Long stream of conciusness: Competitive gaming

[Erik_Twice]

Because I'm sure there are some competitive gamers out there or people who want to have a chat about this topic. Doesn't matter if you just play some small torunaments from time to time or don't have any kind of experience with the field if you are interested in competitive gaming as a whole.

So what kind of games do you play? I recently decided to get some cardboard crack (Magic: The gathering cards) again because now I'm able to afford it. Competitive Pokémon has also recently piqued my curiosity and I'm trying to play TF2 again after I left the clan I was in.


I think that there are lots of misunderstandings about what being competitive is and not only from the kiddies who scream "BUT IT'S JUST A GAME". There's a very vocal "competitive" minority not very different from those who use competition as an e-penis measure.

For example, in competitive TF2 the Heavy lack of speed and, more importantly, lack of means to get to the middle point means he is not a "main" class but an utility.

Now, every good team is going to get Heavies to defend last points, to break though defenses and in certain maps. Practically every game sees Heavy play unless someone is steamrolling. He may be situational but he is not bad.

A very vocal group of players think that the Heavy is not played at all and look down on any team playing one citing his weaknesses and how a soldier is better in every regard. This is simply not true as shown above and shows a limited and close minded perception on the game.

This perception is, more often than not, fueled by e-penis and self-proclaiming oneself as "competitive" or "hardcore" and has nothing to do with competitive play.

Most people will not accept that they are bad at a game and will try to hide the fact. This prevents them from learning so lying soon becomes their only option because they don't want to hurt their ego.

Very good players are not extent from this and often you see someone very vocal or relevant in a competitive comunity showing a high lack of understanding on what makes a good competitive game.

For example, a game with very few viable strategies is not a good competitive game. Some players don't understand that if a tactic overcentralices the metagame the game stops being good and will sooner or later kill the game.

This is not exclusive to competitive gaming, there are lots of assholes playing, say, football.


Sometimes bad rules are to blame. I think that the reason why there are so many fouls in football is because the rules are lax and it's actually benefitial to break them from time to time.

Imagine you are playing Poker and you were able to draw an extra card per game without getting expelled out from the tournament, just getting a warning. Obviously you WILL do so because there's no real punishment from this.

This shows in competitive gaming in the form of harassing the opponent in order to win an advantage.

Some "competitive" players think that if you taunt or try to harm the confidence of a player in a match, trying to get him nervous or something they gain an edge so they are complete assholes in a tourney.

Now, the problem is that they think they are better players by this. They think that part of being competitive is doing anything to win within the rules. For them the game stops being a comparison of skill but an e-penis contest.

This kind of beahviour is damaging to the game itself. Makes the game less competitive because it focuses less in skill and more in being an asshole. The community gets bitter and fails to attract new players. The health of the game suffers.

Since most people who organize videogame tournaments have little idea they often don't include any kind of rules against unsporstive conduct and thus certain games are known by their high level of assholery.

Compare Fighting games to Magic: The gathering. Fighting games tournaments tend to be small and lacking those kind of rules so harassing is common. In MtG if you try this behaviour you will get kicked and your name permanently banned. The difference is size, care and knowledge of the parties involved.

If you ever organize a tournament, or run a server I can't stress this enough: Make good rules and read them to the players. Be organized and polite and distance yourself from the players. You will run into less douchebagery this way.


Playing to win is a lie

This is probably the most common truism ever told. The competitive player doesn't play "to win". He plays for fun. Good old competitive fun, but fun nontheless.

Sense of acomplishment doesn't come from winning but from the sense of challenge and that challenge only appears when competitive fun is involved.

"Playing to win" is an oversimplification and more so when talking about something as irrelevant as videogames.

I mean, if someone plays Guilty Gear to win what he gains? Nothing. Waste his time training. It's not like they even have valuable prizes.

Why do football players play football in the first place? Because they like it. If you want be rich playing any sport is a very poor choice, try anything else instead. And they could have the same benefits from "playing to win" if they played against someone unskilled.

If someone plays to win why doesn't him play against noobs to crush them? Because it's not interesting, because it's not fun.

However the pro wannabes who only care about e-pennis feed on this kind of thoughts completely unrelated to gaming. They love saying how hardcore or competitive they are because it makes them feel mightier than the rest of the mortals.

