Playing to Win, Part 3: Not Playing to Win
Ok, ok. I'll let you in on the secret: "playing to win" at all times is counter-productive. If you want to win over the long-term, then you can't play every single game as if it were a tournament finals. If you did you wouldn't have time for basic R&D, you'd never learn the quirky nuances that show up unexpectedly at tournaments, and you are likely to get stuck honing sub-optimal tactics.
Basic R&D
Playing to win and playing to learn are often at odds. If you play the game at hand to maximize you chances of winning, then you won't take the unnecessary risks of trying out new tactics, counters, moves, patterns, or whatever. Playing it straight is the best way to win the game at hand, but at the cost of valuable information about the game that you may need later, and valuable practice to expand your narrow repertoire of moves or tactics.
Here's a simple example from Street Fighter. Let's say I know for a fact that one split second from now my opponent will do a particular "super move." To win the game at hand, the smartest thing to do is just block the move, but that doesn't teach me a whole lot. How invulnerable is his super move, anyway? Could I have stuck out an early kick that would knock him out of his super? Or could I have waited for the "super flash" to happen (signifying the beginning of his super move) and then done an invulnerable dragon punch 1 frame later? Maybe my invulnerability will last longer than his and I'll knock him out of it. Maybe his will always win. That's valuable information to have for the time when you have zero energy and the opponent forces you to block the super move and die. This situation will happen in the tournament, so you better know what your options are.
Very often in "casual play" I will forgo the safe option in order to try possible counters to certain moves. Even if I lose a game when a possible counter turns out not to work, the knowledge gained is well worth it, since I'll never make that particular mistake again (I hope!). If you really want to play to win, you have to know all the options open to you at every moment, and that doesn't happen without a lot of disastrous experiments.
This concept applies to pretty much any game, of course. "Will my 6 corsairs really beat his 12 mutalisks in StarCraft?" Or, "I know I have the flak cannon, but will the shock rifle combo work just as well around corners in Unreal Tournament?" You will never know unless you try it.
Honing Sub-optimal Tactics
Early in a game's life, players have not yet figured out which strategies and tactics are actually the best--though many players will claim to know all. Those players may very well know better tactics than other players of their time, but games evolve. New things are discovered that obsolete old tactics. Usually, radically different and better tactics are discovered that put the old ones to shame. Sometimes, new counters are discovered that can entirely defeat the old "best" tactics. In a fighting game, you also have the concept of figuring out which characters are the best. It can take months (or years!) for players to figure out that character X, though widely thought to suck, is actually able to abuse bug/feature Y in such a way as to be nearly unbeatable.
So how does all this relate to playing to win? The hardcore "Play to Win" player will choose his one character, his set of powerful tactics, and hone them to perfection over time. He'll know all the tricks for that character to perform those tactics. For example, in the fighting game Marvel vs. Capcom 1, he might pick Mega-man and learn the "rock ball trap." This a pattern of attack where mega man creates a soccer ball ("rock ball" in Japan), kicks it diagonally across the screen, then fires one blue projectile in the air, then one on the ground. That's 3 projectiles total controlling the play field. While the opponent deals with that, Mega-man has time to summon another soccer ball and repeat the pattern.
A serious Mega-man player will learn the rock ball trap variations needed against Chun Li, the different variations needed against Venom, and so on. Other players will find tricks to negate the usefulness of the rock ball trap in general, then the Mega-man player will find the counter-tricks that allows him to keep the pattern going. This will feel a lot like "Playing to Win," but in the end, this player will do precious little winning. He will have mastered a sub-optimal tactic that in the end is not bad, but isn't 1/10th as good as other things that other characters can do.
I think of a game as a topological landscape with lots of hills and peaks that represent different tactics/strategies/characters. The higher the peak, the more effective that strategy is. Over time, players explore this landscape, discover more and more the hills and peaks, and climb to higher locations on the known hills and peaks. Players can't really add height to these peaks; they are only exploring what's there. The problem is, when you reach the base of a new peak (say, the rock ball trap peak), it can be very hard to know that the pinnacle isn't very high. It might be really difficult to climb (lots of nuances to learn to do the trap), but in the end, the effectiveness of the tactic is low compared to the monstrous mountains that are out there. You have reached a local maximum, and would do better to exploring for new mountains.
