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

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

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.

very true. i loved the first modern warfare alot, i got into it so much with a group of friends, i was just blindly purchasing it when i did, and i highly regret doing so, but oh well..guess i can't do much now, unless someone has red matter and can throw me into the hole a few months back

from now on, besides bioware games, i am going to review every game and gameplay before i make a purchase

 

[Kinguendo]

I wasnt aware that playing a GAME was to be taken seriously now... if someone says "I play to win." my immediate thought is "That guy is a tool."... Why? Because gaming is supposed to be fun. I dont use glitches because I know it ruins the game, it is unsporting and isnt meant to be in the game... the usual reply to that is "Its in the game." to which I swiftly reply "All glitches are IN the game." to which people often agree and call the other guy variations of stupid.

The simple act of "Playing to win" as you have defined it will ruin peoples fun... would you have fun if everyone camped with the strongest sniper rifle equipped... and I mean EVERYONE? The thing that makes people refer to unsportsman like conduct is because they know that not everyone does it.

If you are going to camp, you are relying on other people not camping. If you are going to dropshot you are hoping that they stay stood up or your shots miss as does theirs, the fact of the matter is the cheap kills require people to play normally. If everyone was cheap bugger all would be achieved... now do you see why it isnt meant to be done?

I quite simply refuse to use tactics that are cheap because I know how those tactics annoy me and I dont want to do the same to someone else... I didnt pay £40 to get annoyed by others and to annoy others... I did so to have F U N.

 

[Fire Daemon]

Snip

I actually find myself agreeing with pretty much everything you say, pretty much, as I don't really hold a strong opinion either way with this.. As far as host powers are concerned. Putting people on the other team isn't necessarily a flaw in the game design, it's more of an unavoidable problem. Either the game allows for player to choose their team at the start of the game and change or it chooses the team for them. The former is the easiest to plant a mole but the second has the later has the most impact because usually in these situations a player can't be removed the game. Auto-balance and automated kicking can be used to try and fix these problems but they aren't very effective and tend to have ways around them.

As for tournament rules, again, I agree. But I do wonder if tournament players follow these rules outside of the tournament. MLG doesn't allow for claymores to be used in MW2 and I would expect that a tourney player will not use them in casual play so that they don't become complacent and rely on them for protection, but then in some particular classes (sniper for example) they'll have be disadvantaging themselves. Or maybe claymores are a hindrance compared to frag grenades for these people.

I agree about how arbitrary the personal rules can be although certain games do tend to follow a pattern, some glitches are more effective than others and it's the effective ones that tend to be frowned upon while the less effective are more accepted and considered the norm. I rarely find people that hate opposite glitches, rather it seems that people have different levels of glitches they are willing to use.

Snip

Again, yeah, I pretty much agree.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I can agree with the general principles being expressed in the OP but I shall go no further than this.

I am, more than most I'd suspect, forgiving of the various strategies seen as "cheap" by the gaming population as a whole. Modern FPS games rarely actually deliver a frustrating camping experience (compare this to the days of quake where certain maps placed both a rocket launcher AND health into a room with one door), and moreover, in many such games camping is encouraged by the basic design. After all, one should not expect a flag or objective to defend itself. I only take issue with this strategy when a sufficent portion of both teams engage in the activity such that the game stagnates and I am no longer capable of enjoying myself.

To the rest - so long as the mechanics are an intrinsic part of the design that is not being bypassed in some way, whether by bug or outright cheating, then I'm fine with them being used. When one stumbles upon some other category - the unintended but utterly allowed by the game mechanics strategy, you begin to travel in murky waters. To some, using such a feature is outright cheating, for others it's a legitimate strategy. So long as the developer does not patch said problem OR does not speak out against it, I'd be willing to suggest it is a valid strategy, even if it "breaks" the game when used. The developer is, after all, the final arbiter when it comes to questions of intentions of what the game ought to be and they are the only ones in any real position to resolve the dispute.

In instances like this, I just point to the sport of fencing. For those that are unware, modern fencing relies on an electronic scoring mechanism wherein a small switch is applied to the tip of the "sword". When this switch is depressed for a sufficient amount of time in contact with the opponent's lamé (a jacket made of woven metal), a ciruit is completed and a hit is indicated. In decades past, there was a design flaw with the system. If a fencer placed their weapon in contact with their own lamé at the moment an attack arrived, rather than counting as a hit the scoring apparatus would register an "off target" result. This problem existed for decades and the activity was generally seen as "unsporting" but no offical fix or sanction was issued. Eventually, it was decreed that such things were unsporting and in the future all foil's had to apply a non-conductive paint to the grips of all weapons to stop such sillyness.

