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Peregrine wrote:But the point is that there's the same "casual at all costs" attitude as in 40k, where people whine endlessly about how something is "overpowered" because it beat them and add all kinds of unwritten rules about what "cheese" you're not supposed to use. The only difference between MTG and 40k is that the "casual at all costs" crowd is a lot less common in MTG, and a lot easier to avoid.

MTG keeps track of the most broken combinations and usually seek to correct this, e.g., by limiting the number, say, of x card-type that you can put in a deck (only one dark ritual, for example). No?

Talizvar wrote:And before it gets all fun, and various "ethics of play" is bandied about: read about "scrubs" here:

I simply disagree with the article you link. The purpose of games is leisure/relaxation. I have a friend who will play a video game rpg, and at the end of every level, he'll spend 10 minutes "optimizing" his gear. Er...I thought we were playing a video game?


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Peregrine wrote:Yes, and that's one reason why people like you* are a minority in MTG. Well, that and the fact that bluffing**** is a major element of MTG strategy. Kant probably wouldn't approve of you playing it.

*As defined by your arguments in this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/647319.page

I think the fact that they frequently have new "standard" editions helps things out, plus the fact that there are inherent limitations in what can be spammed. Only 4 cards of the same title (barring lands) per deck.



****Whatever you may mean by "bluff," by a "lie" I understand the verbal expression of what is contrary to what is on one's mind. I know, for example, that Santa Claus does not exist. I tell a small child, however, that Santa Claus does exist (even though I know he doesn't). That is a lie.

I can't think of any situation in which I'd have to lie in Magic the Gathering.

As a professor I know often says regarding the matter:

You always must tell the truth. However, you don't always have to tell the truth."

Peregrine wrote:Not really. The game itself is fast, but there's still the investment of building your deck. I think the biggest factor is just that MTG is a better game and there are fewer people who feel the need to wall off their personal variant of it and declare everything else to be Having Fun The Wrong Way.

Plus, and I really think this is true, the fact that MTG forces deck variety. You can only have 4 of the same card (apart from lands) in your deck. They pretty much force players to customize and play different kinds of things. If a player says that he's playing red, even if I know all of the cards in the current edition, I still have no clue what cards are in his deck. If a "competitive" player tells me that he's playing Tau, I already know that I'm going to be facing riptide and broadside spam.

Peregrine wrote:And yet again you don't understand the concept of other people having fun doing things that you don't enjoy. For your friend that optimization is leisure/relaxation.

Oh, I'm quite sure that he's having fun. It simply doesn't make sense to me. The game (let us suppose) is about cutting goblins in half. Can't you fiddle with your equipment later?

Then you aren't thinking very hard.

Give me a concrete instance. What do you have in mind?

And that's a really stupid concept that fails utterly in real life. I really hope this isn't a philosophy professor telling you this in class.

He's a Thomist (someone who subscribes to the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas).

Peregrine wrote:No it doesn't. Netdecking exists in MTG just like netlisting does in 40k.

In practice, though, it's really not as common, is it? I mean, even the "competitive" players I know don't use net decks. Even the one player I'm friends with who actually does have this bizarre competitive mindset...he thinks up his own combinations.

Only if they're a "casual" player who deliberately avoids playing the best stuff and/or you don't pay enough attention to MTG strategy to learn the popular decks. If they're a competitive player you can guess the entire contents of their deck from little more than "red aggro", with maybe a few slight customizations (usually less than five cards) for the local metagame.

Really? I was under the impression that there was much more customization in Magic. Especially given the fact that, unless you're purchasing everything off the net, your cardpool is coming either from 1. premade decks or 2. random packs of cards.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Any attempt to deceive is a lie, Traditio. Leading someone to believe something which is not true (whether by word, action, implication, or omission) is lying.

Most games of competition (including 40k and Magic: the Gathering) involve deceit or obfuscation as to one's true motive or capabilities. This is a form of lying.

All lying is deception, but not all deception is lying. To lie is to try to deceive someone by telling him something that you know isn't true. That is what I mean by "lie." I think "x," but I say not "x."

