Лекция по "Психологии"

Or in a first-person shooter game, consider the notion of banning “camping” (sitting in one place for too long). No friendly agreement between the players is necessary for the ban, which at least means it’s enforceable. The server can monitor the positions of players, and it knows exactly who breaks the rule and can hand out penalties accordingly. The ban is enforceable, but the problem is being able to completely define camping. If camping is defined as staying within one zone for 3 minutes, and if it really is the best tactic, then sitting in that zone for 2 minutes 59 seconds becomes the best tactic. It’s a slippery slope because there will always exist camping tactics arbitrarily close to the specific kind of camping that is banned.

Here’s an example of a completely defined game element. In the card game Magic: The Gathering, if a particular card is deemed to be too good, then it is possible to ban it. One can define completely that “that card cannot be used.” There is no fear of players still “sort of” using it, in the same way they could still “sort of” repeat the moves from the fighting game, or “sort of” camp for 2 minutes 59 seconds above. The card is a discrete entity that can feasibly be banned.

Warranted

Here is the whole issue, of course. If it isn’t warranted to ban something, we don’t need to even consider whether it’s enforceable or discrete. The great lesson of competitive games is that hardly anything warrants a ban.

A bug that gives players a small advantage does not warrant a ban. In fact, it’s common. Many players don’t even realize they are using bugs, but instead view them as “advanced tactics.” Even bugs that have a huge effect on gameplay are usually not warranted to be banned. The game may change with the new tactic, but games are resilient and there tend to be countermeasures (sometimes other bugs) to almost everything.

In the fighting game Street Fighter Alpha 2, there is a bug that allows the player to activate a very damaging move (called “Custom Combo”) against an opponent who is standing up (not crouching). The designers surely intended a standing opponent to be able to crouch and block this move upon seeing it, but if executed correctly, he cannot. It has a huge impact on the way the game is played (standing up is now quite dangerous), but there is still an excellent game left even after this technique is known. At first glance, one might think that attacking is too dangerous because it usually involves standing up. Closer examination shows that the attacker can stick out moves to knock the defender out of his Custom Combo, should he try it. Basically, the bug can be dealt with. This game-changing tactic is referred to by players as the “Valle CC” after its inventor, Alex Valle (more on him later).

As another example, consider the puzzle game Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. It’s vaguely like Tetris. In this game, blocks of various colors fall into your basin and you try to match up the colors to break these blocks to fill up your opponent’s basin. If you fill up his basin to the top, you win.

Puzzle Fighter has a game-altering bug. A feature called the diamond lets the player break all blocks of a certain color on his own side (even if they aren’t lined up) and send blocks to the opponent’s side. Usually, doing this means sending much, much fewer blocks than if the player had broken all the blocks of that color manually. It’s a tradeoff since the diamond allows the player to break all those blocks instantly, but at the price of a smaller attack. There is a bug, though, called the “diamond trick” that allows the player to send even more blocks with the diamond than he would have sent breaking all his blocks of that color manually. The diamond goes from “get me out of trouble” to being a serious, game-ending thwomp. It’s nearly impossible to defeat a player who uses the diamond trick without using it yourself.

Amongst players who all know this trick, there is still a good game. One player can use his diamond trick to cancel out the other player’s. Each player gets diamond every twenty-fifth piece, so you can count on the other player getting his diamond about the same time you get yours. You can also just break a lot of blocks right when the opponent does his diamond trick. This will allow you to cancel some of the incoming block, but still give you a pretty full basin. A peculiarity of Puzzle Fighter is that when your basin is nearly full, you then have a lot of ammunition to send back to the opponent. A clever player can turn the other player’s huge diamond trick into a stockpile of ammunition to fire back for the win. In the end, the trick merely changes the game and does not destroy it, and is certainly not worthy of banning.

How does one know if a bug destroys the game or even if a legitimate tactic destroys it? The rule of thumb is to assume it doesn’t and keep playing, because 99% of the time, as good as the tactic may be, there will either be a way to counter it or other even better tactics. Prematurely banning something is the scrub’s way. It prevents the scrub from ever discovering the counter to the Valle CC or the diamond trick. It also creates artificial rules that alter the game, when it’s entirely possible that the game was just fine the way it was. It also usually leads to an avalanche of bans in order to be consistent with the first. When players think they have found a game-breaking tactic, I advise them to go win some tournaments with it. If they can prove that the game really is reduced to just that tactic, then perhaps a ban is warranted. It’s extremely rare that a player is ever able to prove this though. In fact, I don’t even have any examples of it.

