papalorax said:

This is a bad idea as it leads to gaming the system even more than it already can be. At the MO regional we had the joust of Saturday and the melee on Sunday figuring that people who weren't interested in melee could hit the road earlier and not be stuck in town for 5 or 6 extra hours. The top 4 was two players in contention for Overall weekend champ and two guys who were not. The two who were not in the running were just trying to win the melee game while Kennon was trying to keep Dobbler from getting first or second at the table. If he could have won he would have, but it was in his best interest to keep Greg down. On the other hand Greg knew that he had to keep Will in third or fourth and he would be overall champ. It turned into two people playing the game and two people beating each other down. Had we flopped the tournament days we would not have had that problem.

mason240 said:

I suggested it several times over the weekend. For some reason, no one ever took me seriously.

I also tried suggesting Civil War.

I had anticipated the Hand of the King counting into the Overall up until it got announced on here Corey won it. I don't know why they left it out, but it might have something to do with it being a cesspit of negative player experience. Just thinking about the Bran Stark build I made a few months back makes me feel like an *******.

Mathias Fricot said:

Hand of the King format is a pretty broken format. Between burn mechanics and Beric, its got serious balance issues.

It is known.

ktom said:

I can say I wouldn't. Honestly. Personally this has left such a bad taste in my mouth I'm probably burning both their cards when they come out. They did what they felt was perfectly acceptable to them. I wouldn't have done it, and yes I am judging them. Both of them have been diminished in my eyes. But again whatever. My opinion means nothing to them.

Dear people complaining about collusion in melee being unfair-something-something, please read this article:

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html

tia

hklown said:

I liked the article, and you are right. Play to win, I suppose.

But try this on for size.

What if next year, every single person, bent out of shape about how the final went this year decides they are going to do everything in their power to make sure Eric and Corey don't make the final table? What if their actions this year cause their chances of winning to decrease next year, or ever again for that matter?

I don't think the article accurately describes or relates to a multiplayer environment where people can team up with eachother or against eachother.

You can pretty much say that for any game (Player x was a huge jerk at last year's Y finals, let's all gang up on him!).

If people want to play for reasons other then winning, then my guess is they prrrrrobably don't understand what sirlin is talking about.

EDIT: Because in the example you gave, they're more concerned with perpetuating their scrub mentality via vigilante justice then actually playing the game to win.

Penfold said:

Penfold said:

~Why don't you shred them and stuff them into an effigy first. I think you might be taking this a bit too seriously. If anyone has a problem with them not "being honorable" they should take it up with the "competitive" format that not only allows, but condones, or even encourages, such actions. Such a format should not be taken so seriously.

Just offering a different perspective here. Whether or not what they did offends the sensitivities of some players out there, remember that Eddard rebelled with his friend Robert Baratheon, and willingly helped him take the throne. Erick's actions helped a friend take a title out of his respect and gratitude for him. I think Martin would be impressed with Erick's selfless sense of honor at giving the title to his friend, not taking it for himself. Pretty Nedly, actually.

hklown said:

I liked the article, and you are right. Play to win, I suppose.

But try this on for size.

What if next year, every single person, bent out of shape about how the final went this year decides they are going to do everything in their power to make sure Eric and Corey don't make the final table? What if their actions this year cause their chances of winning to decrease next year, or ever again for that matter?

I don't think the article accurately describes or relates to a multiplayer environment where people can team up with eachother or against eachother.

Odds are if they did that, they wouldn't be playing to win, but most players don't play to win in the first place; so if people really do that, they need to get a life and not care about what happened/didn't happen in a card game (in what will be a year ago).

The truly "honorable" thing in competitive gaming is playing to win (this is not equivalent to cheating to win). If somebody wants to throw away their chances to simply "knock" someone else for the sake of revenge, etc. then they are by definition or don't approve of legal methods than win games/tournament (due to what are usually made-up rules), they are by definition -- "a scrub."

