Thing is that game actually takes skill to play. Unlike games such as SvC.
I get called cheap for using ironman
Agreed. It’s just another tactic of being a sore loser. When losing, scrubs tend to feel that every move you do is cheap, to hide the guilt of being the scrubs that they are.
Cheap: Anything they don’t know how to counter.
The key to beating Duo is turtle. Turtle turtle turtle. It makes the game boring, so not many people want to play that.
Cheap, is a word scrubs use against something they cannot overcome or get around, there lack of skill is what makes them hug that word and hide behind it so easily all the time.
IMO cheap just equals easy win. Cheap in this respect means it “costs” less to win with a certain tactic or move, so I guess people call it cheap = P.
I get called Cheap for always trying to get discounts.
now that is cheap
Cheap? I paid a lot for this hat!
Heres what I hate the most “Awww your so cheap with your RC. Why do you need a glitch to win. I know how to RC, but I choose not to because not doing it makes me a badass.” Like an OCV proves that I couldnt win without it. :rolleyes:
And “Guys like you ruin Marvel by picking Storm, Sent, Mag, Cable etc. Why cant you use a team that takes skill?”
If you say something is cheap then your a little bitch who doesnt like to lose and face the reality that you suck.
I hate scrubs with a passion.
My rewrite of Sirlin on “cheapness”
In the world of Street Fighter competition, we have a word for players who aren?t good: ?scrub.? Now, everyone begins as a scrub?it takes time to learn the game to get to a point where you know what you?re doing. There is the mistaken notion, though, that by merely continuing to play or ?learn? the game, that one can become a top player. In reality, the ?scrub? has many more mental obstacles to overcome than anything actually going on during the game. The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. He?s lost the game before he?s chosen his character. He?s lost the game even before the decision of which game is to be played has been made. His problem? Fear of challenge.
The scrub would take great issue with this statement for he usually believes that he is playing to win, but he is bound up by an intricate construct of fictitious rules that prevent him from ever truly competing. These made up rules vary from game to game, of course, but their character remains constant. In Street Fighter, for example, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations ?cheap.? So-called ?cheapness? is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone 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 which will protect him indefinitely. Why? Exploring the reasoning is futile since the notion is ridiculous from the start.
You?re not going to see a classic scrub throw his opponent 5 times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimize 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 sit in block for 50 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.
Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is another great way to get called cheap. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can?t counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn?t I be a fool for not using that move?**The problem is that the scrub isn’t looking for a challenge. Their an American who thinks of video games as simple entertainment. Arguing with them about how some video games are extremely difficult would do nothing, because the scrub actually is aware of that, but it seams to estoric to him. **
**In real life, most people are afraid of challenge. Crying “cheap” is just an expresion of that fact as realized in a video game. However high level competitive video games can be a good way to spot and fight fear of challenge. The first thing to do is to not submit to any demands they make. You may be afraid of losing a friend to play games with, but it is unlikely that this will happen. Scrubs will usually come back for more abuse endlessly, because they need the attention. You might lose a few acquintances or new people you just met, but you won’t accomplish anything until you don’t compromise yourself. Now onto the game itself - what you should do is abuse all of the “cheap” moves shamelessly. Don’t be insecure with yourself when they cry “cheap”. Just continue to punish them. The best thing to say to encourage them to play better varies from person to person. However the trick is always to be secure with yourself. Never back down, they will lose all respect for you. Don’t be mean about it, they won’t understand what is going on if you are mean to them. Fight as a patient and disciplined warrior. If you appear to have a good attitude and you continue to explain to the scrub how and why they are losing they might finally realize what is going on. They may never, but they are tackling some tough psychological issues outside of the game. Unless you are their best friend you can’t help them in a deep way. The best thing for you to do is to be a strict yet nurturing opponent.