A note to game developers: fix your bugs after release if you have the opportunity to do so. But beware that players enjoy the feeling of wielding “unfair” tactics, and taking that away from them can be a mistake if the “unfair” tactic isn’t powerful enough to single-handedly win tournaments.

Immediately Ban-worthy Glitches

There are some things so extreme that they can be banned without much testing. These include glitches that crash the game or have radical effects, such as blanking out the opponent’s entire screen, removing his characters, units, or resources from the game, and so forth. Glitches so extreme that they undeniably end or prevent gameplay are worthy of being banned. Likewise, so are glitches that are not equally available to all players. Some glitches in a two player game can only be performed by player 2. It is reasonable to ban such a tactic, even if it’s not overly powerful, just on the basis that all players do not have equal access to it.

“It’s Too Good!”

Only in the most extreme, rare cases should something be banned because it is “too good.” This will be the most common type of ban requested by players, and almost all of their requests will be foolish. Banning a tactic simply because it is “the best” isn’t even warranted. That only reduces the game to all the “second best” tactics, which isn’t necessarily any better of a game than the original game. In fact, it’s often worse!

The only reasonable case to ban something because it is “too good” is when that tactic completely dominates the entire game, to the exclusion of other tactics. It is possible, though very rare, that removing an element of the game that is not only “the best” but also “ten times better than anything else in the game” results in a better game. I emphasize that is extremely rare. The most common case is that the player requesting the ban doesn’t fully grasp that the game is, in fact, not all about that one tactic. He should win several tournaments using mainly this tactic to prove his point. Another, far rarer possibility is that he’s right. The game really is shallow and centered on one thing (whether that one thing is a bug or by design is irrelevant). In that case, the best course of action is usually to abandon the game and play one of the hundreds of other readily available good games in the world.

Only in the ultra-rare case that the player is right and the game is worth saving and the game without the ultra-tactic is a ten times better game—only then is the notion even worth fighting for. And even in this case, it may take time for the game to mature enough for a great percentage of the best players and tournament organizers to realize that tactic should, indeed, be banned. Before an official ban takes place, there can also be something called “soft ban.” Let’s look at an example.

The Two Excellent Examples of “Super Turbo”

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, or “Super Turbo,” is a wonderful example of bannings in fighting games. As of this writing, the arcade game is ten years old and still played in tournaments. In fact, there are one or two tournaments per week in this game in Tokyo alone. The game is quite mature, and there is a decade of data about the game’s balance.

Cheating

by FMJaguar

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 the game Marvel vs. Capcom 1. Big deal. That’s the way that game is. Live with it. But Super Turbo was the first version of Street Fighter to ever have a secret character: the 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 is not merely the best character in the game, but is at least ten times better than other characters. This case is so extreme that all top players in America immediately realized that all tournaments would be Akuma vs. Akuma only, and so the character was banned with basically no debate and has been ever since. I believe this was the correct decision.

Japan, however, does not officially ban Akuma from tournaments! They have what is called a “soft ban.” This is a tacit understanding amongst all top players that Akuma is too good to be played, and that he destroys an otherwise beautiful game, so they unofficially agree not to play him. There are always a very small number of people who do play him in tournaments, but never the top players. Usually a few poor players try their hand at the god-character and lose, which is utterly humiliating and crowd-pleasing. This is an interesting alternate take on the “hard ban” we have in America.

That’s all well and good, but Japan has also shown signs of a soft-ban on another character in Super Turbo. I bring up this example because it lives on the threshold. It is just on the edge of what is reasonable to ban because it is “too good.” Anything less than this would not be reasonable, so perhaps others can use it as a benchmark to decide what is reasonable in their games.

The character in question is the mysteriously named “Old Sagat.” Old Sagat is not a secret character like Akuma (or at least he’s not as secret!). Old Sagat does not have any moves like Akuma’s air fireball that the game was not designed to handle. Old Sagat is arguably the best character in the game (Akuma, of course, doesn’t count), but even that is debated by top players! I think almost any expert player would rank him in the top three of all characters, but there isn’t even universal agreement that he is the best! Why, then, would any reasonable person even consider banning him? Surely, it must be a group of scrubs who simply don’t know how to beat him, and reflexively cry out for a ban.

But this is not the case. There seems to be a tacit agreement amongst top players in Japan—a soft ban—on playing Old Sagat. The reason is that many believe the game to have much more variety without Old Sagat. Even if he is only second best in the game by some measure, he flat out beats half the characters in the game with little effort. Half the cast can barely even fight him, let alone beat him. Other top characters in the game, good as they are, win by much more interaction and more “gameplay.” Almost every character has a chance against the other best characters in the game. The result of allowing Old Sagat in tournaments is that several other characters, such as Chun Li and Ken, become basically unviable.