Dissimulation covers other forms of deception. For example, I can say something true but ambiguous, in hopes that my interlocutor will misunderstand me. An example of this is one of the early Christian saints. The authorities, who were persecuting Christians, are chasing him down, and he's on a boat. They don't recognize him, and they ask him if he knows where so and so is. His answer? "He's not far!" Note, what he said is perfectly true...but he wanted the Romans to keep on walking, right?

That's not a lie.

Problems with dissimulation arise, however, when, for example, you have an obligation to tell the truth. If you dissimulate to your confessor, you're committing sacrilege.

Lying is intrinsically evil. Dissimulation can be justified at least in some circumstances.

Peregrine wrote:Why does it matter?

It's cutting into the ork-killing fun time...which, again, let us suppose, is what the game is about.

*I draw a card*
"Well, that sucks, go ahead and kill me. Your turn."
*you attack with everything*
*I cast "destroy all attacking creatures"*
"Oops, I guess you lose now."

Whether or not what you said is a lie, it's not necessary for you to have said it. It's possible to play Magic the Gathering predominately in silence.

Well that's disappointing. I'm really surprised that someone would hire a professor with such obviously absurd beliefs in their professional field. That's like hiring a young-earth creationist to teach biology, or a geocentrist to teach physics.

1. It's a Catholic university.

2. Are you an expert in philosophy, that you are so quick to dismiss St. Thomas, especially in light of:

3. Aeterni Patris, in which Pope Leo XIII pretty much officially endorsed St. Thomas Aquinas' philosophy?

Peregrine wrote:It's also a really bad example because it implies an obligation to tell the truth to people who are trying to persecute you.

As I said: there's no such obligation. As I quoted earlier: you always must tell the truth. In other words, if you open your mouth to talk, what you say had better be true. But you don't have to open your mouth in the first place. You can remain silent.

And I see we're back to discussing your absurd philosophical beliefs. Remember the example of lying to a child to surprise them with a birthday party?

Yes, I recall that in the other thread. He wasn't telling the child that he and his wife were showing up, right? Again, that's not a lie. There's no such obligation to tell the child. However, if the child were to ask, "No, we aren't coming to your party" is not an acceptable answer. "We have plans," however, would be perfectly acceptable. Dissimulation is fine.

 malfred wrote:
So...what does the lying have to do with the original topic?

Peregrine brought it up in the second to last post of the first page. He insinuated that I can't play Magic the Gathering because it is necessary to bluff, and by this, he insinuated that it is necessary to tell lies in order to play magic the gathering. I was simply pointing out that this isn't true.


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Peregrine wrote:And, again, in the real world this is clearly wrong. If someone says "I'm going to murder your friend, tell me where they are or I'll kill you" then you have no obligation to tell the truth or to sacrifice your own life to avoid lying. You can tell them a lie with a clear conscience.

In concreto, it's not necessary. You are perfectly free to dissimulate. "You might find him at such and such a place. [In point of fact, you certainly won't find him there. But it's possible that you might have, if only he had been there! ] And where the only alternatives are 1. committing a moral wrong or 2. dying, it is always better to suffer evil than to do it.

Peregrine wrote:Ok, so instead of saying "it's ok to lie to a murderer to prevent them from murdering someone" you have to resort to a RAW argument where you didn't technically lie according to the most literal interpretation of your words? This is why Kant's moral philosophy is a joke.

There's a huge difference. In the one case, you committed an intrinsic moral evil. You told a lie. In the other case, you told the truth. Not a truth, perhaps, that the murderer is particularly interested in (I mean, you could tell him a billion places in which he may find your friend; for every contingent proposition, "possibly A" is a true statement). Still. You told the truth.

In fact, if you have a scrupulous conscience, you need not even speak in propositions. Ask him questions:

"Have you checked at x place [where I know that you won't find my friend]?" "How about y place [where I know for a fact that you'll never find my friend]?"

Questions don't even have a truth value!

Anyway, it's not just Kant. As much as even some Thomists will disagree about this, St. Thomas is pretty black and white on the subject. So is St. Augustine and a large number of Church Fathers and doctors.

(And really, it's better to die than to lie to a murderer to save your friend? Lol.)

In one case, something bad happens to you. In the other case, you do something bad and make yourself worse thereby.