A good newbie who isn’t afraid of challenge will think logically. They will at first consider the game to be a match of reflexes and skill with the joystick and buttons. At this point they are a scrub. However eventually they will consider the idea that the designers might have designed their fighting game to have some sort of tactic to punish moves that are easy to do. It usually won’t take long for them to think "If this game is a matter of speed with the controls, than how come it is easy for somebody playing as Dhalsim to kill me from across the screen? The player is no longer a scrub once they continue to explore ways to destroy the opponent playing as Dhalsim. It turns out the reason why Dhalsim can kill players so easily is because a large part of the game has to do with learning when to defend and when to offend. **
The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns. As they play the game more, they?ll be forced to find counters to those tactics. The vast majority of tactics that at first appear unbeatable end up having counters, though they are often quite esoteric and difficult to discover. The counter tactic prevents the first player from doing the tactic, but the first player can then use a counter to the counter. The second player is now afraid to use his counter and he?s again vulnerable to the original overpowering tactic. (See my article on Yomi layer 3 for much more on that.)
Notice that the good players are reaching higher and higher levels of play. They found the ?cheap stuff? and abused it. They know how to stop the cheap stuff. They know how to stop the other guy from stopping it so they can keep doing it. And as is quite common in competitive games, many new tactics will later be discovered that make the original cheap tactic look wholesome and fair. Often in fighting games, one character will have something so good it?s unfair. Fine, let him have that. As time goes on, it will be discovered that other characters have even more powerful and unfair tactics. Each player will attempt to steer the game in the direction of his own advantages, much how grandmaster chess players attempt to steer opponents into situations in which their opponents are weak.
**The scrub even after reading this can still think that the type of game they would rather play is more fun. In fact a scrub vs. scrub game will look a lot more interesting than a game played between good players. Much like the way martial arts movies involve totally unrealistic martial arts for the sake of an exciting film that the mainstream audience will like. However any fighting game a scrub plays will eventually get boring for them because they never take on a challenge. Read lots of reviews for fighting games or message board posts for fighting games and you will always read all kinds of bitching about fighting game X gets too boring too quickly. It’s impossible for them to be satisfied, because anybody who runs from challenge can never truly escape boredom. So in reality the good players who play their fighting games are actually having a lot more fun when they play against each other. But the fun has to be earned. I like to make fighting games attractive, but I make no apology to the fact that fighting games are challenging, and that they are not immediatelly fun.
The scrub will always argue with the good player that they have skill even though they simply can’t stop losing whenever faced with a non-scrub opponent. Until they get over their fear, they will never consider the possibility that you can side step Rafael’s flicky sword attack and that a player playing as Eddie Gordo will have a hard time with somebody who experiments with defensive play. **
I?ve never been to a tournament where there was a prize for the winner and another prize for the player who did many difficult moves. I?ve also never seen a prize for a player who played ?in an innovative way.? Many scrubs have strong ties to ?innovation.? They say ?that guy didn?t do anything new, so he is no good.? Or ?person x invented that technique and person y just stole it.? Well, person y might be 100 times better than person x, but that doesn?t seem to matter. When person y wins the tournament and person x is a forgotten footnote, what will the scrub say? That person y has ?no skill? of course.
Depth in Games
I?ve talked about how the expert player is not bound by rules of ?honor? or ?cheapness? and simply plays to maximize his chances of winning. When he plays against other such players, ?game theory? emerges. If the game is a good one, it will become deeper and deeper and more strategic. Poorly designed games will become shallower and shallower. This is the difference between an arcade game that lasts years in an arcade versus one that lasts 4 months. This is the difference between a PC game that lasts years on the shelves (Starcraft) versus one that quickly becomes boring (I won?t name any names). The point is that if a game becomes ?no fun? at high levels of play, then it?s the game?s fault, not the player?s. Unfortunately, a game becoming less fun because it?s poorly designed and you just losing because you?re a scrub kind of look alike. You?ll have to play some top players and do some soul searching to decide which is which. But if it really is the game?s fault, there are plenty of other games that are excellent at a high level of play. For games that truly aren?t good at a high level, the only winning move is not to play.