"Playing exclusively to win" is a very narrow attitude. Yes, you won that tournament. However you didn't have a good time and your opponents exclude you because you are an asshole. You won the game, but lost at life.


The same is true of "playing with honor". Some competitive players respond to this by "I play to win" and thus both fall to the same trap, thay playing with honor and playing to win are opposed to each other.

If you follow the game rules including sportsmanship which is but respect you are playing with honor. In fact, no good tournament allows playing without honor.

If you are an asshole you are disrupting the flow of the game, not honorable and not competitive. If you let a broken strategy break your metagame then your metagame is neither honorable nor competitive. If you let novices kill every effective tactic that's neither competitive nor honorable. It just can't be separated.



It's a very long post. I didn't intend it to be that way but I just wrote it. If you don't feel like reading such a post it doesn't matter, you may comment on a part of it or spark discussion as long as you do it respectufully to the fact that writing a lot is not bad, specially given than this can be read in two minutes at most.

Discuss.

[J T]

I haven't read through the whole post yet, but I just wanted to highlight that your post count is currently at 666.

Shout at the devil.

[Ack]

For the record, I actually had a friend get thrown out of a Magic: The Gathering tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct.

He decked his opponent in the face after that guy had spent a half-hour long game talking shit. While they were ejecting my friend, the security guys told him they wouldn't ban him entirely because the "douche had deserved it." But his talking trash hadn't violated any official rules, so they couldn't remove him from the tournament. You'll see this kind of crap everywhere.

[newt42]

Did somebody say... MAGIC THE GATHERING CARDS?!?! (someone here probly has a lot more...)

Where the majority of my MTG cards reside. Sorted through them all by color and category. That took a really long time...


My box sets along with some of my decks, and really old cards. I have a ton more of the older cards inside the big box.


My three greatest decks: artifact deck, Green/Black/White deck, Black deck, and my Platinum Angel, which I rotate into whatever deck I'm playing with.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I completely agree with your thoughts on competitive gaming. Sure, I'll get pissed off about loosing sometimes, but what matters to me is the sense of togetherness. The true beauty behind all this is that something so simple could closely bring together a group of good people (until someone looses and gets pissed off and throws shit at the winner and starts a fight... but those things never happen, right?! )

The sense of challenge is what really gets me going. Yes, winning said competition would be awesome, but it should never be the reason why your there in the first place.

[KillemallCFH]

For the record, I actually had a friend get thrown out of a Magic: The Gathering tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct.

He decked his opponent in the face after that guy had spent a half-hour long game talking shit. While they were ejecting my friend, the security guys told him they wouldn't ban him entirely because the "douche had deserved it." But his talking trash hadn't violated any official rules, so they couldn't remove him from the tournament. You'll see this kind of crap everywhere.

Technically, trash-talking falls under Unsporting Conduct, and is a rules violation. Your friend could've called for a judge if the trash-talking was such that it was offending him (which, judging by the fact that he hit his opponent in the face, it did).

(someone here probly has a lot more...)

That'd be me. I have no idea how many I have, but it's probably around the neighborhood of 25,000+. And about 90-95% of them are pretty much useless.


Anyways, I agree and disagree with different points you make.

Now, the problem is that they think they are better players by this. They think that part of being competitive is doing anything to win within the rules. For them the game stops being a comparison of skill but an e-penis contest.

Maybe in some situations it's just an e-penis stroke, but when there are prizes on the line, you're playing for more than just comparing skills or stroking your e-penis - you're playing to win something tangible (and usually something worth money). I don't blame someone for doing everything in their power (within the rules) to increase their chances of winning.

Now, when there are no prizes on the line, I completely agree. Competition is fun to me because I like the comparison of skills. I like the feeling that I'm improving at something, and I enjoy the challenge. However, when it comes down to it, I want to win. Winning is an accomplishment and accomplishing something feels good.

This is probably the most common truism ever told. The competitive player doesn't play "to win". He plays for fun. Good old competitive fun, but fun nontheless.

This is sorta true, but to the competitive player, winning is fun. Playing to win and playing for fun is the same thing, because the competitive player derives most of his pleasure from winning. If you're not playing to win to some extend, I'd argue, you're not really playing competitively. And again, when you're putting down money and stand to win something, everyone is playing to win, or else they're just wasting their money.


