"Not Good enough to even be cheap" | Forums

[Kharneth88]

So if you are unable to block a chain i have to stop to use it cause you dont know how to play ?

If you react to that i change and try to overcome your defence, but if you dont defend i have to stop cause you are a bad player ?

Its a competitive game afterall, if you fall in "cheap" tactics isnt the fault of the player that use it its yours..

A bad player keep using the same tactics and if you conter it you wreak him XD

a good player change if one dont works and try something else :P

I never said anyone has to stop. You can do it, by all means. I do it, too. The difference is I admit when I'm being cheap. There's nothing truly wrong with being cheap, but it exists and I've explained what it is. You can counter being cheap. That's the difference between something that is cheap and something that is unfair.

When a Valkyrie spams the trip attack, she is being cheap. I counter it by dodging, but it'd be great if she wouldn't spam the same attack over and over again. She's being cheap. It's different from her spamming light attacks. The difference is the controlling affect it has on the opponent. It is abusive. Again, she can do it all she wants. It's not wrong of her to do it, but it is cheap and anyone playing in a cheap manner ought to own the fact that they are cheap instead of hiding behind a guise of ignorance claiming "there's nothing wrong with it." No one said anything about right or wrong.

[Butonfly]

I will make this really easy for you.

Whoever wins is good. You can use any mechanic in the game that results in victory to achieve said victory.

"Cheap" is just a mental construct, an excuse a player uses in place of becoming more skilled/better at the game.

That's it.

If you can defeat an opponent by doing nothing but the same move over and over, and you win, you're better than they are. If they were better than you, they'd counter your approach and beat you. Simple as that.

[Butonfly]

I never said anyone has to stop. You can do it, by all means. I do it, too. The difference is I admit when I'm being cheap. There's nothing truly wrong with being cheap, but it exists and I've explained what it is. You can counter being cheap. That's the difference between something that is cheap and something that is unfair.

When a Valkyrie spams the trip attack, she is being cheap. I counter it by dodging, but it'd be great if she wouldn't spam the same attack over and over again. She's being cheap. It's different from her spamming light attacks. The difference is the controlling affect it has on the opponent. It is abusive. Again, she can do it all she wants. It's not wrong of her to do it, but it is cheap and anyone playing in a cheap manner ought to own the fact that they are cheap instead of hiding behind a guise of ignorance claiming "there's nothing wrong with it." No one said anything about right or wrong.

What this player like to call "cheap" is, in truth, just a valkyrie Playing to Win.

In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely. Why? Exploring the reasoning is futile since the notion is ridiculous from the start.

You will not see a classic scrub throw his opponent five times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimizes his chances of winning? Here we’ve encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near you—that’s cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, that’s cheap, too. We’ve covered that one. If you block for fifty seconds doing no moves, that’s cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap. Street Fighter was just one example; I could have picked any competitive game at all.
~David Sirlin sirlin.net

[ParadigmFringe]

I will make this really easy for you.

Whoever wins is good. You can use any mechanic in the game that results in victory to achieve said victory.

"Cheap" is just a mental construct, an excuse a player uses in place of becoming more skilled/better at the game.

That's it.

If you can defeat an opponent by doing nothing but the same move over and over, and you win, you're better than they are. If they were better than you, they'd counter your approach and beat you. Simple as that.

no, incorrect. a person can have a near perfect win ratio from nothing but ledging and disconnecting from losing matches, then get schooled by someone who understands the game mechanics better. a person can consistently have lag on their side, making it virtually impossible for correctly timed parries or guard break counters to be used against them.

"good" is a measure of skill, not win ratio. it's when the "cheap" tactics fail to score you a win that you learn if you're actually good or not. that's the context of this discussion. you only seem to care about winning.

[Butonfly]

no, incorrect. a person can have a near perfect win ratio from nothing but ledging and disconnecting from losing matches, then get schooled by someone who understands the game mechanics better. a person can consistently have lag on their side, making it virtually impossible for correctly timed parries or guard break counters to be used against them.

"good" is a measure of skill, not win ratio. it's when the "cheap" tactics fail to score you a win that you learn if you're actually good or not. that's the context of this discussion. you only seem to care about winning.

I didnt use the term "win ratio", you did.

Let me clarify for you since you seem to have missed it. When two players face off in a match (or two teams for that matter), whichever player or team meets the victory conditions first is the superior player. Each may have their individual strengths and weaknesses, but the better player is determined solely by who wins. That's the determining factor. It's the only true standard there is to decide.

Essentially there are no "cheap" tactics. "Cheap" is an arbitrary standard. It's a word you're using as an excuse. There are no cheap tactics, there are simply tactics. You use whatever is available to you, however much you want, so long as it achieves victory. Play to win. Simple.

The scrub has still more crutches. He talks a great deal about “skill” and how he has skill whereas other players—very much including the ones who beat him flat out—do not have skill. The confusion here is what “skill” actually is. In Street Fighter, scrubs often cling to combos as a measure of skill. A combo is a sequence of moves that is unblockable if the first move hits. Combos can be very elaborate and very difficult to pull off. But single moves can also take “skill,” according to the scrub. The “dragon punch” or “uppercut” in Street Fighter is performed by holding the joystick toward the opponent, then down, then diagonally down and toward as the player presses a punch button. This movement must be completed within a fraction of a second, and though there is leeway, it must be executed fairly accurately. Ask any scrub and they will tell you that a dragon punch is a “skill move.”