If someone had made these claims in the game’s infancy, no sort of ban would be warranted. Further testing through tournaments would be warranted. But we now have ten years of testing. We don’t have all Old Sagat vs. Old Sagat matches in tournaments, but we do know which characters can’t beat him and as a result are very rarely played in America. We likewise can see that this same category of characters flourishes in Japan, where Old Sagats are rare and only played by the occasional violator of the soft ban. It seems that the added variety of viable characters might outweigh the lack of Old Sagat. Is this ban warranted then? To be honest, I am not totally convinced that it is, but it is just barely in the ballpark of reasonableness since there is a decade of data on which to base the claim.

Some people have asked if they should use these means to win:

“What about using the map hack in StarCraft, or a packet interceptor, or a macro to cast your spells faster, or just a swift kick to the shins of your opponent?”

One of the great things about playing to win is that it’s a path of self-improvement that can be measured. In playing to win, we have the cold, hard results of winning and losing to guide us along that path. I think it’s only useful to consider winning and losing in the context of formal competition such as tournaments. Kicking your opponents in the shins is outside the scope of the game, and is not legal in any reasonable tournament.

Likewise, any third party program obtained from an illegal warez site and installed as a hack into your game is also not going to be legal in any reasonable tournament. These things, though technically useful to those trying to win, are outside the path of continuous self-improvement that I’m talking about since they are outside of the rules of tournaments. You should use any tournament legal means to win. If you participate in some strange tournament where all players are allowed to use a map hack, then go for it. You’re playing a rather weird, nonstandard version of the game, though, which defeats the whole purpose of shedding extra rules so as to play the same game as everyone else. Any reasonable person would consider “no cheating from outside the game” to be part of the default rule set of any game.

Sportsmanship

by Sirlin

Some would interpret my attitude of winning by any means necessary to imply that I have no appreciation of sportsmanship. Quite the contrary, I have observed that the very best players are likely to be excellent sports. Part of sportsmanship is keeping calm when you lose. Playing to win involves viewing a loss as an opportunity to learn and improve. Getting hot-headed and yelling at an opponent or muttering under your breath that you lost to a “no-skilled scrub” does not accomplish that.

Being a good sport also involves winning politely and observing customs of etiquette before and after a match such as bowing, shaking hands, saying “good game,” or whatever is appropriate. There is always the tendency to gloat, but being polite and reserved is the way to positively influence other people. Judges are people, too, and when a judgment call must be made, judges are often itching to find a technicality to use against a bad sport. Other players, perhaps potential sparring partners, team members, or keepers of secret information about the game are likely to be more open to a good sport than a raving lunatic or an idiot.

Some ask why they should not scream racist or other offensive remarks, spit on the shoes of their opponents, beat their chests, or otherwise intimidate the enemy. After all, they say, the purpose is to win using any legal means, period. Isn’t that what I have said? First of all, some of these activities may not be legal in a tournament. Second, they violate the principle of goodwill that I described above. And third, I am not convinced they offer any real strategic advantage. They are more likely to make you look stupid, and create an air of negativity that will follow you.

That said, I do know of a few skilled players who use these tactics. There is usually leeway in a tournament to be physically intimidating and say mean and scary things just short of actually violating any rules. Trash talking before the event over the internet is pretty much always legal, too. Perhaps these players are playing to their own strengths by being bullies. This behavior does give them advantages over some opponents, but the costs seem too great overall for me to endorse this as a winning strategy.

If you wish to rile your opponent up, there are plenty of ways to do this within most games. There are ways of playing that are annoying and provoking. When an opponent plays defensively, expecting you to attack him, you can play defensively, too. This may annoy him and throw him off. Or, you can make moves that obviously have no purpose as a way of “taunting” an opponent you have an advantage over. Anything you do inside the game is good and right and beyond the scope of making you a bad sport. All is fair in war.

If your aim is to intimidate the opponent, then I am all for that. But there are polite, sportsman-like ways of doing this. The best way by far is to win tournaments. See what your next opponent thinks of you then. Just give him something as simple as a half-hearted glance and empty-sounding “good luck” before the match and he will probably fall over like a feather from your presence. When a player radiates a sense of total dominance at a game, I call this a “fear aura.” The most unlikely of pale, white computer geeks can strike fear into the hearts of other gamers when they discover that he is, in fact, “PhatDan09” or whatever name is known to dominate tournaments. With the fear aura, he is able to get away with gambits and maneuvers no ordinary player could ever pull off, just because the opponent gives him the extreme benefit of the doubt on everything that occurs in the game. If the wielder of the fear aura appears to be vulnerable, perhaps it is just what he wants you to think. It might be safer to hesitate, and then—oops—to lose. Once you develop your fear aura through excellent play and winning, you will laugh at the relatively ineffective notion of intimidating opponents with offensive verbal comments.