As early as Plato, this truth found clear expression: it is better to suffer evil than to commit evil.

Peregrine, if you wish to pursue the matter at greater length, I can certainly do this. Feel free either to create a thread on the topic in the relevent forum, or else, PM me. However, I really don't want to drag this particular thread further off topic.


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Peregrine wrote:Much better balance so that there are fewer situations where a fan of a particular deck/card feels like the only way they can have a decent chance of winning with that deck/card is to exclude the more powerful alternatives, and much better rule clarity so that the entire RAW/RAI argument is removed. Also, it's not really a case of better vs. worse, but the release cycle gets people used to the idea of changing their decks constantly instead of becoming attached to one specific decklist and having to protect their ability to play it successfully.

Another, on topic, observation: A magic deck doesn't require an investment in the vicinity of hundreds of dollars. And once you understand the rules, you don't have to keep buying new rule books.

So, yeah. When someone tells you that your deck sucks, your response is: "Oh, boo. I paid like 20 bucks for this."

If someone tells you that your warhammer army sucks...

Peregrine wrote:You must not play MTG if you think this is true.

I have like 5-7 old decks (I'm not really into the game any more). My favorite is an old pestilence deck. Basically, pestilence + urza's armor + cemetary gates is the primary win condition. I'm pretty sure that it's not a hundred dollar deck.

Actually, now that I think of it, I think that's basically what's wrong with "competitive" players. A "competitive" player is going to try to shut his opponent down. He's going to try to prevent his opponent from playing.

The street fighter player who spams throws, or the fighter-game player who keeps bouncing his opponent against the wall ad infinitum...he's the only one playing that game. There's nothing fun about watching your opponent play the game while you sit there basically twiddling your thumbs.

There's nothing fun about a game in which your opponent counters all of your spells, makes you sacrifice all of your lands, etc.

There's nothing fun about a game of warhammer in which your opponent only uses fliers, and I have no effective anti air.

You don't want me to cry OP or cheese? Then let me play the game. Don't turn it into a game in which I am basically just sitting in my chair twiddling my thumbs. I'm not saying "let me win." I'm simply saying: "Don't set out to play the game in such a way that you're the only one playing." That's all. Otherwise, I'm just engaging in an extravagent waste of my time. And...for what? For you to have the great and amazing honor of saying: "I win"? Really? Is my time worth so little?

And, furthermore, there is a reason that video games are called video games. They are a spectacle. There's nothing really spectular about watching you spam throws. There's nothing spectacular about watching you waste 10 minutes scrolling through your items list and trying to determine which sword you want to equip to your character.

Peregrine wrote:Unless the other player is equally competitive, in which case neither of them is shut down.

Except, we're playing a game. Why would you intentionally set out to play a game in which your opponent isn't playing at all? That doesn't make sense. "But I want to win!" Sure. But that's not all that there is to a game. There's also...you know...the playing involved. That's kind of what games involve. Games are played.

Then get better at the game and fight back. And read http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/ for why this "cheese" is only "cheese" if you're a newbie who never tries to improve your fighting game skills.

I got pretty good at Dragon Ball Z budokai tenkaichi 3. My favorite character was majin vegeta. Basically, I would do some serious melee with that guy and would do some truly spectacular and extended attack chains. One day, my opponent is like: "Y'know, I can stop this." We each play 3 characters or whatever, maybe 5. I forgot. His selection? Robotic Cooler. Times 5. He spams a dash move. Basically, every time I stand up, I find myself caught in a cut scene.

"Really?"

"Yup."

Then get better at the game and fight back. Neither counterspell nor land destruction decks are unbeatable. If you're losing constantly to them you're probably either playing a weak deck or haven't learned things like how to bluff a spell through an opponent's counterspells.

The fact that you would play like that in the first place just strikes me as odd. Basically, the casual player says: "Here is what I want to do." The "competitive" player says: "Here's what I don't want my opponent to do. I want him to sit in his chair and twiddle his thumbs."

