.
Take this comment for example:

Camping is part of the Sniper class. Bunnyhopping and all else needs to fuck off.

What's the difference?
If you choose not to take advantage of a particular imbalance or strategy that is your choice (I personally do not use Akimbo shotguns because I, find it to be to much of a "I win button").
However, expecting other people to adhere to my own fairly arbitrary guidelines is both unfair and unrealistic.

I feel like we're taking some kind of gaming-Libertarian stance here!?

All that aside, I find most gamers that whine about a particular playing style, or piece of equipment, usually whine simply because they're being beaten.