Are you a Scrub, or are you Playing to Win?

A very interesting and entertaining article about competitive game play and design:

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart1.htm

I'm very curious to hear what some of you think.

That was a pretty stupid article in my opinion.

what the hell are you talking about thats one of the best articles I've read in a LONG time. a wonderful gaming philosophy.

WH is a scrub game then, because we hold back on what we consider cheesy (or try at least), and tournaments actually have the composition score to lessen the number of abusive lists.

I played Lineage 2 for about 3 years. This is a Korean MMO designed for the Korean gamer with the Korean mindset. WHat is the Korean philosophy? Team play. minimize the individual. endless grind. with great sacrifice (your personal life) comes great reward (bad ass abilities). at its worst, we'd spend 3+ hours of clicking the same buttons over and over killing the same monsters for 0.02%. you level every 100%. so imagine the time commitments at higher levels. also, the pvp (player vs. player) was "open" meaning that you can kill ANYONE for ANYTHING ANYWHERE, except in towns. and what happens when u kill someone? oh they can drop their weapons and armor and items AND they lose experience. so pvp was pretty much the best system i've ever seen. people fought one another in real life over this game. at its peak, it had only over 2.5M subscribers in the US. graphics are STILL the best of any MMO on the market now.

so i am familiar with powergaming and what it feels like to play games where the only objective is to win, regardless of how much time or money you spend. and i value my real life and the affections of women too much to get that next ability, fuck that.

If winning at all costs is all you care about Max....then why not play something like blackjack, which is a winnable game with enough practice at card counting......Or, you could defend known child molestors or murderers in a court of law.....What I mean to say is...why focus your efforts on something like WH40k.....You could be making money with a mind devoid of concience like that.

I know all about powergaming, i played Everquest for about 5 years and i was in one of the best guilds on my server, doing all the high end content raids, im talking 9 hours straight ,sitting in front of a computer doing raid organization, healing control, agro control and lots of other things, i loved it, untill it became a second job.

I play to win, but if i loose but had a good time, im cool with it, is a game after all and the purpose of a game is to have fun, if you are not having fun, then whats the point ?

Phil that was good.
Playing a video game and playing a miniature game are completely different animals. With 40k type games certain aspects are prone to being exploited and unbeatable. Who wants to play that. Yes in real life you do what you need to do to succeed...then again at what cost. Would you screw over friends and family?In actuality the whole point of table top gaming is to have a good time and socialize. Not to show up play to win at all cost and then leave. I think we've all deal with gamers like that. If you want a real rush playing a game to win at all costs...like Phil said go play Blackjack or poker with Mafia guys and bet more money than you have. That should get your competative ,win at all costs juices flowing.

We all play to win, but not at all costs.

This dude is completely correct. You shouldn't play to win, you should play to improve. Getting unlucky doesn't matter, playing to the best of your ability does. Playing less than optimally is fine as long as you recognize it and it spurs you on. Losing doesn't matter because you learned something and gained experience.

By playing 40K we are STARTING with a "gentlemens agreement". Otherwise I'd bring my hammer and see how indestructible those holo-falcons really are! We're playing with little toy soldiers where the rules are not well designed to begin with. So, winning each game is very important, but if you can make your opponent have a good time while you're crushing him, you'll be more likely to win that trophy.

It seems to me, that what this article is mainly about is the writers disdain, in general, for people who don't push themselves competitively, and in doing so, call foul on others who manipulate the rules and loopholes of a game to their benefit.

The writer is an anti-powergamer-hater if you will.

I agree with some of the things this guy said. To some extent, if you refuse to explore your own potential and ability to become power-heavy, you may be missing out on some of the finer and more exhilarating aspects of gaming at a very high level.

In other words, if you truly want to experience the highest level of gaming, in terms of ability, you have to bring your best against your opponents best, not just in terms of gameplay, but in overall strategy and, yes, army list making.

However, what the author doesn't take into account is that not everyone may share the same competitive desire to constantly win. Some people are much more concerned with the flavor and comraderie that comes from being around others who share a passion for the game. That is their satisfaction, and in fact may feel bothered by someone who seems to care only about the win.