I am not amused. For one, my time is worth more than that, and if that's what you're (and not you in particular, of course, but the competitive player in general) going for, then frankly, I just think that you're (and again, I don't mean you in particular) pathetic. The fact that that is your idea of fun..."Hey, let's play a game!" "Ok...what's the goal?" "For you to sit there and do nothing while I laugh at you." "Oh...well feth you too, then. Go find a magnifying glass and some ants, creep. Or a therapist. "


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Peregrine wrote:And yet again you don't understand that other people enjoy different things about games. This is all just your personal preference, nothing more. You like the spectacle, some people prefer analyzing sword stats. So please stop presenting your subjective opinions as some kind of objective truth about gaming.

Then why is it a video game? Wouldn't the competitive player be better off doing math problems for fun?

Peregrine wrote:Because in non-40k games this nightmare scenario only applies when one player has a major skill advantage over the other.

Be that as it may, that's what the competitive player is going for. You call it a "nightmare scenario." It's not a nightmare scenario for the competitive player. That's his dream scenario. That's what he specifically was going for.

I just think there's something wrong with that. Considered from that perspective, it just strikes me as sociopathic.

For example, in MTG a game against a counterspell deck involves things like playing a aggressive opening to win the game before the counterspell deck can get its defenses up, bluffing with weaker spells to draw a counter and leave an opening for your real threat, etc. It only consists of "can I cast this? Nope" over and over again if the non-counterspell player doesn't have the skill or experience required to play effectively. But when both players are at the same skill level the counterspell deck is an interesting matchup where both players are playing the game on multiple levels, even though one of them has cards that mostly consist of "you can't do that".

Seriously. It's a game. Why would you do that? Casual player: "Alright, we can play magic the gathering now!" Competitive player: "No you can't! Not with my deck. I'm going to do my best to make sure of that!" "But you just asked me if I wanted to play MTG..." "Yup!" "O...k.... "

Since you don't understand this I'm going to guess that you never played MTG seriously enough to learn things like anti-counterspell strategy, or labeled them "cheese" immediately and excluded them from your group instead of learning their strengths and weaknesses.

"Seriously"? I mean, I played MTG for a while. I was never really big on tournaments or anything, but it was a game that I played fairly regularly. I have like 5-7 decks from my high school years.

So let me get this straight: this attack is unbeatable, and there is nothing you could have done to stop it? Is the game really that broken, or did you just give up in frustration because your "spectacular attack chain" didn't work?

It turned into a chain of: Dash. Cut scene. Stand up. Dash. Cut scene. Stand up.

I don't remember whether or not there was a way out of it. But frankly, I don't care. I was getting caught in a cut scene everytime I got up from the last cut scene. There's nothing fun or interesting about that.

PS: the goal of the game is to win, not to perform the most spectacular attack.

Only if you're the kind of guy that likes to fry ants with magnifying glasses. I participate in games to play them. I may beat this level in Judge Dredd vs. Death by killing everyone instead of arresting them. But dang it, that's just not how you play Judge Dredd! You shoot the gun out of their hands and arrest them. All of them! Oh, here's a room full of thugs? Sure, I could take out my law rod and shoot them all into bits. Or I could throw a smoke grenade and arrest them, because that is more consistent with what Judge Dredd would do.

The whole point of MTG is to tell your opponent that they can't do anything by killing them and winning the game.

That's how the competitive player sees things. I just think this just displays serious problems with that player's mentality. "The goal of playing this game is to end it as quickly and painlessly (for me, anyway) as possible, and then relish in the glory of having burned ants with this magnifying glass." Uh...really?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:
The issue is not people being good, but bringing nasty lists or decks and exploring every little thing. Dial it back.

Why is it that the "competitive" player has the obligation to "dial it back" instead of the "casual" player having an obligation to improve their skills and compete at a higher level?

I think it boils down to what I said earlier.

If your idea of me improving my skills and competing at a higher level is no longer playing the game, but rather preventing you from playing the game, then there's something wrong with that. I don't want to play a game in which we're doing our worst to prevent each other from playing. That makes zero sense.

And really, aren't there more time-effective ways of preventing your opponent from playing/winning the game? All you have to do is not ask him to play in the first place! He doesn't get to play. And you save a ton of time both for you and for him! I count that as a win!

But of course, you don't get to waste your opponent's time...so that's a win for him too, I suppose, and that's not really what the competitive player is after.