I once played a scrub who was actually quite good. That is, he knew the rules of the game well, he knew the character matchups well, and he knew what to do in most situations. But his web of mental rules kept him from truly playing to win. He cried cheap as I beat him with “no skill moves” while he performed many difficult dragon punches. He cried cheap when I threw him five times in a row asking, “Is that all you know how to do? Throw?” I gave him the best advice he could ever hear. I told him, “Play to win, not to do ‘difficult moves.’” This was a big moment in that scrub’s life. He could either ignore his losses and continue living in his mental prison or analyze why he lost, shed his rules, and reach the next level of play.
~sirlin

[ParadigmFringe]

I didnt use the term "win ratio", you did.

Let me clarify for you since you seem to have missed it. When two players face off in a match (or two teams for that matter), whichever player or team meets the victory conditions first is the superior player. Each may have their individual strengths and weaknesses, but the better player is determined solely by who wins. That's the determining factor. It's the only true standard there is to decide.

Essentially there are no "cheap" tactics. "Cheap" is an arbitrary standard. It's a word you're using as an excuse. There are no cheap tactics, there are simply tactics. You use whatever is available to you, however much you want, so long as it achieves victory. Play to win. Simple.

i don't use the word "cheap" as an excuse. please. point out where i did that.

go ahead, i'll wait.

i'm sure your only response will be to further regurgitate Sirlin.
see, you're talking about winning. the rest of us are NOT talking about winning. we're talking about a measurable level of skill and HOW exactly to measure it. by your logic, the only way to do that is to look at your win ratio. you didn't come out and say those exact words, but the implication is strong. go take a few more "english as a second language" classes and i'm sure you'll realize your error.

actually who am i kidding. we both know you're just going to come back at me defensively without actually re-reading the topic to help you understand it.

[Vagor_D]

What defines 'skill' is debatable, but in the end it is just an opinion. In regards to multiplayer, I personally believe that a player's level of skill is defined by the variety of ways that (s)he can effectively overcome opponents.

However, you could also argue that a player's skill is based off how often they win or lose rather than how they win.

Regardless of how you choose to define skill, it will be determined by a number of factors that you are prioritizing based off your own opinions. It's all relative.

[MrForz]

I once fought a Warden so deep into feinting games that I purposely dumbed down my gameplay and decided to commit, out of all available options. It was very, very effective. When I asked him if he expected me to commit he told me he expected me to be good. That's an adaptability issue right here.

[Bob__Gnarly]

That's why I stopped playing duels, it's just not fun. Let's face it, the game is not balanced yet and once you get to a certain tier duels are either staring contests or spamming 1 or 2 cheesy moves.

I can overcome such tactics, but why bother? It's not fun and that's why I play games, for fun.

[Butonfly]

i don't use the word "cheap" as an excuse. please. point out where i did that.

go ahead, i'll wait.

i'm sure your only response will be to further regurgitate Sirlin.
see, you're talking about winning. the rest of us are NOT talking about winning. we're talking about a measurable level of skill and HOW exactly to measure it. by your logic, the only way to do that is to look at your win ratio. you didn't come out and say those exact words, but the implication is strong. go take a few more "english as a second language" classes and i'm sure you'll realize your error.

actually who am i kidding. we both know you're just going to come back at me defensively without actually re-reading the topic to help you understand it.

You didn't define cheap as an excuse. You used the word, and it's been brandished throughout this thread since the original post. I defined cheap as an excuse. I was pretty explicit about it too. I never claimed it was your definition. You, however, did use the term cheap in the sense talked about in this thread, even though you put it in "quotation marks".

Sirlins arguments are sound. There's nothing wrong with quoting a well worded concept to add depth to an idea. Ideas that I hold on my own accord by the way. I'm not sure why you feel the need to resort to adhominom, and personal attacks. Unless you're feeling threatened for some reason. I'm sorry if you are.

Anyway, I'm talking about an objective standard of what it means to be good. I'm giving an argument for the one and truly sound standard for that goodness. You seem to be stuck on the idea of K/D (which I'm not btw, but let's address it). K/D might be an indication of how you're doing, but it's far to broad (or full of inconsistencies/problems) to be relied upon (people quitting before match end to accurately update, for example). K/D is simply data, but how you interpret that data depends on what you can draw from it. For these reasons, and others, I won't talk about K/D. It's unhelpful. I suggest you don't either.

So what CAN we use reliably? In any given instance where you, as a player, stand in opposition against another player, the ultimately defining standard for who's more skilled is the person who wins. Whoever can out perform the other to meet the conditions of victory gets to say "I'm better.". Because, as far as the competitive standards are concerned, they've proven it quantifiably. There's no room for personal, subjective opinion as the words "You won/lost!" flashing across the screen has silenced the debate. It's that simple.