 

Introduction to The Art of War

by Sirlin

Up to this point, I have told you almost nothing about how to actually play. I have so far covered mainly the mindset you need to take into a game, not the tactics and strategies employed during a game. On this delicate subject, I will not even pretend to have unique authority, for it has been covered many times before me by more distinguished authors. Perhaps no author has ever explained it better than the military general, Sun Tzu.

Twenty-five centuries ago in China, Sun Tzu wrote a little manual called The Art of War. In the 2,500 years since that time, countless authors have tackled the subject of war, and wars unnumbered have been waged, yet still Sun Tzu’s words have unnerving relevance. Mao Tse-tung’s Little Red Book of strategic and tactical doctrine was a nearly word-for-word recounting of The Art of War. It’s rumored that Napoleon’s secret weapon during his conquest of Europe was none other than Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Even David Sirlin’s manual of competitive gaming Playing to Win is said to draw heavily from The Art of War.

The chapters that follow in this book are my retelling and interpretation of that great work. I have condensed his thirteen chapters to seven, joined together similar material, omitted some topics, and added two chapters of my own. I explore how his tactics of military conduct apply to playing competitive games today, and provide examples from several games. I have taken great liberties on a few subjects such as the use of spies, but overall, the application of his concepts is quite direct.

Take, for example, Sun Tzu’s five essentials for victory:

He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.

He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.

He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.

He will win who has military capacity, and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

 
Now consider the application to competitive games of today. First we have “He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.” If, in a game, you are temporarily at a disadvantage, then you should stall until you can change the situation. Capcom vs. SNK 2 is a fighting game that allows players to store resources in a “super meter” and then activate this meter. Once activated, the resources give that player a big advantage, but only until his meter ticks down to zero over time. The opponent is well advised to avoid all fighting until the opponent’s advantage fades away. In a real-time strategy game such as Warcraft or StarCraft, opponents often gain momentary advantages of terrain, or concentration of troops, or even of the day/night cycle of the game. Don’t engage the enemy in fighting if delaying will allow you to find more favorable terrain, or gather your troops, or wait until a different point in the day/night cycle. Run away from a fight if you can simply wait for your disadvantages to fade.

Then we have “He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.” You must often employ different tactics when winning than when losing. When losing badly, you are often forced to choose only from high-risk options that have big enough payoffs to put you back into the game. When you are down several pieces in chess, you can no longer afford to grind the opponent down slowly, trading piece for piece. The further behind you are, the more imperative it becomes to find that bold combination that traps the enemy king directly. On the other hand, if you are winning by a huge amount in a fighting game, you would be wise to restrict yourself to unusually safe moves, giving the opponent no chance to come back. When the opponent is extremely low on life, even your quickest jab is as deadly as a powerful, slow attack that would leave you vulnerable. Relying on low risk moves is totally viable when you are in the powerful position of “almost winning.”

“He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.” What Sun Tzu means is that the intent of the general must be carried out by officers and then soldiers, exactly as envisioned. The strategy is wasted if it cannot be executed properly. In a sense, your mind and your body must be “animated by the same spirit” while playing. You must have the dexterity and coordination to physically carry out whatever course of action your mind believes is best. From micromanaging combat units in a battle in Warcraft to executing a skillful backhand in tennis, to hitting your target with the rocket in Quake, to landing that difficult combo in Street Fighter, you must be able to execute your moves precisely.

And then “He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.” This is closely related to the first of the five points. Advantages shift over the course of a game, and it is the wise player who puts himself beyond the possibility of defeat and waits for the enemy to make a fatal mistake, or at least waits for advantages to shift favorably before attacking.

For example, in the first-person shooter Counter-Strike, the players on the “terrorist” team must plant a bomb at one of two bomb sites on the map. The players on the “counter-terrorist” team must stop this from happening. The counter-terrorists can take up defensive positions using cover and protected snipers. When they have an iron defense in place, there is no need for them to scramble around the map looking for the enemy. If the terrorists do not plant the bomb before the match’s time limit is up, the counter-terrorists win. In this advantageous situation, the counter-terrorists can just wait for the terrorists to attack. The terrorists, on the other hand, need to shake up this situation before they can successfully strike. Two basic ways of doing this are to attack the bomb site that is underdefended, forcing the counter-terrorists to call for backup, or to use grenades (high-explosive, flashbangs, or smoke bombs) to cause a brief period of chaos and confusion in the enemy ranks.