 Pacific wrote:
Play against someone who feels exactly the same way about the game as you do, wants the same thing from it. Simples! As the Meerkat says.

I once played in a doubles game of Infinity where one of my opponents made the statement "I want to blow up that man in the goat suit with this missile launcher." His partner could just not get his around why someone would want to do something like that, it had absolutely no tactical value and was a waste of a use of a powerful weapon. His colleague's answer was "how many opportunities am I ever going to get, in my life, to blow up a man in a goat suit with a missile launcher?"

I was just, a few hours earlier, playing a sniper game...in which my predominate goal was to ignore my sniper rifle as much as possible and shoot people with my side arm. They have assault rifles? Oh yeah? Well I gots this hand gun!

Peregrine, it occurs to me that your point basically condenses down to:

"If you wan't willing to waste a ton of money and time on this game, then don't blame your opponent for crushing you if he is."

From that perspective, my answer is: "Yes, I can blame my opponent for treating a game as though it weren't a game. That's unreasonable and exceeds the virtuous mean."

In fact, I may lose the game. But who's the real loser? [Hint: it's the dude who has nothing better to do with his time and money than buy little plastic toys.]

Vermis wrote:None of you see anything inherently weird about the attitude that a game played between two opposing players shouldn't be competitive?

It should be competitive...after the game starts, i.e., once the dice start rolling.


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Rayvon wrote:Win or lose, you still have to buy the toys though right ?

No, that's perfectly true. But if I spent $20 on my magic deck and you spent $200...

Sure. I may lose the game. But you paid $200 on a deck of cards. Congrats.

I.e., one person loses a game. The other person just is a loser.

On the other hand, suppose that you and I each only spent $20 on a magic deck.

Look at what magically happens:

1. The game becomes much more competitive (i.e., there's actually a chance of either one of us winning, actually depending upon how we play).

2. Neither one of us wasted $200 on a deck of cards.

Peregrine wrote:And there you go again with your bizarre assumption that the game begins when dice start rolling instead of the actual beginning of the game, when you write your army list/build your deck/etc. You might as well argue that the game starts on turn 3, so at the end of the first two turns the player with fewer points surviving gets to add models to their army to make up the difference and the objective scores for both players are reset to zero.

With all due respect, Peregrine, we have a fundamental disagreement about this. To an extent, you are entirely correct. List-building matters. If I run a magic the gathering deck with no lands or any other mana sources, that's my fault. Your reasoning, however, only goes so far. I'm simply not convinced by what you are saying.

Oh, so now you're going to resort to insulting anyone who doesn't play games the way you do. I guess you don't think that following forum rules is necessary?

I'm not insulting you, the person to whom I'm responding or anyone else. I was not talking about you or anyone else in particular. I am making a general claim: if you (you in general, let us note) spend all of your time and money on games, then you are a loser. You are failing at life. Period.

If I ask you what your whole life is about and you start talking about games and how good you are at them and how much time and money you invest in them, then you are a failure as a human being. Period.

Again, I have no idea what your personal circumstances or anyone else's are. This point is not directed to you or anyone else in particular. I am just stating a general fact.

And note, I am not saying this to flame anyone. I am saying this as my "professional" judgment as a person who knows a thing or two about ethical philosophy and rational anthropology.

I don't think I am making a generally controversial point here. If I were a wagering kind of person, I would bet that most respectable people historically would agree with me.

Not really. Games with $20 decks can still be completely "uncompetitive" by your definition because deckbuilding is still a skill. A well-built $20 deck will absolutely crush a poorly-built one, by almost as much of a margin as the $200 deck will.

Sure. There's always going to be that guy who is going to search through whatever card pool he has trying to try to find the most broken combos available (because he has no life and absolutely nothing better to do with his time). I have a friend who is that guy, and it annoys me to no end.

Oh, you picked a pilot in x-wing and this particular wargear, and this gives you...oh up to 4 focus counters per turn on that one guy alone, they don't go away at the end of the turn, and you can put them on whoever you want?

Oh. Brilliant. Excellent fething combo.

