By that same logic, it’s okay to rape women. I mean, the designer of this world didn’t put in any safeguards to prevent it from happening. Who are all these fucking police officers and lawyers that get together and say you can’t do what the “game” will let you do?
It’s also ass-backwards: if there was no idea that you had to exploit whatever bugs are in the game, you wouldn’t have to worry about the fact that others might exploit it. The reason you have to worry about it is not because someone else will if you don’t, but because you like taking unfair advantage of others.
You know what would also be playing to win? Finding out where the person lives, taking a gun and blowing his brains out. Then you have one less good player you have to compete against. And I have to do it, since, if I don’t, they’ll do it to me…
The concept of fair play exists to thwart this type of thinking.
No, I think they were being sore losers. I do believe that there is an element of luck to chess, but to blame a defeat on it is poor form.
(The discussion “Is there luck in chess” has been done to death here and elsewhere. My position is that there are lots of forms of luck, and chess is absent many of them, but not all.
e.g. Plenty of times I’ve played a move for some pretty trivial reason and then a few moves later I see I’ve stumbled on to a great attacking or defending variation that I did not foresee).
Bolded the faulty assumption. No, the designer doesn’t always know about it, and frequently a game designer will hotfix the shit out of that as soon as they get wind of it. In tournaments, where immediate patching isn’t feasible, the judges will institute a rule against using the exploit, which means not using the exploit is now part of the game.
That’s the other assumption you’re making, by the way: Sirlin’s writing generally only applies to competitive play, where the goal is to win; i.e., tournaments and leagues.
If you’re just playing to have fun, then yes, fair play abides, and someone being a douche is being a douche.
…Riiight. Backing away slowly, Mr. Can’t-distinguish-reality-from-a-self-contained-artificially-constructed-set-of-rules.
Sirlin’s reasoning (nutshell: exploit whatever tactics exist within the game that will make you win) is sound, but the problem is that it applies only in the highest levels of competitive gaming. And I mean the absolute highest levels – if you’re not playing for money, it doesn’t apply to you.
At any other level of gaming, his argument fails because it often leads to making the game un-fun.
Example from Call of Duty, pretty much the only game I know well. There’s a strategy colloquially known as “camping,” where you sit in some closed-in space, aim at the door, wait for someone to enter, and kill them when they do. When done right, there is no way to counter this. (Let’s not argue tactics here – there are certain situations where it is absolutely impossible to get a camper out of his hole no matter what you do, especially in some of the earlier COD games.) The only way to deal with an extreme camper is to ignore him and go find someone else to kill. But if the entire enemy team is camping, you’re screwed. The only thing you can do is adopt his same tactics and camp yourself.
The problem is that camping is boring! Staring at a doorway for a whole game is like watching paint dry. Yes, if you’re playing in some kind of tournament where there’s a cash prize, this tactic will make you money. But if you’re not, all you’re doing is wasting your time and wasting your opponents’ time. You’ll win not because you were better at choosing the best tactic, but because you were the most willing to be bored out of your mind.
Sirlin is essentially proposing a “tactic treadmill” where the tactic considered cheap can be countered with a “counter-tactic” which can in turn be countered with a “counter-counter-tactic” etc. But when the ultimate tactic is not fun, then I think it’s legitimate to complain about those who employ it.
All of this, however, is beside the point of the OP. Calling someone a “try-hard” is kind of the opposite of accusing someone of using cheap tactics, from what I can tell.
If a game is boring, maybe try not playing the game.
The problem with the “You shouldn’t do X, because it isn’t fun.” is that you’re essentially telling others how to play the game. “No camping” is only a short distance away from “No throws!” or “No using rock, that’s unfair, I want to spam scissors.” It’s really common in RTS games like starcraft, where people feel like they have a right to sit in their base, unharassed, and build big expensive units, and if you attack them before that with cheap units, you’re being “unfair” and “unfun”.
The “no AM” thing is really just super lame, though, and is one of the reasons why I hate the MOBA communities. I used to play League of Legends with a friend, who played a pretty obscure character for months, because they enjoyed it. Eventually, that character got a buff, and became really popular. And then people bitched at my friend for liking this now-popular character, because they were a “try hard” and “weren’t playing to have fun”, etc. It’s a childish, pathetic attitude. Let people play how they want, and if how they want beats you, well, that’s your problem.
Edit: Also, sirlin’s first name is David, not Mark.
Call of Duty isn’t boring. Camping is boring. I find Call of Duty to be quite a lot of fun, as evidenced by the embarrassingly large number of hours I’ve put into it.
When someone employs tactic X, and the only way to counter is also to employ tactic X, and tactic X is not fun, then the game isn’t fun when people employ tactic X, QED. Karrius, your answer to this is to quit playing the game? What if the game is a ton of fun as long as nobody employs tactic X?
I understand your (and Sirlin’s) point that when you tell people how to play, you’re essentially telling them to play a different game than the one the developers made. But when the different game is more fun for everybody, I see no problem with this.
