You mentioned that I read an article on "playing to win" in the other form. You dont get what I am saying. This game is not life in any way. It's suppose to be fun, but some people dont make it fun. SOme aspects of the game dont make it fun. In real life if I'm playing a game, i'll play it to win. BUt, damn, if some of the people in this game just dont play it for fun, and do the same thing over and over.

There's no reason to go into everything, nor do i care to, but I realize it's a part of the game.

But, for those who really do the same thing over and over, can they really talk crap? It's kind of funny. In real life if someone is trying to bash me, or knock me to the ground, am I really going to sit there and let him do it over and over? No! Trip me over and over? No!

This is not life, which some of you fail to realize, it's still a game. No matter what you do, it's still a game, and there will be no article to say it's not.

p.s. Dont tell me I dont get your point, because I do, but it's not the same.

I think it is this one. It's a good read, IMHO:

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

CF is very complex. Far more so than games like SF and FPSers. "Winning" can be defined as many things. The article shows us that just because someone isn't trying to "play to win" in the same way you do, doesn't mean they are "cheap" or cheating for that matter.

Plus, to be honest, I am pretty newbie but I haven't come across anyone I couldn't at the very least get away from. Even empire gank/perma lag squad is pretty easily escaped.

>You mentioned that I read an article on "playing to win" in
>the other form. You dont get what I am saying. This game is
>not life in any way. It's suppose to be fun, but some people
>dont make it fun.

Umm... You realize this article is talking about a GAME as well, yes? Not real life? No?

>SOme aspects of the game dont make it fun.
>In real life if I'm playing a game, i'll play it to win. BUt,
>damn, if some of the people in this game just dont play it for
>fun, and do the same thing over and over.

This statement makes no sense. According to you, if you are playing a game in real life, let's say baseball, you will play that game to win, but you would not play CF to win? Why? Because you want to win at baseball but not at CF? So then, if you are trying to play baseball to win, is someone playing just for "fun" allowed to yell at you to stop just hitting home runs? You should try and hit triples and doubles and steal bases because that is more "fun"!

>There's no reason to go into everything, nor do i care to, but
>I realize it's a part of the game.
>
>But, for those who really do the same thing over and over, can
>they really talk crap? It's kind of funny. In real life if
>someone is trying to bash me, or knock me to the ground, am I
>really going to sit there and let him do it over and over? No!
>Trip me over and over? No!

So, what, exactly, would you do in real life if someone kept bashing you? seriously, I want to know what you would do if someone knocked you down everytime you tried to stand up?


>This is not life, which some of you fail to realize, it's
>still a game. No matter what you do, it's still a game, and
>there will be no article to say it's not.

THIS ARTICLE TALKS ABOUT A GAME, NOT REAL LIFE. Did you even read the article? Cause I do not think you did.

Why is it that your idea of what is "fun" has to be the end all and be all? Is it not possible that pincer, pincer, pincer is someone elses idea of "fun"? While I complete agree with you that bash, bash, bash is not fun at all to me personally, I would not go around telling someone "Stop! This is boring for me!" These are other people who have different ideas of what they find "fun". They are, god forbid, allowed to have these thoughts and opinions. Who are you to tell someone what they should or should not find "fun"?

I always like the statement "While you are bound by your RP to play the way you want, do not get mad at me when I play bound by my own RP. Even if it is not what you want it to be." I probably did not get that quote right, but I think the point of it is still there. Just because you play in a way that you find fun, does not mean I have to play by your idea of fun also.

>p.s. Dont tell me I dont get your point, because I do, but
>it's not the same.

I really do not think you do.

As an aside to Valg, if you still read these forums, I don't think I lived up to you that well. How about you come back and show me how it is done!

Yes, if someone bashes you three times in a row and that kills you, they can talk crap. That's the game. If that beats you, it's smart.

Good players will find a way to beat that strategy instead of complaining "OMG you always do the SAME THING".

What do your fights look like?

Do you say to yourself: I probably should disarm this guy, but that's what I always do. I'll cross, then retreat, then dash back with a knee instead!

If everybody would start to play for win...
We may end with the mud filled with drow stsf, flurring giants or whatever OP combo is at the moment (so they can win).
I think it is cool for the game when people play various things even if they fully realize that it is not the top-hot combo.

You adjust your definition of "win" to the combo you're playing.

A healer with 75 solo PKs won big.

An assassin with 75 solo PKs...not so big a winner.

That the assassin class is likely to get more kills than the healer class doesn't mean you're not "playing to win" if you choose healer. It just means you're playing a different game, so to speak. You're playing the "see how many kills I can get as a healer" game as opposed to the "see how many kills I can get as an assassin".

My point isn't that everyone should always play the toughest thing they can think of (although there are reasons why that would fall apart -- 20 people can't all play the Emperor at the same time, for example) but more, don't complain about someone actually fighting smart with their character even if it means they bash you and you die.

While, certainly, I see people whining when somebody fights smart to them there is still other kind of problems:
some one-trick pony classes that "ruin" gameplay for others.