Boundaries of Playing to Win
There is a gray area here I feel I should point out. If an expert does anything he can to win, then does he exploit bugs in the game? The answer is a resounding yes?but not all bugs. There is a large class of bugs in video games that players don?t even view as bugs. In Marvel vs. Capcom 2, for example, Iceman can launch his opponent into the air, follow him, do a few hits, then combo into his super move. During the super move he falls down below his opponent, so only about half of his super will connect. The Iceman player can use a trick, though. Just before doing the super, he can do another move, an icebeam, and cancel that move into the super. There?s a bug here which causes iceman to fall, during his super, at the much slower rate of his icebeam. The player actually cancels the icebeam as soon as possible?optimally as soon as 1/60th of a second after it begins. The whole point is to make iceman fall slower during his super so he gets more hits. Is it a bug? I?m sure it is. It looks like a programming oversight to me. Would an expert player use this? Of course.
The iceman example is relatively tame. In Street Fighter Alpha2, there?s a bug in which you can land the most powerful move in the game (a Custom Combo or ?CC?) on the opponent, even when he should be able to block it. A bug? Yes. Does it help you win? Yes. This technique became the dominant tactic of the game. The gameplay evolved around this, play went on, new strategies were developed. Those who cried cheap were simply left behind to play their own homemade version of the game with made-up rules. The one we all played had unblockable CCs, and it went on to be a great game.
But there is a limit. There is a point when the bug becomes too much. In tournaments, bugs that turn the game off, or freeze it indefinitely, or remove one of the characters from the playfield permanently are banned. Bugs so extreme that they stop gameplay are considered unfair even by non-scrubs. As are techniques that can only be performed on, say, the one player side of the game. There are a few esoteric tricks in various fighting games that are side dependant?that can?t be performed on the 2nd player side, for example.
The constant idea of what is cheating and what isn’t cheating is determined by wether or not the bug increases challenge. A player who masters an infinite combo may have spent a long time mastering it, but once the player has done so the game is no longer challenging. Anybody playing as that character is the gaurenteed winner. Or if a same character battle ensues, the game dumbs down into a match of who can perform the instant combo first. Serious gamers tend to avoid exploring the extremities of brocken games, which is why Tekken 4 was a failure. That and the variable terrain was a horrible idea, as players had to master their skills in all of the terrains or only play against other players who have mastered a certain terrain.
Here?s an example of the grayest area of all. Many versions of Street Fighter have ?secret characters? that are only accessible through a code. Sometimes these characters are good, sometimes they?re not. Occasionally, the secret characters are the best in the game, as in Marvel vs. Capcom. Big deal. That?s the way that game is. Live with it. But the first version of Street Fighter to ever have a secret character was Super Turbo Street Fighter with its untouchably good Akuma. Most characters in that game cannot beat Akuma. I don?t mean it?s a tough match?I mean they cannot ever, ever, ever, ever win. Akuma is ?broken? in that his air fireball move is something the game simply wasn?t designed to handle. He?s miles above the other characters, and is therefore banned in all tournaments. But every game has a ?best character? and those characters are never banned. They?re just part of the game?except in Super Turbo. It?s extreme examples like this that even amongst the top players, and even something that isn?t a bug, but was put in on purpose by the game designers, the community as a whole has unanimously decided to make the rule: ?don?t play Akuma in serious matches.?
My Attitude of People and their view of video games
I’ve been talking down to the scrub a lot in this article. **Most people aren’t stupid, but most people are mediocre. They fear true challenge and it manifests itself in video games recognizably. Maddox once wrote that no kid dreamed of being a director manager of sales (unless it’s a direct manager of sales for a video game company), and that most people are sell outs. Most people don’t persue their true dreams, because they don’t have the self confidence. They haven’t learned that you don’t have to be born with talent to be successful, you simply have to want to accomplish something in your one time existence.
