http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing- ... art-1.html
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing- ... ilbag.html

I read through these articles and find the information in it quite interesting, including the idea of a "scrub." I'd like to hear If there's anything you agree or disagree with.

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Grivous.

delicious sirloin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3mHP575NOk

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I can follow his line of thinking. I have a friend who's a giant scrub. He'll blame his loss on some kind of cheapness of the opponent 99 % of the time. He'll make up a new excuse every single round if you try to be versatile. He hates me for playing Ike in Super Smash Bros. even though I play him out of personal preference and he happens to be low tier, and I wonder why he continues to play Captain Falcon if he thinks he's not as good as my character. He rage-quits in Starcraft II right away if he gets canon rushed, even if he has an ample chance of winning against it. I have nothing against canon rushing. I don't like doing it myself, and suck at it, but it's clear that Blizzard intended it to be a thing you can do in the game. I have no qualms with people that use it, and I have nobody to blame for myself for sucking at countering it when I lose to it.

I do agree that in all GOOD competitive games, there's no such thing as a tactic cheap enough that you can't counter it and turn their cheapness against them.

On the other hand, I think we're all scrubs one way or another. It's pretty much guarenteed to happen when you're bad or new at something. No one, ever, wants to admit that they suck. I pulled out all the examples of my non-scrubness above, but I also have more suppressed memories of major scrubness: I spend all my time complaining when playing FPS games. In TF2 I'm always playing against the overpowered classes or running into the one who's the paper to my rock. Or so I tell myself and others. There was several tactics I considered cheap in the first Starcraft and Super Smash Bros. Melee. And so forth. Scrubness is more a phase than a state, I think. It may help to get you through it by being conscious of it, but you have to get through regardless.

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Seems Sirlin shows hypocrisy, as several commenters have said, in that he endorses apparently arbitrary rules (like no Akuma) that interfere with "playing to win". If you're playing to win, why not, say, cut power to the opponent's machine, interfere with their network connection, hold a relative hostage, etc. to interfere with their ability to fight back?

And yes, that's an argument ad absurdum to show that some limits on allowed gameplay are appropriate. It's just a question of where to draw the line.

I think his motivation is too tightly constrained and does not take into account that people are not always playing to get better, and that some people compete for the sake of competition, not to win.

Personally I've thrown games to make them closer especially if I'm playing pool with a lady on a date. I'll purposely keep the game close. Instead of knocking the last 4 in and saying wrack em up loser (My mom actually once did that when we were playing a game).

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Zeph do you ever tire of being perfect? ~Dave
Zeph is still awesome though. ~Rival
I love you so much right now Zeph. ~Yoshi
I love you Zeph. You and your simple yet humorous topic-breakers. ~Coos
Zeph has left me inspired. ~Mathias
Zeph is so awesome even soulless bits of binary worship him. ~Wizard
Curse YOU ZEPH! CURSE YOU! ~JesusChrist
WE ARE SORRY THAT WE ARE NOT AS PERFECT AS YOU, ZEPH! ~Stufflikehearts
Zepherin for forum queen and writer of the best seller "how to screw your brethen up for dummies". ~ The Mirak

Hey, I saw this a long time ago.

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One time when I was high, I thought I was in an ambulance dying. Turns out I was just eating sherbert.
-stufflikehearts-

Yeah, this is ridiculously old.

Sirlin puts way too much fluff into the idea, but basically you should just forget about cheap tactics and play the damn game using whatever strategy is most appropriate.

If a game is truly unbalanced then you should just not play it.

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I tend to ignore or read only parts of the articles or opinions of arrogant people. Maybe I'm missing something nice, but I doubt it. Get off the horse if you want to make a point.
As for the 'play to win' thing... I'll play however the fuck I want to play. If I lose all the time at something and I don't improve, I just change the game. And If I have a self-created set of rules, I'll not give them up as long as I believe in them.
What this guy is saying is like 'Cutting in line in front of handicapped people is okay, because it's not a written law. Only pussies believe in morals' I KNOW I'm not forced to do some things, but it feels good to do them nonetheless.

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Not to be rude or anything but you already sound like a scrub. Respectfully though, this is the response I would expect, so your opinion is taken into consideration.