So what you get then are 2 different philosophical camps.

The first camp, which is the writers camp says " look, instead of getting pissed off about my abusive list and refusing to play me, why don't you feel challenged? Go home and make a list that will beat mine ! Then we'll both be playing at a higher level and I will be forced to go home and come up with a list that will beat yours"

The second camp says " look, ultimately, this is about having fun. I want to be able to use the flavorful and historical units in my army to play with, without having the constraints of only taking the most powerful and effective units. Because ultimately, I don't care about winning, I just want to feel satisfied in the game itself. If all you want to do is bring an army that will beat mine every single time, then forget it, let's not play.


At first glance, composition scores seem to exemplify the ideal of competitive gameplay because they force both players to play with similarly powered armies. Neither person having an inherent advantage in their army. This then allows the best general/tactician to win the day. Great, we can do away with all this list bullshit, and just go mano y mano and find out who the best player really is.

However if we are to include the art of list making and pre-planning as part of our overall strategy, than all Comp does is limit the talent of those who are more strategically aware and better at preparing for all-comers.

After listening to some of the champion gamers on Podhammer, you can hear that many of the best players from around the world want to do away with Comp. Why, well these guys have reached the top and want to really test themselves by playing against others who are equally unrestrained. They see it as the highest level of gaming possible. I think it's also the reason the Ard Boyz are becoming so popluar.

Personally, I think just like everything else in life, there needs to be a balance. I've played with broken lists, I've played with fluffy lists. I've played with lists specifically meant to beat someone else's list. I've played to win and I've played primarily for the fun of it. I do enjoy when I am challenged to beat a list that is very difficult to take on, so I don't get down on powergamers because I look at them as a challenge. But I'm also cool with fluff players, because I know it's gonna be a fun game.

So just balance it out.

The two camps you are referring to is what is called in the online gamign community as the Power gamers, and the Casual gamers.

power gamers: play to achieve the highest lvl possible as fast as possible so they can then do all the high end stuff and reap the biggest rewards, this guys like to play for the gain and the recognition from other players as being the best and having bested the best.

cassual gamers: those that play because they like the comunity, they like to hang arround with other people and dont care much about the high end contents of a game. they find enjoyement in just playing the game, they dont need to beat the meanest player/monster out there and they are not out to prove anything to anyone nor do they really care about the opinion of others in regards to their gaming skills.

Powergamers = playing to win
Casual = scrubs

after you've been playing for a long time you realize it's a game meant to be played and if you are not going to embrace every aspect of the game than you are missing on either part of the hobby. I love the way casual gamers use inflammatory words like "passion, camaraderie, flavor, etc" to make the game seem more epic.

Thanks for that great synopsis Stephan I'm glad that you got something out of it.

ImAShakiraholic wrote:I love the way casual gamers use inflammatory words like "passion, camaraderie, flavor, etc" to make the game seem more epic.

Inflammatory? Do these words, used in this context, piss you off Max? I think powergamers have a certain personality archetype that transcends just 40k in thier lives. They want to excel at any cost. They want to see the end result..instant gratification, beat the system. Powergamers use the angle that they want to "challenge" themselves to become better players and infer that anyone not on thier wavelength is simply a scrub because they don't aspire to the same thing powergamers do.

I think that powergamers have psychological quirks within them that basically make anything they can't dominate others at stupid, lame, unworthy of their time. In fact I have played powergamers and beaten them fair and square. Thier reaction was to be completely disinterested, morose, going through the motions if you will once they realized they were headed toward losing. Powergamers are not interested in anything but understanding the rules, exploiting those rules, and winning said game. In my opinion, it's a sad existance when your whole objective in a GAME is to dominate others by exploiting rule loopholes, army composition, etc.

I would venture to say that powergamers lack certain controls in their real lives that they are able to control in gaming environments. This helps them to balance this helplessness in the real world, whether it be domination by thier mom, spouse, family member,etc.