In a more modern example, foil fencing relies very heavily on the concept of a "flick". Rather than using a standard thrust, a flick relies on the inherent flexibility of the blade. Without delving too much into the silly details, a flick allows one to curve their blade in such a way that a normal parry offers no defense (normal in that an attack that will land in a given spot cannot be defended against with a parry designed to protect said spot). This is possible because the for a hit to register, the tip must only make contact for a very brief amount of time. Purists would say that such a move is silly - afterall, it would not deliver a significant wound in a real duel, nor is a real dueling sword capable of such flexibility. Others offer an argumeng similar to the OP - lean to deal with it or leave. Given the utterly pragmatic roots of most of fencing, one is left with little choice - learn to deal with the move, or learn to lose.

In general, any competative activity will develop strategies that the makers never really intended. If one wants to compete, they must be willing to endure such things and learn how to best counter such strategies. Unfortunately, the debate on the validity of a tactic is never quickly resolved, unless the authority on the subject (The FIE/USFA in fencing for example, or the developer of a game) makes a declaration banning the said activity.

As for myself, I play to have fun and lucky enough for me, having fun in a video game rarely has anything to do with winning or even "not dying" but rather, killing as many people on the other side as humanly possible. Yet, in spite of this, there are lines I won't cross. When the Javelin glitch in MW2 was announced to the world by an angry bystander, I refused to use it. Yes, I had seen first hand that the tactic could be utterly devistating, but in the end, exploiting such a thing not only seemed like outright cheating, it would utterly ruin my ability to have fun. I may not care about wining or losing but when I get a kill I at least like to earn it. If I don't even have that to look forward to, the only enjoyment I could get is from making the other team miserable and I hardly think that's a sporting thing to do.

 

[Raiha]

camping with a sniper rifle is one thing, but sitting in a corner with a SMG waiting for someone to walk by is just kinda lame. you can sit there all you want to, but you aren't really working toward being a better player and besting me by having faster reaction time or out strategizing me, you are just waiting for me to not pay attention to you and hopefully be in the right spot. you may get a few kills like that, but you will never gain anything from it.

 

[TundraWolf]

Snip

I think the main point is that there's a difference between good and good, if you catch my drift. You may be good as in "I can beat all of my friends and I usually win online", but as long as you're not playing to win, you're not being competitive. There's being good as in beating the people at your level, and then there's good as in actually being good at every aspect of the game. The article is mostly directed at tournament-level players (or aspiring tournament-level players), and I speak from experience that there's a significant difference between "public server good" and "tournament good". As I mentioned before in this thread, there are only two games I've ever considered myself "good" at. Does that mean I suck at all other games? I'd like to think not. It's just that to be actually good at a game takes more time and dedication than most people (myself included in most cases) are willing and able to spend on it.

I certainly see the point you're making, but I think it's more a matter of interpretation in the given context than actually saying all scrubs suck at games.

Fair enough, I suppose. I don't ever plan on entering a gaming tournament, so reading it will be a purely academic exercise.

I guess my problem with the whole issue being presented in "Playing To Win" is that it seems to suggest that, to truly play to win, you must not be afraid to use (and abuse, if need be) the system if that's what winning demands. I mean, it certainly lays out tenets that encourage you to learn how to out-think your opponents, but then there's also the part that implies using any advantage short of cheating should be allowed, including glitches or unbalanced portions of the game.

That's the problem that I, and I'm sure a fair number of people, have with this message. Okay, yes, I can get behind trying to out-think your opponents. "If I go around this corner, then he'll follow me, so I can turn the corner, jump out the window, turn around and shoot him from the side as he's looking for me. If he decides to double back outside instead of following me around the corner, I can toss a grenade to distract him, then run into the underground tunnel. If he tosses a grenade down there to stop me, I'll charge at him and attempt to knife him." And so forth. I understand that that's how professional gamers think, and that it's a good strategy to think like that if you're going to win.

Even abusing unbalanced portions of games are okay, if not annoying to the casual gamer. For instance, I am guilty of using the Plasma Pistol/SMG dual-wield combo in the Halo series, as well as equipping myself with Commando, Lightweight, Marathon and a pistol with a tactical knife in Modern Warfare 2. Those are both very powerful combinations to use in those games, and often lead to frustration on the part of your opponents. They are not fool-proof, as each has their own counters, but they are an unbalanced parts of those games that are there to be exploited at the players convenience. (Though I'll be damned if I ever consider using the dual-shotguns in Modern Warfare 2 acceptable behavior.)