Also, sirlin

Furthermore Danigral has the right of it. If there truly is a problem, it's with the format, cardpool, rules, etc. Not the player using those things to win. This is why I've pro-active in the past about bannings, errata, changing tournament rules, etc. so that the game can be more balanced, accessible, and primarily based on a players game-playing skill. But it's easier to pull out a tooth than to convince people of anything on these forums, so I've mainly stopped and spend my time doing more constructive things.

Hmmm... that was an interesting article until he started doing what scrubs do as defense for his article against scrub-dom. There's a logical loop that he (or she, I didn't see anything that particularly identified) seems to have fallen into and can't escape. In defense of all the possible moves of the game (in particular throws and CCs) he repeatedly asserts that if it's there and part of the game, it should be used if it can help you win. As well, he asserts that small bugs in gameplay coding like the Iceman example are also legitimate ways to help you win. He then goes on to declare the unlockable Akuma off-limits for being broken, and does so repeatedly in the comments section as well. He attempts to draw a completely illogical line that utliziing an included character in the game (yes, I admit, Akuma is not easily accessed, but the way to do so was programmed into the game) is somehow illegitimate and "broken." How this is in any quantifiable way different from his original premise of the subjective rules generated by the mindset of scrubs completely eludes me. How can the Iceman hack be defended as legitimate? It simply equates to a different move accessed by careful timing and the application of a certain order of button presses and movements- entering a code to unlock the different move just as one would enter the code to unlock Akuma.

*shrug*

He's also pretty locked up on telling people that are more accurately following the logical thread that they just don't understand.

The akuma thing is pretty much a relic of the age when it was impossible to patch cabinets in arcades (FUN FACTIOD: arcade cabs now are generally just a console system hooked up to a really cool TV, which makes them easy to software patch).

So essentially, the Akuma example was the community deciding to "patch" or "errata" a system that otherwise could not have been patched or errated . However, in modern times fighting games can be patched, and in fact that happens fairly regularly.

CCGs of course, have always had the capacity to be patched/errated, so that is Pretty Much That.

Sooo..... at what point is it ok to patch or errata? Do the scrubs who find something unfair have the opportunity to call for it (in this case, looking at a tweak to tournament rules) like the players who patched the game themselves by banning Akuma? While I understand that the example is out of date due to the current ability to actually update the code on arcade machines, I just can't find the line that the author is using to generate a distinction.

lol, I'm pretty sure we had this discussion a couple years back, though I don't recall how it turned out.

Also, that's interesting about arcade machines. Man I remember when Soul Caliber came out on Dreamcast and actually looked better than the arcade system thanks to the more powerful hardware in the Dreamcast.

hklown said:

hklown said:

Read it, A it is BS. As Kennon shows it is not even internally consistent.

B. There are two very valid arguments that Eric wasn't playing to win. He was playing for Corey to win.

B1. If he were playing to win he would have done one of two things, either played each game by the rules of the game within the game which means sometimes alliances are going to get you further and sometimes they aren't making and breaking them within the game is the game. Making them outside of the game has nothing to do with the game.

B2. Making alliances outside of the game is perfectly acceptable and collusion is acceptable and even expected or should be (because this is really what some of the arguments here boil down to), at the final table he should have mislead Corey stabbed him in the back and taken first place.

Corey however could be said to be playing for the win.

What they did is not explicitly against the rules. I don't think anyone here has even remotely said it was. What people are discussing is whether there could be or should be rules against it, and if there can't be what could be done to mitigate it in the future. I am not calling either of them a cheater. I did say I have lost respect for them. I would be saying the same thing in joust if they decided to not play each other and take draws to game the system (were that still allowed).

They did what they felt was best for them. I am expressing my thoughts and feelings on the matter.

Dreamcast was definitely ahead of its time.

Well he (it is a he) actually has another section/article on errata, etc. (he's standard for errata, etc. are actually very tough), but the point of bringing up Akuma was to give a strong example of unfair 1-sided play, which is bad for a competitive game. Akuma was so good that he literally created an entirely different game . Most characters COULD NOT beat Akuma. The game with Akuma and without Akuma was completely different. That's how powerful Akuma was. The fact that it took a really long button sequence to even play the character was further evidence that Akuma was not meant to be part of the game. So the community banned him since it was a choice of playing the game Street Fighter or the game AKUMA! The community liked Street Fighter better and chose it over AKUMA!