The problem is, “no camping” is not a good rule. Sirlin actually goes into stuff on what is and is not OK to ban - he is, for example, totally OK with banning a character if it would be good for the game as a whole. The problem with no camping is that you have to define what it means. Can you not stay in one spot for too long? What is defined as “too long”? 10 seconds? So 9.9 is ok? It’s a level of wishy washy ridiculousness.
And yeah - if a game had that problem, I would just play a different game, or a different map. I don’t play TF2 maps that tend to stalemate, like 2fort. And if I found myself in a stalemate, I sure as hell wouldn’t whine at my enemies for not letting us in - I’d instead try to figure out what MY team has to do to break it. I can’t speak to the specifics of Modern Warfare, but I find it really sad and surprising that multiplayer FPS games STILL have “camping” issues, and consider that pretty poor design.
When I played League of Legends, if there was a bug that made a champion stronger than he ought to have been (as Kog’maw was bugged for a long time) I didn’t insult and yell at any opponent who picked them. I either played a mode where we could ban him, or used him myself, or just dealt with him, knowing the counters. Especially in games where there’s rankings and such, every little bug is a part of the game. You can’t even trust that your opponents will know if it’s a bug when they use it, thinking it’s just fair play.
On the other hand, back in the day of SC1, you could find games online that had titles like “5MinNoRush”, where everyone agreed in the lobby that none of them would undertake any offensive action in the first five minutes of the game. So long as everyone agrees to such a rule, it’s fine: All the players in that game want to play that way, and they get what they want. And if you join such a game and attack before that with cheap units, you are being “unfair” and “unfun”.
Sure, if you consider the name of a room to be some sort of binding obligation. Which you may not after the first time you join that room and get rushed. The problem here is STILL that people still aren’t going to get what they want.
5 minutes, no rush? Okay. Is it okay for me to build units during that time as long as I wait until after 5 minutes to “rush” you with them? Or am I not allowed to build more than a few units? How many? Is it okay for me to send a single marine into your base to harass your workers? What about a worker unit? Or am I supposed to use that time strictly to gather resources and build buildings? What about bunkers? Am I allowed to put marines in them? Am I allowed to subsequently take the marines out? Can I build defenses at your base expansion site to keep you from moving in there? Pretty much all of those are cases I think that someone could legitimately think are OK in a “5 minutes, no rush” room.
Joining a room like that is basically a recipe for people to bitch at you regardless of what you do, unless you somehow manage to intuit EXACTLY how they want you to play the game, and then play that way. Because the “spirit” of “5minNoRush” is going to be different depending on who you ask. It’s also usually a good indicator that the people in that room aren’t actually very good at the game, so that label might, after all, serve its function, by telling people “stay away from this room”.
Is it okay to play a different game (i.e. a subset or variant of the “published” game) if everyone agrees? Sure. But outside of immediate friends or a close knit community, good luck with that actually working, even if no one is deliberately trying to be an ass. It’s like the “no camping” rule issues discussed above. You’re better off playing a published game that doesn’t have the design flaws you don’t like. Or, if there aren’t any, stop and think about why that is (Hint: It’s not because it’s impossible to make that game.)
As far as I am concerned, Mr. Sirlin is correct. I don’t play games that encourage strategies that I don’t enjoy.
That’s not what “Try-Hard” means for MW3. In the COD series, there were always certain loadouts that were better than others. In MW2 you could do danger close/scavenger/grenade launcher and get easy kills this way. The Famas with stopping power was a 1 shot kill at any distance. These combinations were better than all others (arguably). A Try hard in this case is someone using the most overpowered combinations possible to win. For random games (non competitive, non league) games, a lot of people didn’t pick those combos. So they would be in their “B” setup and lose to you in your “A” setup, your try hard setup.
The thinking is that in their “B” setup, they are not really trying hard to win. Of course, the play that you enjoy the most may be the most over powered combo in the game. A correct usage of the phrase would be something like, “If I wanted to be a try hard, I could get a tactical nuke every game, but I like having fun more and using different kinds of gear”.
It’s OKAY for me to have 50 (or whatever large force) marines waiting outside their base at the end of 5 minutes? Really? Sounds like it goes against the spirit of the rule, but it’s perfectly in line with what you just said. Same thing for “Oh, sorry I built those proton cannons in your expansion spot, but I wasn’t attacking you.”
I’m demonstrating how stupid this attempt at ‘houserule’ stuff really is. No one even really knows what it means, they’re just relying on the ‘pornography rule’, which is a terrible way to play a game and opens the door for all kinds of dumb stuff. If you can’t even define what you mean, how are people supposed to play by your rules?
Yes it is. I’m sure it’s also a “dick move” to make a room and then ignore the rules of the room title.
Yeah, that’s fine. The 5 minutes no rush thing was a response to the common 4-pool strategy which enabled one side to beat any player not playing the same race, with the same strategy. Five minutes gave you enough time to make something that would hold off an initial 6 zerglings, which was impossible before Blizzard patched the cost of a building to balance the game (or perhaps the balancing came in with Brood War, I don’t precisely remember).