Where I draw the line is at exploiting glitches. Glitches are parts of games that are not actually part of the game. They are oversights on the part of the developers, or a faulty string of code, or what-have-you. They are not essentially part of the game as they were never intended to be utilized or even included in the final game design. Most, if not all, glitches are not even designed at all. Worse yet, they are often unable to be countered. Because of this, they ruin the game not just for the people who are playing them, but also for the people who developed them. I suppose this is a case where you should address the developers directly, but is it so hard to just say that exploiting glitches isn't an acceptable use of the game and move on to actually playing the game that the developers designed?

Don't get me wrong: I'm totally with you about the complaining thing. Camping, rushing, turtling, bunnyhopping (whatever the hell that is), and the like are all legitimate strategies in games that I utilize myself. (I mean, come on people. Sitting in a single spot defending a strategic choke point is "camping", but staying in the same place for an entire round using a sniper rifle is acceptable? Explain that to me without being hypocritical. Please.)

All I'm saying is that there should be some point where exploiting a game goes too far to be acceptable, even if you're "playing to win". Of course, I'm sure those people who "play to win" would disagree, and that's their right. But if exploiting glitches and ruining other people's good time means that I'm a "scrub", then I'm proud to bear that title. I guess I just won't be entering into any tournaments anytime soon, which is fine by me.

(As a side-note, I miss dedicated servers that had stated rules that ensured everyone who wanted to "play for fun" could, and anyone who went against those rules was ejected from the server. Stupid match-making.)

 

[The DSM]

There the reasons I dont play online, and trolls.

But on RTSs I do turtle, I bide my time.

 

[Beldaros]

I don't think I've ever been mad about any tactic. In my books if the game allows for it then the tactic is fine, even if it is a pretty stupid one. The end of the day a camper is only going to get you once.

The thing that annoys the hell out of me is the abuse I get from people saying "fuck sake, you're shit" simply because it took me more then one bullet to kill them, or because lag has taken a hold or of course I'm having an off night (which is most the time because I don't have the time to play games for long stints and therefore I'm always rusty.)

So thankyou for posting this. Though the feelings don't exactly coincide but this is one aspect of the enjoyment that can be crushed in a game... by twatbags and sore losers.

Just to clarify I don';t think these people are actually idiotic or twatish, just there in the moment actions. It's been getting me down recently and I end up ending a session prematurely because of these people.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

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.

Never said this.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

Never said this.

My bad, that was a misquote. All of that was a reply to Fire Daemon, not you.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

I don't play to win very often anymore. I find I enjoy games much more using weapons, characters and tactics that apeal to me. For example, in TF2 I play as the spy and can spend minutes at a time hidden waiting for the perfect time to strike. I don't get particularly many points, but I enjoy it when I achieve the perfect kill after carefully setting it up.

I was actually finding TF2 kind of annoying until I started going Cloak and Dagger Spy and Scout. Oh, I'm absolutely no good as either, but it's more fun for me. So there.

 

[Cowabungaa]

If you don't like to play with people below your level of commitment, don't play on public servers.

Thanks for pointing out why I hate matchmaking. I completely agree with you otherwise, but in Dawn of War 2, I hate ending up with those 'hardcoar' people who have mastered the game already, while they easily let me, a DoW2 scrub, die. I'd love to play with fellow scrubs, but I can't because the game doesn't match me up with them. Thanks Relic!

 

[Brandon237]

Good thread. I play Crysis Wars occasionally and at first I tried camping, it didn't work so then I learned the beautiful art of hit & run gameplay. Combine this with a well populated Crysis wars server and a pretty average reflex time and you get

A:the most fun you can as whether you are the potter or the potted with a shotgun, it is awesome to watch.

B: a pretty average ranking which leaves you not caring about your scores.

All in all so long as you get 1 kill every 2-3 minutes I really only play for fun. You just need to do well enough that feel happy and then you're set. Yes I am a scrub but hey, I have fun.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Yesterday I played MW2 for the first time in 3 months.

A guy was camping in the buildings in quarry with a noob tube. On Domination.

It was frustrating. He got me three times before I went for the revenge kill and outsmarted him by using FMJ and shooting him through the wall.

They can always be countered but it's hard, and in objective games it ruins the flow.

 

[DancePuppets]

I don't view camping as cheap, although i don't like it, so if I get killed by a camper I make it my mission for the rest of the game to hunt them down until they stop camping. Each time they move to a new place I will track them down and kill them again. I will admit that this primarily applies to snipers on MW2, I've never been any good at sniping so I can see that it takes skill and patience, doesn't mean that I won't do my absolute best to take them out as many times as I can until the game is over. I think that this is a vastly better way of dealing with it than just complaining!