Bill and I knew a guy named Dan Santos.....the quintessential POWERGAMER. When we played D&D, he had to research every single race and class to find the uber hose beast. This not only happened with D&D, it was done with every game we played. He was annoying when he played, and eventually we lost contact with him as life goes.....but, we always remembered him as a guy who "beats the system". It always came to the point that nobody wanted to help him in the roleplaying environment, which made him have to fend for himself, which ultimately led to the characters demise.

In summation, powergamers tend to be people others have disdain for and would rather not be around, at least in the aspect that they powergame in.

Oh amd a final note.....I never owned a game shark. I'd rahter earn my way to see the mother brain in metroid.

So, if you win most, almost all, of your games, are you a powergamer? Or, are you just a better general then the folks you normally play? What defines a powergamer? Better lists? Picking "uber-armies"? Being a stickler for the rules?

Everyone talks about powergamers and everyone has a different definition -- I've seen people say that if you win over 60% of the time you are a powergamer...if you don't follow the fluff, you are a powergamer...if you know the rules for all the armies in a game, you are a powergamer...if you don't know the history of the army you're using, you're a powergamer...if you don't bother to paint your army and just play, you're a powergamer...

I don't think I'm a powergamer because I know ALOT of fluff, I enjoy painting, and I love playing the game.

ImAShakiraholic wrote:I don't think I'm a powergamer because I know ALOT of fluff, I enjoy painting, and I love playing the game.

Not if you know a lot of fluff; rather, if you do NOT know the fluff of the army you're playing...I'm not saying I believe any of the powergamer crap, just asking what people thought.

I agree with Phil to some extent about people who feel the need to win at all costs. This type of player does tend to be characterized by a certain type of personality. Such a personality tends to be highly competitive, bases a certain degree of their sense of self-worth on the act of winning, and judges his peers acceptance of him on winning. This is not necessarily an unhealthy or disordered personality, since someone can be this way, and still live a very high functioning, productive lifestyle. Michael Jordan may fit into this category, yet most people would consider him successful and healthy.

I may disagree with Phil in the fact that said personality is a result of deficits in interpersonal skills (ie family or relationships). You can certainly have a powergamer (if we are to use that term) that is simply a very competitive person, without being inherently insecure.

Ultimately, the powergamer has to look at his environment and decide whether his desire to win needs to be tempered by the fact that others around him may simply not share the same degree of competitiveness. Because in the end, if no one wants to play you, how are you going to win?

In this kind of situation, a person should be able to challenge themselves by attempting to win with less resources or a so called weaker list.

Recently Max, you told me that you wanted to get a vanilla ultramarine army together so you could challenge yourself and see if you can win with an army that is very balanced and ultimately underpowered. You were stimulated by that challenge. To me, this is a healthy response to your community. You know that your not going to ALWAYS be playing the BEST gamers with the most BROKE ASS lists. You know that much of the time, you are going to be playing a mix of gamers of varying skill levels, lists, armies, etc. So instead of insisting on using your Big Bug list, or your Mechanized Tau, your adapting to the situation.

I think this is what highly competitive people should be doing. Don't be so focused on challenging others and instead challenge yourself.

Well spoken Stephan. Hunting a bear with a vulcan cannon is a little easier than hunting a bear with a butter knife.

Dammit. I gotta stop spending all my time writing these things.. when I could just use an analogy like you Phil. !!!

it is kinda funny how phill was able to summarize all you said in in just 2 little sentences

Shut up Luis, you powergaming slut.

The last time I saw you play with a list that wasn't as broke as shit was at the first Marines of Miami, where I raped your footslogging Orks with my mechanized Dark Eldar.

Ovich wrote:Shut up Luis, you powergaming slut.

The last time I saw you play with a list that wasn't as broke as shit was at the first Marines of Miami, where I raped your footslogging Orks with my mechanized Dark Eldar.

hey baby, dont be hatin.... mr 2 giants, steam tank, pope mobile , 5 wizards and 900 guns

getting back on topic...

lordfairfax2001 wrote:So, if you win most, almost all, of your games, are you a powergamer? Or, are you just a better general then the folks you normally play?

Thoughts???

lordfairfax2001 wrote:What defines a powergamer? Better lists? Picking "uber-armies"? Being a stickler for the rules?

More thoughts???