But you must keep in mind that perpetually challenging video games are a rare form of video game. We are right in the middle of a second gaming glut and it seams reasoanble to assume that no real amount of patience and discipline is required to play any of them. This notion does not make sense, because with such a huge market for video games, obviously some of them would be made for people who want an ever lasting challenge. Once again debating with them would do nothing, because it’s not a logical assumption from the start. The only way to convince them otherwise is to be a good opponent. You may not succeed, but don’t take it hard if you don’t. Even if you completely tore down the mental barriers of the scrub they would still fight to defend them much like how the old man in The Grapes of Wrath did not want to leave his farm despite the dust bowl. They will fight endlessly for them until they finally have the confidence to realize that they are missing out on something better.
**
There are players who can abuse tactics and be called cheap cause they do nothing else.
The top players of any game destroy those players and don’t have to use “cheap” tactics against casual players who called cheap players cheap.
Matt
There are things like Ahvb x 4 that can be considered “cheap”.
Everyone uses the word differently. I know in AZ everyone says mag/storm/sent/cable are cheap, just because it’s the obvious top tiers. The way your friend is using the word cheap obviously means they suck, and that’s the most common definition for it, but like i said, it depends on the person using it.
I think makoto is cheap with her 100% stun combo, but i accept it as part of gameplay.
I do agree about people who complain too much about cheap tactics=scrubs but only to a certain extent. Cheap to me means that a move that has all listed: little or no whiff animation, has unfair priority, and does ridiculous amounts of damage. In other words, anything easily abusable like rc, parrying, and useing top tier whores that require very little skill to use like hmmmm… 3s ken…
For all those who complain about all the cheap shit thrown around, all I can say is this, “Do on to others what others do to you.” I suppose.
OR mabye it could be you that sucks since you like to take the easy way out with super scrubby characters. So keep that in mind, Snake. But I can’t really blame you or anyone because MVC2 is one of Capcom’s shittiest balance-wise game anyway.
Ahh, forgot to mention that if people complain about turtleing and throws being cheap, those people shouldn’t play fighting games simply because they are punishable.
What isn’t punishable? Do you have any tactic in any decent game that some can’t get around. People bitch about turtling in CvS2 and call it a turtle game because there are too many defensive options and they outweigh the offensive ones. There are also games where throws are broken. You’re way too selective in what you call cheap. How the hell is parrying considered cheap? And now complete characters who aren’t even the best in thier respective games are considered cheap? Get over it.
I wish Shin Akuma wasnt considered cheap, i should be able to use him in tournaments i mean for christs sake 5 hits and hes dead so it all evens out but just because noone can get those five hits when i use him hes considered cheap.
If people stopped playing games because of turtling, then fighting games would have long since died. CvS2 and 3s are turtle games, but they are played. People didn’t stop playing 2k3 because of turtling…they stopped because it sucks.
I think its fairly stupid that Sirlin admits that some things in games can be excessive and should be banned (bugs) but then he ignores that this definition can be applied by different groups. If everyone in a group bans a tactic or character, nobody has the advantage for that character because they’re not allowed. If you don’t play in serious tournaments and just play those people…and the game is now more fun…thats enough. I’ve never liked this ‘play to win at all costs’ mentality because its fairly inconsistent. Why can’t I use autofire or programmed combos then? Why don’t I just punch out my opponent? Why can’t I use ST Akuma?
Generally, a persons says “that’s cheap” when they can’t win. But what about those who CAN win and ADMIT that their strategy is cheap? For example, anyone who plays TEKKEN 5 knows what fighting Steve and Nina is like. I’m sure a lot of top tier whores out there think they are pretty damn good, too. Yet all those players can’t win, otherwise there would be no losers.
The cheapness factor is not the USE of abusable techniques, its the RELIANCE on them. This is one of the things that makes a person a scrub-- that and constantly complaining in the scrubiness of other people. Without actual display of ability these people are stuck in a well that gets higher around them everyday, for as other people are FORCED to advance in their techinque in order to overcome their characters weaknesses-- often to overcome the cheap tactics-- the scrubs are sitting on their hands wondering why their top tier teams never seem to get them past the first bracket. I admit a good character can complement raw talent like nothing before, but without skill it’s like diarrhea in a public restroom-- shit may flow for you but for everybody else it stinks.