In other words, playing to win involves exploring. It involves trying several different approaches in a game to see which you are best at, which other players are best at, and which you think will end up being the most effective in the end. When you are perfecting your rock ball trap (your best chance of winning at the time), you have to realize that "playing to win" might actually involve taking up a new character you know nothing about--a character that you will eventually play 10 times better than you could ever dream of playing Mega-man.
Learning Secret Lore
Tournament play often creates critical moments of decision when you are exposed to a very strange situation in the game. In a tournament, the best players get to play each other, often with a clash of play-styles. They each have their own tricks and must find immediate answers to the tricks of their opponents. And it's not just for fun anymore, it's "real." It matters. Under this pressure players find creative and unusual solutions to they tricky spots they get put into.
When these strange situations come up, will you be familiar with them? Do you know the options and the risks involved? Knowledge of "secret lore" or unusual interactions in a game often means the difference between winning and losing.
And how will you learn this secret lore? Perhaps you are preparing for a tournament, practicing, playing to win. What will you practice? You'll practice the things you know you need to do the most in a match. You'll practice against the things that you know you'll face? Basically, you'll do it all "by the book." Consciously preparing for a tournament is pretty much the opposite of exploring "unusual situations." In your practicing, will you seek out a player of a character you think sucks? Will you play characters you have no intention of playing in the tournament? Probably not. But what happens when a mysterious player out of nowhere shows up with that "sucky" character, and shows everyone how good that character really is? That other character you were messing around with might be just the thing you need--too bad you didn't explore that. You were "playing to win."
The Karmic justice of it all is that love of the game really does count for something. Those who love the game play it to play it. They mess around. They pick strange characters, try strange tactics, face others who do the same, and they learn the secret knowledge. Those who play only to win can't be bothered with any of that. Every minute they spend playing goes toward climbing their current peak, attaining their local maximum. Perhaps they don't even like the game enough to be bothered with anything except the most mainstream character and the most mainstream tactic with that character.
I practiced pretty hard for a tournament in Super Turbo Street Fighter that occurred on August 9th-11th 2001. Before the tournament, I decided to play only Dhalsim and to practice him a lot against whoever I could. I also happen to actually like the game, and I'd sometimes mess around with my "fun characters" of Honda and Ryu, and occasionally with my "professional" character: Bison. Dhalsim was my focus, though.
When the actual tournament came around, I would have never guessed what it all came down to. My Dhalsim did well, and it came time for me to face a well-known Japanese player who plays T-Hawk. T-Hawk is known to be terrible, especially against Dhalsim, but this was a prime example of a player who could work magic with a "sucky" character. After one game, my Dhalsim was utterly destroyed, and I needed a change of plans. I figured that my "casual play" Honda would do well, since I could sit and do nothing the entire game and be safe from T-Hawk. If he ever got near, I could head-butt and knock him away, then sit and do nothing. (See my article on The Art of War: The Sheathed Sword.) Anyway, my performance, a true exhibition of stubbornness and boringness in tournament play, paid off. I defeated the Japanese player in an utterly ridiculous character matchup that no one would ever predict actually happening in a tournament. I went on to lose another ridiculous character matchup against a different Japanese player, but that's another story.
The unlikely moral here is that playing to win is often counter-productive. Those who love the game and play to play will uncover the unusual nuances that might be important in a tournament. Those nuances might never be important, but the "play to play" player doesn't care. It's all for fun, and he's happy to accumulate whatever knowledge he can. The "play to win" player might lock himself into perfecting certain tactics/strategies/character that will eventually be obsolete, as hard as that will be to believe at the moment. Meanwhile, the player who is able to take a step back and mess around will either discover new mountains to climb, or at least take a stab at climbing some other known mountains. The joke's on you when his mountain turns out to be 10 times higher than yours.
Postscript—
Months after writing the above article, I traveled to Japan in March 2003 as part of Team USA, representing the US in Super Turbo Street Fighter. I also played a bit of Capcom vs. SNK 2 over there. One interesting thing about Japanese players is that they stick with just one character (or one team of characters in CvS2), since their tournament format requires keeping the same character the entire tournament. In the US, we can switch characters between games, giving us an incentive to learn at least 2 to 4 different characters.