If you're playing a game against someone and don't feel some sort of sense of failure when you lose, then I really don't think it can be called competitive. Now, this certainly doesn't mean you should get pissed off when you lose and it doesn't mean you shouldn't still be having fun (because if either of those happen, your best bet is just to stop playing). However, this sense of failure will motivate you to get better, with the ultimate goal of winning. To me, playing something with a competitive mindset is a two-way street. I know that I'll definitely feel worse when I lose (compared to a game I'm playing more casually), but I also know I'll feel better when I win. And that feeling is what I'm striving for.

(N.B. I'm incredibly tired right now and procrastinating studying for finals, so I don't really know if anything I just said made sense. But I'll assume it did.)

[Erik_Twice]

Technically, trash-talking falls under Unsporting Conduct, and is a rules violation. Your friend could've called for a judge if the trash-talking was such that it was offending him

Exactly. In fact if the opponent refuses to stop talking when you want a silent game you are entitled to call for a judge so not even trash-talking is needed.

(someone here probly has a lot more...)

I have half Armageddon Stax and some cheap Legacy staples. I sold all my cards for a very bad price when I left.

And I miss my japanese Yawghmoth's will signed by Rosewater and the artist.

Now, when there are no prizes on the line, I completely agree. Competition is fun to me because I like the comparison of skills. I like the feeling that I'm improving at something, and I enjoy the challenge. However, when it comes down to it, I want to win. Winning is an accomplishment and accomplishing something feels good.

I agree with that.

This is sorta true, but to the competitive player, winning is fun. Playing to win and playing for fun is the same thing, because the competitive player derives most of his pleasure from winning.

What I mean is that "winning" alone is not the reason why a competitive plyer plays. The fun in winning is directly related to the challenge offered and can't really be separated. Nobody enjoys beating kids*

*Unless they are the kind of asshole kids with 1000$ decks that think they are good players because they netdecked and thus beat their little friends. But I don't think you enjoy that for competitive reasons.

If you're playing a game against someone and don't feel some sort of sense of failure when you lose, then I really don't think it can be called competitive.

[/quote]

Well, if I lose I just get a little dissapointed. However that is something very small compared to the fun rush I had playing the tournament.

In fact if I lose because of my own mistakes I don't feel dissapointed. Why should I be? I failed, time to get better not to cry. If I knew everything about the game and could beat anyone without effort I don't think it would be fun.

If the opponent outsmarts me then he deserved to win. This includes going rogue and playing unknown strategies.

If I lose to hax I will feel a bit dissapointed but I know there was nothing I could do about it so I don't really feel about because of it. It's annoying when you lose a tournament because you don't draw any of the 30 cards that could win you the game but in the long run that doesn't really matter. It may detract from the experience of that tournament but it will not detract me from competitive gaming as a whole.




Lately there has been one thing that bothers me. You see, most people when playing Pokémon follows a tier/ban list froma website called Smogon. While the list has it's flaws they base it on usage, recollect data using servers and the best players on the ladder vote. It's not a perfect system but it's by far the best I have seen.

Now, while they are the most followed rules some groups refuse to follow them. The problem is that they create their own tiers and ban lists without any kind of data, based only on the opinion of a few.

For example the Pokémon tournament I went to allowed Wynaut. Yes, he has 300 less HP than Wobbuffet but it doesn't matter because you are not even going to get hit.

For those who don't know why Wobbuffet is such a dangerous Pokémon, the reason is simple. You can't switch because of his ability and he learns Encore a move that forces the enemy to repeat the last attack over and over again.

This means that if you switch Wobbuffet when the opponent uses a non-damaging move that pokemon is dead. No counterattackis possible and you can't switch.

Wynaut is the pre-evolution of Wobbuffet and while it has far worse stats he still has the same ability and Encore so he is broken.

Now, if you prove that Wynaut is fine it's cool. But the people at the tournament didn't, they were just basing it on theory. For you Magic players, it's like Skullclamp. Broken as hell, but most people don't even know why or don't truly grasp it's power.

Fortunatedly nobody brought Wynaut to the tournament because they either thought it was banned or because they didn't want to ruin a small tournament with him.

Man I love to rant XD