But my life doesn't revolve around x-wing. I was just playing a game to kill time, and frankly, I have no desire to spend that much time trying to optimize a load out. I just want to get to the part where we start moving and shooting.

Seriously, why the need to stack the dice before the game even starts? Just play the fething game.

Or maybe you could finally understand that people enjoy things that you don't, and that includes being willing to spend lots of money on a hobby they enjoy.

No, no. I fully understand that there are such people. I also fully understand that they are losers and failures at life, since you and I both know that "lots of" means "unreasonable and disproportionate quantities."

Peregrine wrote:I know you aren't convinced, because that would mean conceding that you are wrong. That's the problem with trying to present your personal preferences about gaming as universal truth backed by moral philosophy, if you concede that you're wrong you have to admit that your entire system of morality was wrong.

I make no pretensions to asserting that my idea of "when" a game begins is somehow established on any moral philosophy.

No, you don't get to be dishonest and pretend you said something else. Your words are right there for anyone to see (and if you go back and edit your post they're still in my quote), you said that spending $200 on a deck of cards makes you a loser. Don't try to change "spending $200" to "spending all of your time and money".

If you spend $200 on a deck of cards, you are probably a loser. If cards mean that much to you, then you seriously need to re-evaluate your priorities. Again, of course, not you in particular. The "you" is general.

You don't even have to look for the most broken combos, you just have to have basic deckbuilding strategy. But, as we've already established, you don't know anything about how MTG works.

Because, of course, this is not an insult or even an implied insult? And totally consistent with the first rule of the forums, yes? And I'm pretty sure that your "you" was particular, not general.

Well, thanks for conceding that you also don't know anything about how X-Wing works. The Kyle + Moldy Crow "combo" isn't very strong, and the fact that you're using that as an example of something "broken" just proves that you're the kind of person described in the "scrub" article. You rush to call something "cheese" without bothering to understand how it works or learn how to counter it, while everyone else figures out how it works and beats it.

I'm using that as an example of what a power gamer comes up with. The fact that someone even comes up with that combo is just ridiculous.

They ARE playing the game. They just aren't complying with your arbitrary rules about how to play X-Wing, which seem to consist of "never take named pilots or use upgrades".

You know, it's times like these that I more appreciate the chess clock. There should be an equivalent in on-the-spot list constructions and player-turns.

And once again you have to insult anyone who doesn't like the things you like. Spending $200 on a MTG deck does not make you a loser and a failure at life.

I'm inclined to think that only a failure at life and a loser would pay $200 on a MTG deck. Why? Because only a loser and a failure at life would value a deck of magic cards that much.

You disagree with me? Then please. Explain to me how a magic the gathering deck could be worth $200 to someone who isn't a loser and a failure at life.


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Trasvi wrote:I don't want to be insulting... but you're espousing the 'scrub mentality' talked about in the OP. You've set what you personally think are reasonable rules (don't worry about list building, define a 'reasonable' amount of time and money to spend on the game) and you're deriding and insulting people who play the game without conforming to your rules.

You say "scrub." I say "normal, reasonable human being who does not have borderline sociopathy, megalomania, obessive compulsive disorder and/or a napolean complex...or, in a word, anyone who isn't either mentally disturbed or a complete and utter loser who is compensating for the fact that he has absolutely nothing else going on in his life" [Note, of course, that I am not saying these things about any posters in this thread; if any of my readers should feel as though these comments apply to him or her in particular, then do not take offense; I'm not talking about you in particular; you should, however, seriously reconsider whether or not you have your life in order and re-evaluate your life priorities.]

slowthar wrote:The flip side, though, is that there's also nothing wrong with playing a game with a goal of self-improvement.

If you want to improve yourself, playing magic the gathering, video games or warhammer (or any of its varieties or equivalents) isn't what I would recommend.

That's where Traditio's mentality offends me, because he seems to think that anyone who wants to be better the second time the play a game than they were the first is TFG.

Do you seriously not see the difference between:

1. Figuring out how the game works and playing "the best you can" based on the general structuring of the game

and

2. Taking little bits and pieces of the game and trying to "break" the game.

The "scrub" who figured out all of the combo moves was doing the former.

The loser/megalomaniac was doing the latter. He was spamming throws.