The Japanese players definitely proved to me that by sticking to one character and learning EVERYTHING about that character, you win the unwinable matches. In both Street Fighter games I played in Japan, I saw Japanese players who devoted themselves to supposedly weak characters and demonstrated the topological peaks for those characters are miles higher than I had realized. One might think that invalidates some of the points I made in this article--yet the winner of the CvS2 tournament used the same old unfair, broken characters and tactics that we're all aware of (A-groove roll-canceling Blanka/Sakura/Bison for those who care). That same player, Tokido, won the CvS2 portion of the 2001 tournament I mentioned above, so perhaps he's proved my point after all. He's identified what many players agree is the highest peak of that game, and devoted himself to perfecting it. Unfortunately he's an incredibly boring player, but nonetheless a boring player who won the US National and Japan National tournaments!
--Sirlin
April 21st, 2006 at 4:19 am
Wait, if cheating to win is ok, then why do you guys say there should be a punishment if you’re caught?
How can doing things like stand-bying and modding so you’re invincible be ok in COMPETITIVE GAMES?? It’s not ok, cheating is wrong.
April 26th, 2006 at 8:45 am
Cheat for ever for fun even in a competitive game, oh and the article about using the same tactic over and over, I would like to see the fun of doing the same move from start to finish…
April 26th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
If I recall correctly that article mentioned that happened at a tournament, wich is a competitive event where the point is winning. Having fun is irelevant in such events.
April 28th, 2006 at 6:09 am
But winning is fun =D
May 5th, 2006 at 3:26 am
if the game is boring and not fun at high level, go play a different game that is fun at high levels
June 29th, 2006 at 7:55 am
Much better then the second article, not as good as the first still. Useful information at least in this one. Thanks Sirlin.
July 30th, 2006 at 7:48 am
You’ve pretty much articulated my ideas about variety in games, and uncovered one of my biggest peeves: players who aren’t willing to try anything new.
The saddest part is, if more players were willing to explore new tactics, they would probably find ways to deal with things such as “camping” that are claimed to dominate games. And often… those same players who aren’t willing to put up with things like “camping” are the same ones who want to win by simply strolling around a map, running and gunning.
Of course… sometimes it is difficult to stand in the face of whatever is deemed “conventional”, especially if you’ve got a lot of players in your chosen game. Sometimes a tactic IS difficult to counter, and must be dealt with accordingly, but requires the effort of your whole team instead of just 2 players out of 10. This can create the illusion of a good tactic failing… when in fact it is succeeding, just not on a large enough scale to “win the war”.
And it can be especially hard to get players to cooperate if there are 16 or more of them, and the game of choice is a “join in progress” type game. Those tend to be full of antisocial folks who have no interest in teamplay at all (yet, somehow aren’t above complaining about things that they feel are “unfair”).
August 8th, 2006 at 11:37 am
You just contradicted yourself in the end didn’t you? That player could or could not have been exploring the game in itself with new and fun characters, and yet he still won with the same old combination of top tiers, and broken characters. I Suppose the characters with the most potential had already been discovered and he jsut went with that.
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:11 am
I think he said other players used new and fun characters while the winner used the proven ones. Cheating isn’t a valid way to win, and I don’t think any of the articles ever said it was. Exploits, bugs, and game nuances aren’t cheating. They can be deemed so by the community or tournament committee, but until then, they are legal ways of playing. Cheating is using hacks. If it’s in the game, use it, as long as it is legal in the tournament you’re playing. If it’s for casuals, use it anyway. If people complain, bam, scrub. You don’t have to call it on them, just know. You can choose to tone down your play, but that just means it’ll be harder for you to get better. If you don’t want to play to win either, then don’t use high level tactics. Be content in playing for fun and not at your full capacity. Not everyone wants to improve in fighting games, just don’t feel ashamed or embarassed for trying to improve yourself. Someone telling you that you’re “cheap” or cheating, or have no skills because you’re using things that they can’t do is only done to keep you from feeling good about winning. That is the worst thing anyone can do to anyone when playing a competitive game, imho.
September 23rd, 2006 at 4:09 am
I can see this article’s premise, and it reminds me of a discovery I made.
After basically mastering Super Punch-Out!! for SNES, I was waltzing all over the bosses, when I decided to play berserk-style to the point of suboptimality ‘for fun’. The last boss Nick Bruiser will back up and leap on you with an auto-KO attack that breaks blocking and interrupts punches. Totally suicidal, I throw a super uppercut thinking the lag will kill me, and to my amazement the move him caught him in a vulnerable frame for an auto KO! With this new knowledge, now I can KO even the last boss out of his super in a time attack. Super easy game, but it looks cool to my friends.