Since the link sounds like it focuses on self-improvement, the scrub is basically the beginner as what Sirlin says. In my opinion, I find it natural that people use cheap tactics in whatever game he/she plays because he/she doesn't know how the game works.

For example, I was a scrub at Tekken myself, but by the time I bought Tekken 6, I actually started improving from cheap tactics. I was an Eddy player, but even the X and O mashing improved my skills quite a bit. I'm a Lee player now. And since this is Tekken I'm talking about, I'm talking about tactics in this case.

Ironically though, I find games with cheap tactics a real challenge. An example of that is KOF. It may have overpowered bosses that use cheap tactics, but KOF was actually fun that way. I'm a scrub at KOF, but it doesn't matter.

Since the article is a little outdated, so I'll update the OP with the polished versions of the chapters.

Actually, I'm not going to argue on this one because of the outdated article. The site has the polished chapters anyway. I'm sure you read them. Did you?



"Burger king combo!

Shes having it her way!"

That vid was freaking awesome by the way. It was kind of like the Tandem feature from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

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Grivous.

I'm not saying you shouldn't make use of cheap tactics. I'm saying you should forget the idea of a tactic being cheap at all. Which is what Sirlin is saying, if I recall correctly. It's been a while since I last read the article.

If you mean my second comment about games being completely unbalanced... there are games that are so poorly balanced that there is no other strategy to it. You just do one thing over and over till you win. In which case it no longer becomes a game, you might as well be a machine.

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KoF is great. The bosses are bullshit, but that's the way they should be. Tournament banned, but so rigged that it's still difficult for a human player to beat despite the CPU controlling the boss.

And by human player, I mean someone who actually knows how to play the game well.

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@Rosso

Actually, Sirlin was saying that it was the scrubs who did not use "cheap" tactics, and that people who play to win ought to use them.

people just take video games too seriously

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I'm NORML and I VOTE
Soul Silver Friend Code: 0260-2900-0828

people just take sports too seriously

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Twitter | Transistor Glamor | Tumblr | MAL

yes, they do
what's your point?
we're talking about video games, here, jay
keep up

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I'm NORML and I VOTE
Soul Silver Friend Code: 0260-2900-0828

guise just smoke weed and relax

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Pretty much this.

I just don't find games fun any more when I have to play against srs playerz. It may just be me but there's a difference between playing a game properly and being a hardcore gamer dood [sic]. Namely that the latter are not much fun to play with.

In conclusion, games are meant to be fun and there's no way I'll play with someone if they can't handle not winning or whatever. Or something. Make up your own morale.

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"Worst case scenario I'll get arrested for public nudity.
Best case scenerio I'll get arrested for public nudity with a boner. It's win win." ~ Dave
"Also Yoshi is the most important person in all of Australia." ~ Zepherin

When a video game starts being like work it stops being fun.

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Zeph do you ever tire of being perfect? ~Dave
Zeph is still awesome though. ~Rival
I love you so much right now Zeph. ~Yoshi
I love you Zeph. You and your simple yet humorous topic-breakers. ~Coos
Zeph has left me inspired. ~Mathias
Zeph is so awesome even soulless bits of binary worship him. ~Wizard
Curse YOU ZEPH! CURSE YOU! ~JesusChrist
WE ARE SORRY THAT WE ARE NOT AS PERFECT AS YOU, ZEPH! ~Stufflikehearts
Zepherin for forum queen and writer of the best seller "how to screw your brethen up for dummies". ~ The Mirak

yeah yoshi and zeph know about the enjoying yourself vibe
and i can't wait for MvC3 because it's a fun game
i just won't play against overly competitive faggots who have nothing else going for them but faster thumbs than me

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I'm NORML and I VOTE
Soul Silver Friend Code: 0260-2900-0828

dude I'm playing MvC3 on that poopy baby mode. I just want a fight. I know I suck at fighters, doesn't make me any less enthusiastic at playing MvC.

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A Pimp Named Jeezy Creezy: Lasting all the way up to Valentine's.

And the Pimpeth lord sat amidst his real ballin' players, the Apostles, and raisingeth his cup of Cristal as they devoured the grapes and cheese from the finest bitches in town he said

"Sleepery Dee, Sleepery Doo.
Whoever betrays me tonight, I'll mo'fuckin' cap you!"

Where did you play MvC3 at?

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Grivous.