The concept was that after a initial short period of time, any race could have sufficient defenses up to play a reasonable game against whatever the opponent could create in that same amount of time. It was admirable how well Blizzard did in balancing 3 races in the initial Starcraft, but the balancing act just didn’t work for the very, very early game.
Warcraft 2 had the same rule. THF (town hall first). The only way to create resource gathering units was to build a town hall. You started the game with enough resources to make a town hall and another non offensive unit generating building. If however, you used those resources to make a barracks, you could create offensive units and be done before the other person got a hall up. Of course, now you didn’t have resources to build anything else and it was game over.
So either you won with the 3 units you could make, or you lost. The other player faced a choice, either they do the same thing, or they lose. Not a very fun way to play and most people recognized it. THF was an understood way to play but every once in a while you’d run into a person who didn’t follow it and essentially it was a waste of time. No skill involved, just flipping coins and who the hell wants to do that?
I think what Sirlin is saying is that things that aren’t obviously gamebreaking are fair game. For instance in Super Smash Bros. Melee there was wavedashing. Obviously a bug, and powerful enough that you have a significant advantage over somebody who doesn’t do it. However, the important thing is that every character can do it and if everybody does it, matches become more interesting. In SSBM, there IS a bug – and Ice Climbers infinite chain grab bug, that’s banned in almost every tournament because only the climbers can do it, it’s inescapable, and it’s basically an automatic I Win button with no counter (well, the counter is “never get grabbed the first time”, when grabbing is part of the game that’s not exactly hope inspiring).
And of course, in some games there are the ultra hidden characters that are meant to easily beat everyone else, those are commonly banned too, even in pro tournaments.
I think I agree with the general philosophy on that. In competitive play at least, house rules are fine in social games.
I understand the objection. I’m not that good at fighting games, but I played BlazBlue for a while, Jin had a move referred by players to as “Ice Cars” where he’d ride a sword made of ice across the screen. It obliterated newbies, it seemed completely impossible to beat. Of course, any good player (which, again, is not me) can easily counter it and school a noob spamming it. I think he’s just saying there’s no point in banning things just because newbs can’t beat it.
Okay, he does go a bit farther than that, but up until that point I agree with him.
Well, yeah, obviously there are going to be attacks after the five-minute mark. Wouldn’t be much of a game otherwise, now would it? Likewise, you’re obviously allowed to build units before 5 minutes, because what else do you think you’d be doing in that time?
And sure, you can argue that the people in those games were just compensating for a lack of skill at managing early-game defense. And maybe that’s true. But you could just as easily argue that the folks in the other games were compensating for a lack of late-game skills by rushing so quick that the late game never came. And maybe, in both cases, players had both sets of skills, and just found one way or the other more fun.
I’m a casual gamer. One time I went with a friend to a video game night at a dude’s house. It turns out that most of the dudes there were the local competitive fighting game scene.
They were all really friendly guys and were very happy to coach me along on the basic metagame stuff (we played Third Strike mostly with a bit of Smash Brothers) as they repeatedly smashed me into the ground. The philosophy was that you never ever “dumb down” your play to help a newbie out (unless you weren’t playing an actual match and the other guy was just operating as a punching bag for you to practice on).
I was cool with this because they were friendly and willing to help me out.
On the other hand, I can’t count the number of times that I’ve played in arcades (back when that was something that people did) and been utterly crushed by better players who would figure out that I was a newb and then proceed to do some kind of humiliating tactic while smugly saying like, “it’s an easy counter - you just need to learn how to play the game.”
Unfortunately, the jerks are way more common than the friendly guys when it comes to any kind of competitive gaming, and while Sirlin’s attitude is fine when applied to top tier players in tournament settings, it breaks down among the plebs, who use any skill gap as an excuse to be completely insufferable.
The thing is that it doesn’t MATTER; You can apply all the house rules you want, and people will still be dicks unless one of your “house rules” is “don’t be a dick” in which case, those people just won’t play with you. Or they’ll ignore your house rule because, you know, they’re going to be dicks. You can’t houserule yourself out of dealing with asshats.
And if the “5 min no rush” rule is so clear, why didn’t you just answer my questions?
Also, you’ll observe that lots of the examples of houserules that are popping up here are examples of bad game design. The warcraft 2 example of “Town Hall first”? Yeah. Easily fixed by the Starcraft design of…starting you with your “town hall” equivalent. WC2 has bad design and they recognized and fixed that for Starcraft. Similarly, they patched the issue with the 6 zergling rush.
In a game with good design, houserules are not needed. See again: Sirlin’s point. The followup point of “playing with houserules makes you bad at the real game.” is probably worth noting too.
Aside: The super secret technique for beating people who spam Ice Car is to push fewer buttons. You let them come zooming in, block, and hit them. It’s kindof a crash course in the basics of how those sorts of games work.