Kennon- what you're talking about there kind of side steps into the realm of "what are the accecptable reasons to ban/errata". I think in a competitive card game, the criteria for that look like

• Promote diversity in deckbuilding
• Promote power-equality between factions
• Promote victory by [winner type] skill
  (individual skill if the winner is an individual, group skill/cohesiveness if the winner is a group of people)

Obviously, the current melee rules do not promote that last point, and should be changed to do so (or, refactor the format to be a test of group skill instead of individual player skill).

Also, you have to keep this in mind: one of the things Sirlin talks about is that a game that doesn't adapt to correct these issues is a flawed game- it's not the players who are flawed for taking advantage of it.

Penfold: see my response to kennon about the consistency thing. As for Erick/Corey not playing to win, if they had a prior agreement to help solidify the lead for whoever was in a better position to win when they met at the final table , then your argument that Erick was not playing to win falls apart. He simply made an agreement that would help him win at the end if he was ahead of Corey, and vice versa. However I don't want to speak for them, so,

EDIT: Also Penfold, what you did there (dismissing the entire article because of a bit of inconsistency in an example application) is a logical fallacy called faulty induction .

Kennon said:

Kennon said:

David Sirlin is the author. So, that's a man.

Sirlin is not the one who decided SSF2T Akuma is broken. That was decided after a period of play where Akuma was allowed, but then dominated any and all play. The issue is that once Akuma hits the opponent (even if it is blocked), the opponent cannot win. So, if there ever was a reason to ban something, then that was it.

I'm not Sirlin, so I can't speak for him, but the fighting game community generally accepts any tactic as long as it doesn't mean an instant loss and you can fight against it.

He actually expanded those articles into a full book. You can read the entire thing for free off of his website: www.sirlin.net

On a side note: Everyone should check out the card games he has created. Yomi and Puzzle Strike are amazing.

Hah,

That article is mediocre at best and pretty poor from an academic point of view. All his examples come from old school arcade game coding. Those have idiosyncrasies that cannot really be mapped to other types of competition for analogies. He never even gives any concrete examples but just vague anecdotes about "the scrub". His reliance on a condescending term takes away from any sort of empirical point he is trying to make. He has no point that hasn't already been made more succinctly. For example the whole article doesn't say anything that Vince Lombardi hasn't already said more concisely. Then he throws out some chart on ATP as if that misguided analogy somehow proves his point?

Instead of rubbish like this article, I will recommend a book that ever collectible game player should read (imo): The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

Fieras said:

I'd say everyone should bring it. Probably won't be enough, though.

LaughingTree said:

That article was written in the 90's. So, when it was written the "old school" arcade game was still current.

While the article might not be academic, it makes a good point. If you're going to take part in something, then do everything you can to do your best (unless it is cheating). Sure people have said this before him, and more will say it after, but this article spoke to a generation of upcoming gamers.

I don't think you should do anything short of cheating to win. Does that mean good sportmanship is a 'scrub' behaviour? I'd rather be a scrub.

Would people still be ok with it if all 4 of the final table were friends and decided to give one player the win?

It seems to me the "do anything to win" mindset is a relic from the hypercompetitive 80s and, in my mind, has no place in a competition based on a social experience (playing a game, having fun) where you still want to be able to look people in the eye after the competition is done.

Saturnine said:

I think that is a bunch of malarky. "Hypercompetitive 80s"? You do realize we are talking about world championship tournaments, right?

JackT said:

LOL. +1

I can appreciate competitive gameplay, hell, it's the reason most of us play in these things. However, I do think there is such a thing as being "overcompetitive." When I hear players discussing purposely trying to knock certain people out of the top so they don't have to play against them, or allowing certain people to win because it will position the rankings in a certain way (again, so as to keep certain people considered "threats" out), it just puts a bad taste in my mouth. If you are truly an honorable competitor and as good a player as you think you are then you should WANT to beat the other talented players out there at their best, not try to keep such a matchup from ever occurring.