That's just not how you play the game (but it's legal, but it's within the confines of the rules, but that's how you win...and bla...bla...bla).

The fact is, I simply agree with the old maxim: "It's not whether you win or lose that counts: it's all about how you play the game."

Your friend is spending time optimizing his gear because he wants to make sure he's as good at slicing up orcs as he can be

At the expense of actually slicing up orcs.

If he doesn't stop every 5 minutes to scroll through his items, will he suddenly just start dying left and right?

If he switches out the second wraithknight for an avatar of khaine, will he suddently be gauranteed a loss instead of a victory or a tie?

Peregrine wrote:The point here is that you're taking pieces of #1 and moving them into category #2 because you don't like those elements of the game. And in most of your examples you're doing it without ever really understanding how the game works. Kyle + Moldy Crow and MTG counterspells are both clearly elements of #1. The only reason you've put them into category #2 is because you encountered them once, decided that they were "cheese" instead of trying to understand them, and made your arbitrary rule that Good People don't use those things. IOW, exactly what the "scrub" article describes.

Read the back of any video game box you want. I'll quote the back of Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death:

"You are the Law! Welcome to Mega-city one, a city of over 400 million people - every one of them a potential criminal. It is the third decade of the 22nd century, and unemployment is widespread, bordedom is universal and only the judges can prevent total anarchy. Take on the role of the most feared and respected of all the Judges, Judge Dredd, as he attempts to overcome the sudden outbreak of vampires in the city - could this be the work of the malevolent Dark Judges?"

Read any video game box you want. Please. Read me the one that says anything about spamming throws.

Peregrine 647866 wrote:Why do I care about a one-paragraph summary on the back of a box? That's not even close to being the entire game.

It's a brief summary of the entire game: what it is, what it is about and what the game designers intended.

So, again: show me one that says anything about spamming throws. I'll be waiting.

Peregrine wrote:PS: I don't have the box to any of my HWK-290s anymore, but the preview article for the ship (a pretty clear statement of the designer's intent for the game) explicitly suggests the Kyle + recon specialist + Moldy Crow combo you labeled "TFG cheese" that only a "failure at life" would ever use.

The article in the OP was about street fighter. I specifically asked about video games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Smacks wrote:Are you saying the designers didn't intend to add throws?

No. See my previous comments.

Peregrine wrote:What part of "brief" is so confusing? A back-of-box summary never covers the entire concept of a game because it's a brief summary. And most of the time it is written by the marketing department, not the game designers.

In other words: you can't meet my challenge.

Peregrine wrote:I know you're trying to avoid admitting that you were wrong about X-Wing. But I'm not going to let you do it. The X-Wing example is exactly the same as the Street Fighter example.

Disanalogous. In one case, the designers are saying: "Hey, this stuff is meant to be used together." I may very well have been wrong about x-wing.

But disanalogous to streetfighter. Did the game designers put, in the rulebook, "spam throws"?

Noir wrote:The only reason I kind think of to not like throw spam is if you failed to figure out the counter.

Spamming one move is unsportsmanlike conduct. Spamming one move specifically because your opponent doesn't know how to counter it is unsportsmanlike conduct.

It's unfriendly. It's not fun to play against. It's not fun to watch.

It's just annoying to be involved in it.

If you are that guy, then shame on you. Stop it.

Trasvi wrote:Its like you read the article about scrubs, and are now acting out every aspect of the scrub described in the article. And I quote:

The loser usually takes the imagined moral high ground by sticking to his Code of Honor, a made-up set of personal rules that tells him which moves he can and cannot do. Of course, the rules of the game itself dictate which moves a player can and cannot make, so the Code of Honor is superfluous and counterproductive toward winning. This can also take the form of the loser complaining that you have broken his Code of Honor. He will almost always assume the entire world agrees on his Code and that only the most vile social outcasts would ever break his rules.

The article basically took the non-megalomaniac/non-sociopathic/normal, reasonable human being position and gave it a bad name, ie., "scrub." He then said: "But, in point of fact, the only point of playing the game is winning. Repent, scrub, repent."

My answer: winning is not the only goal of a game. In fact, it is better to lose than to win in a cheap, unsportsmanlike way.