A very simplified example:
Give one class "slay"
It would be smart for this class to use this ability and slay everybody.
People who play other combos may "whine" about it. You could say they shouldn't whine when somebody fighting smart with their chars (and the slay-guy does that), but there can be an actual issue to the gameplay that makes their "whining" legitimate. And the issue is that you either play a slay-class or be a loser.

Another point:
Sure, you can consider playing a sub-optimal combo and still try to win within self-imposed restrictions instead of whining. Plus you can actually set even more restrictions (RP, not using some armor, not practicing some skills).
And if you will look at a such guy through the article you've referred to without deep investigation, he may look like a scrub who is living in his world of self-constructed restrictions and thus by definition "not playing to win" and "not improving".
But it is not always true.

There is no slay for mortals because it means the other person could never, ever, ever win.

This is why Akuma is banned, and therefore your argument is irrelevent.

Why doesn't slay exist? Because every mortal with it could win. Everybody playing to win would only ever play the class with slay, and the only tactic they would ever use, would be slay. CF would be ruined. The only reason CF continues to thrive, despite the prevalence and encouragement of playing to win, is because the imms are constantly striving to maintain class balance.

So, occasionally, when you feel like a scrub, maybe it's not because you are, but you find yourself up against an unbalanced situation. There's a reason assassins don't have hellfire, rangers don't have old school bears, and you don't have masters with over 2,000 hp running around. And that is, because the imms realized they had to step in, and balance those skills.

Slay has no defense. you cant get around it other than avoiding that person like the plague and hope they fall into a deathtrap. You cannot devise a situation in which you can win. Ever.


Playing to win means doing everything you can *with the skillset available to the game*

Some classes simply arent built to engage in mass slaughter.

If there was a CF tournament, you got to pick a lvl 51 perfect skills character, and were forced into a 1v1 cage match, *no one would pick a healer.*

Does this mean you shouldnt play a healer in the real game? No, but you realize you wont be topping the overall pk hall of fame.

If your goal is to butcher everyone in that 1v1 cage match, however, you *should* pick that class you feel has the best chance of winning, and you *should* use the moves that have the highest chance of winning. Doing anything less is not playing to win.

Doing ANYTHING less than picking the character and tactics you feel will get you 1st place is the same as playing a healer with every flaw in the game. That is to say that you're playing to win, or not playing to win. Period.

Now, realistically, not everyone wants to play emperor/chancellor lich that uses every phylactery for every fight. I say to myself, I want to do the best I can with fire giant sword spec, using the best tactics for that character. Or, I want to do the best I can as a healer with every flaw. The limits of the characters are much, much lower, but one should still be using the tactics that have the highest chance of winning, even if that chance never goes above 1%, or 0%.

Realistically, if you're using a sub-optimal build, you can still be playing to win, but if you are using sub-optimal tactics, you are being a scrub, and have no right to bitch.

The slay-guy has to find you and be able to execute the command.
You can hide from him, you can attack and permalag him first, etc.
So you have a chance with your sub-optimal build.

Now, go and play such a game and don't ever try whine that "slay" is cheap. Otherwise we will call you a scrub who doens't play for win or using sub-optimal tactic and never improve.

If I was playing something with slay, I would be built around it. Always enlarged, max hp gear, etc. You're assuming its some idiot. But I'll concede, you have some chance approaching 0 to win. The slay person could also be afk, or break all his fingers, or something.

Suffice it to say, slay is not in the game because this scenario is stupid and has nothing to do with playing to win.

If you're going to go that direction we might as well call it done.

He takes the argument Daevryn presents and then pushes it to the logical extreme in order to reveal the inherent flaw within the guy's article.

Basically, the playing to win article says "Everything is balanced and good players, instead of whining and crying, abuse all bugs/exploits/little tricks in order to win, and thats a good thing. Except lets just contradict that entire previous assertion by saying that there are indeed situations where playing exclusively to win completely destroys games, such as the Akuma situation"

But he sets super vague parameters on what an "Akuma" situation is - apparently the majority of the pro community agrees that there is a problem with allowing Akuma, but what constitutes majority, what constitutes pro, and when does scrub whining change to legitimate game balance issue?

The entire article is saying something like playing to win is good in balanced games, creating multiple layers of sophistication and higher level play, while bad in games with akuma-level imbalances. Which is unhelpful at best, since everyone will have a different opinion on what what a "balanced" game is and where it becomes imbalanced.

If you play as though the game was more or less balanced and try to figure out how to beat situations that seem too powerful to you, you probably will find ways to deal with them and get better.

If your response to something that seems powerful is to call it cheap, probably you won't get better and it will keep killing you.

"If you play as though the game was more or less balanced and try to figure out how to beat situations that seem too powerful to you, you probably will find ways to deal with them and get better."


Ok,

Sorry to chime up here Daev, but I have to ask. Do you believe that there are certain class matchups that exist currently in the game (including Lich's) where 1v1 a player following your advice above, could still be facing an "impossible" match-up?

You have to build in assumptions about player skill when you ask a question like that. Like, do we assume "equal, and low, skill" for both parties? "Equal, and average, skill" for both parties? Etc.