January 8th, 2007 at 3:29 am
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April 5th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Interesting article. I can see these two viewpoints returning between me and a good friend of mine. He always plays his games one way, and tries to perfect that one style. For example in Diablo 2 he only played the Paladin. In StarCraft he only played the Terrans. In Supreme Commander he only plays UEF. It’s his style, and it helps him to get good in the chosen character or side. Contrary to him, I like to vary in my games. I played all characters in Diablo 2, but never got any of them to beat Diablo in Hell level. I played all factions in StarCraft and I play all sides in Supreme Commander. I like to try different ways, different styles, different moves. But I never become very good in any of them. Not surprisingly my friend is better in RTS games than I am. In real life he is also a good manager while I am more of a specialist in my field.
July 8th, 2008 at 4:40 am
[…] Now i personally hate 40k but this is a example or truth growth of WAAC players, i have two dwarf gunline players in my local GW, no the funny thing is they both player 40k which they claim is more tactical, one uses a Imperial guard tank company, one uses a orc army with lots of tanks, i dont know about you but i dont see the growth in playing style. Perhaps the problem is that so many people dont get fanatsy and play it likes its 40k? There’s no denying there’s not much difference in style there. However if that’s a style that they can win the majority of their games with then there’s not much pressure on them to change their style. However the beauty of Warhammer is that with the infinate variety between armies and regular changes in army rules, it probably wont be long till someone figures out a way to beat those armies. And when that happens you’ll have the true test for a player. Someone playing just for fun will accept defeat, but probably continue playing the same army the same way because that’s how they like it, and that’s fine because as long as they have fun their goal is met. Someone who plays to win will now have the challenge of figuring out how to beat the new army and that’s what someone of the WAAC mentality enjoys: A challenge. Someone who cries ‘cheap/beard/etc.’ is just making an excuse to try and sooth their ego. They wont accept they got beat fair and square and as such will dismiss it. They wont change, they wont improve, but they’ll continue to think that they are playing to win, in their mind they’ll think they’re better than the player that beat them. The very ‘rules’ they devised and adhere to will hold them back from being the player they think they are. ——————– In addition I’d like to point out something not brought up in my previous posts. The very best WAAC players are the ones that also play some games just to have fun as well. (again this is inspired by the articles by Dave Sirlin) In a quick summation of the linked article the main reasons why WAAC players will also play just for fun are: - Research. If you only ever play the safe option you’ll never know if it’s worth taking the risk at the right time. Likewise if you dedicate yourself to playing one way you might never find out there’s a better way to be playing. Playing just for fun allows you to test new ideas in an environment where there’s no risk. - Limited local player pool. Sure, in your area you might be a class above everyone else, but if you constantly demolish everyone then that’s going to wear down even the most adamant ‘just for fun’ player. If the only options available to you are: A.) demolish everyone once and then no one wants to play you again or B.) play for fun and keep playing week in and week out, bring out the big guns only when needed. then obviously B.) is the only real option. __________________ […]
July 9th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
[…] Before I begin the reply I’d like to requote a part of my previous post you didn’t reply to and make something clear: " In addition I’d like to point out something not brought up in my previous posts. The very best WAAC players are the ones that also play some games just to have fun as well. (again this is inspired by the articles by Dave Sirlin) In a quick summation of the linked article the main reasons why WAAC players will also play just for fun are: - Research. If you only ever play the safe option you’ll never know if it’s worth taking the risk at the right time. Likewise if you dedicate yourself to playing one way you might never find out there’s a better way to be playing. Playing just for fun allows you to test new ideas in an environment where there’s no risk. - Limited local player pool. Sure, in your area you might be a class above everyone else, but if you constantly demolish everyone then that’s going to wear down even the most adamant ‘just for fun’ player. If the only options available to you are: A.) demolish everyone once and then no one wants to play you again or B.) play for fun and keep playing week in and week out, bring out the big guns only when needed. then obviously B.) is the only real option. " To make things clear: I am not advocating playing to win at all times. I am not saying it’s ok to agree to go for a friendly game yet take out your uber-army of doooooooom and domintate them. I’m advocating that playing to win is not intrinsically a bad thing. I’m advocating that players that dedicate themselves to playing to win, tend to be, on average, better players than players that don’t. Quote: […]