 

[SNIPERFOX ft. Harry P.Ness]

i dont play online to win though i do hate spawn campers and haxxors. i like people who stand still.


cos i snipe


boom..

but i paly online to have FUN.

ye ever heard of that?

(amained at MW2 and halo fanboys)

 

[Parattchi]

I used to play CoD: World at War a lot online (not so much now since almost everyone ha moved on) and I always had one rule that I played by: I would never use tactics that I disliked myself. I dislike camping, so I never camped. I disliked bunnyhoppers and the like, so I never did that. I focused on having faster reflexes, being a better shot than the other guy. Sure, sometimes that didn't work. But a lot of the time I'd be up in at least the top 5 on the server, without once indulging in tactics that I personally dislike.

That's the same reason that I never got into professional gaming, or playing with clans. Because although I like to win, I don't think that I should agravte other players in the same way they aggravate me, jut to achieve that goal.

That being said, I rarely indulged in flaming when confronted by campers and the like (asides from pointing out the fact that I was doing nothing like that, playing half-trashed on rum &coke, and still winning). The only time that I flamed other players was when they acted superior for camping/bunnyhopping/mine spamming. You want to use those tactics to win? Sure, I'll be annoyed, but that just means I'll try my hardest to shoot you in the face. It's when people start trash-talking, calling others noobs and acting like God's gift to gaming because they use 'superior' tactics that I get mad.

tl;dr: I don't do things that annoy me, and hate people that act superior.

 

[teisjm]

I'm gonna bookmark this, cause it's more deeply explained and better written than i could be botehred to do when someone for the 100'th time posts about how unfair and cheap snipers/tubes/rushers/move-spammers/knives/campers/coordinated teamplay/grenades/etc is. I'm just gonna link to this and tell them to read it or stop whining.

I'd add one thing though, griefers.
In many multiplayer games, you can hurt your team-mates in one way or another, in FPS it's often with friendly fire, and we've all encountered teamkillers, just cause they think it's fun, i don't think it mean it's okay. Ofc the dev's are to blame for not punishing team-kilelrs hard enough, but i'll yell (IRL, yelling at griefers in game only pleases them) when people team-kills on purpose (accidental friendly fire is fine, it's there for a reason)
Other games have otehr mechanics you can use abuse to grief your own team, liek in RTS you might build cheap shit to block them/their base.
In HoN/Dota theres heroes who have skills which have both a bonus and a drawback, for instance strygwyr/bloodhunter can give a huge boost to someones damage, but it'll silence and damage them. This can be used on everyone, and teammates may benefit from it, but if you cast it on a caster, who relies on spells, and not attacks to fight you're hurting him (in-game) on purpose (this example can be fixed by disablign help from teammates ingame though)
You might also be telling the enemy (in most team-games) what your team is doing, so you're acting as a spy, or in games liek HoN you could feed the enemy team on purpose.

This is all bullshit, and i think it's sad that sometimes, theres no way, to deal with people who are purposefulyl hurting their own team, cause they enjoy griefing. This is something the dev's of multiplayer-games should really consider more carefulyl when making their games. FO rinstance, in HoN you have the option of voting to kicking players, the sad part is, that everyone else on the server (appart from teh guy beeing kicked ofc) has to agree. This means that the enemy team will have to agree as well, in order to kick the griefer, and often they won't do so, because they're benefitting from the griefer.

I only get mad at campers if they go to the same spot again and again and again and again...

One guy just didn't get the message to STOP FRIGGING GOING THERE after he took potshots at me and I sniped him about five times. He just kept going to the same spot again. He only killed me about once, but he did keep hitting me because I thought he'd not be stupid enough to go there over and over.

I get mad at someone if they're using what could be defined as an 'exploit', like the infamous crabwalk glitch in Gears of War. If someone's dropshotting, I shoot them while they're on the ground. If I miss, I resolve to increase my reaction time. If someone's bunnyhopping, so what? They die just like anyone else.

Why get mad? he's offering you lots of free kills.

As for the exploits, if they're not meant to be there it's sortof liek cheating, and the dev's should be notified so they can fix it.

 

[Sterence]

Why have games become about winning all the time? Yes its your goal in game but games are supposed to be about fun hence the name. When i go into l4d2 or tf2 i play it to be entertained. rage quitters are in tf2 but it seems more obvious in l4d2. Once i joined a game where somebody was way ahead for some stupid reason and he gets attacked by a smoker and rage quits as nobody can save him, by the time i got to him all of my team members had left the server leaving me and the other team and they ask me not to rage quit. And i didn't and i don't want to rage quit because i play the game for fun its stupid that people quit because they lose. And if your team is losing then great its more of a challenge and instead of trying to beat the other team people leave the game if their team has less points at the end of the map.