I would probably agree that there are always going to be easy, or hard matchups for any character. Some might even be near impossible (I always found dagger specs to be near ridiculous to fight as my orc). The whole article is more about what you *DO* about those situations. Do you -

A) Give up, call it cheap, and not improve yourself

or

B) Figure there must be SOME way to beat this combination, and try to figure it out.

In my orc example...it still usually took a pretty favorable situation for me to beat things like arial berserker rager dagger specs, but I still got BETTER at it, as I tried to find the solution. Maybe I didn't die as often as I would have before, maybe I actually made them run away once or twice instead of me running, maybe I actually got a kill on one. The article isn't about the results, as the mindset.

Hell, in Dwoggurd's example, you can always perma-lag the guy with slay. It's not unbeatable. Even my favorite character (Rhuean), lost constantly to his handle-char (Dwoggurd). I'd tried everything I could think of, never worked, so I pretty much gave up on the idea of killing him. What happens? Some random rager I barely had heard of kills him. Could I have beaten him, instead of that guy? Maybe, maybe not. I gave up on it, though, and when you do that, you tend to lose automatically. May as well keep giving it a try. No-one says you can't find other characters and go "Hey, X is *ALWAYS* killing me. I've tried this and that, but it doesn't work...anything you can suggest?"

Are their certain classes, that against certain other classes, played by players of similar skill and in similar eq should never ever lose a 1 on 1 fight?

Yes.


But, I do not believe Nep's "Find ways to deal with them" statement ignores the "gr" command. or the "gt" or "cb" commands. or the "quaff tele" command. Or the "c word" command.


Notice, he did not say "Find ways to defeat them in a 1 on 1 fair fight" he said "Find ways to deal with them"

If I'm playing a fire giant warrior, who has no specs because I turned to the light. Am I going to whine because if I let a lich emperor catch me there is nothing I can do to survive? let alone win? Nope. I'm going to ALWAYS be carrying det inv, and teleport and word potions, and I'm not ever going to go more than 5 seconds without typing "where".

In that situation, I "Win" every time that lich fails to find me and make a phylactery out of me. Just like the time I "Won" every time Cabdru came at my warrior and he didn't get charges by killing me.

Nep, You might give up.

You are right, of course.

But, there have been ALWAYS those who whine like this. "all you did was pwk me!!!" "All you ever do is sleep/spell me up!" "All you ever do is bash!!!" "All you ever do is rot/flee!" "All you ever do is quicksand/dispell/pillar!" "All you ever do is assassinate/flee" "All you ever do is black/steal/back" "All you ever do is flyto/murder" "All you ever do is wand up/prep up so you can't be beat!" "All you ever do is spam wrath!" "All you ever do is spam sunray/thorns" "All you ever do is ambush people when they aren't ready!" "All you ever do is sing sleep/distort/fiend/fireandice!!" "All you ever do is summon into a centurion trap!"

I admit, I have been one in the past. On more than one occasion, before I saw the light.

Have there been things in the past that have been overpowered and needed to be changed? Yup! I know You will admit to most of those, Nep.

But, the adult response to those is to discuss the overpowerdness of those tactics. Are they indeed overpowered? Or am I just not understanding how to overcome it, and thus think it's overpowered when it's not?

The childish response is, as you said, call it cheap, and try to denigrate those who use the tactic. That's a far easier way to "feel superior" and "feel better" than actually trying to figure out how to overcome something.

But, Do you really think any number of posts by you, or by legions of people supporting people will change the fact that this kind of whining goes on? I happen to believe nothing will change it. The nature of the game REQUIRES massive investment (in time/emotion/creativity), and when such investment *SEEMS* to be destroyed by something, childish and emotional responses should be expected. (not saying accepted, but expected, if you ken the difference).



*SEEMS* I say seems to destroy, because one interesting nature of the game is that NOTHING anyone else does, short of an imm banning you, can destroy your investment in this game. For two reasons.
1)In that particular char, nomatter what goes wrong, you can still have fun. It's just your own particular choice whether to have fun with the char or not. And noone can MAKE that choice for you, either way.
2) any investment you put into any one character, will carry over in part to every other character you play from then on. in knowledge, skill, reflexes, etc. (unless you don't play for a year+ like me...sigh then it all goes away)

You simply never fight them again.

I won't fight Conjie's with servants. Or shaman. Or Necromancers or air/off shifters,

My experiences have been so far in the negative with these classes, the game is one of avoidance and I get much more fun from eluding them.

This is one of those cases where people should bitch on the forums and not in game. IMHO there's no room for game balance discussions in game. Maybe some basic hints at mechanics to explain why a particular strategy but outright whining about the overpoweredness of something in game is inappropriate.

nt

One of the first lessons this game taught me: as soon as you realize that arial assassin is the most badass thing this side of the LCD, there will invariably be 4 duergar shamans in range (and after your head) for the entirety of your logged in life.

What?

The only part I understood from this post was the bit about kangaroos. Maybe you could elaborate?

Aarn

.

Splntrd