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On Gamers Whining About Cheese
Thanks to GameSpot for its editorial discussing the fine art of 'cheesing', and the annoyance of those who complain about it. The write explains of 'cheesers': "These gamers (either intentionally or unintentionally) use the same moves or tactics over and over again [in games such as Soul Calibur II or Top Spin] to defeat opponents and, as a result, are often treated as the redheaded stepchildren in gaming circles." However, he argues: "Repetitive moves and tactics can become annoying, but what irritates me more are the people that whine about them", and concludes by suggesting: "The challenge then, for those who prefer to take the high road, is to find ways to beat them... Don't get mad. Get better." But is whining actually a good, natural part of videogaming?
Yeah, I just played king of fighters against a friend on the PSX, and in one of the fights he used a character he knows well, and I heard the exact same 'yihaaa' and me getting hurt around 8 times in a row, same happens when I play against some other, not-so-smart people at games like Mortal Kombat 2/3, anyone else remembers sitting there holding the controller while the enemy freezes, jumps to you, upper cuts and jumps back?
Anyway, these kind of tactics are usually annoying, but that same friend I just played KoF against can usually beat them, I usually play fair and not 'cheesy' in MK trilogy, but after him beating me around 30 times in a row with almost any character (even nightwolf o_O) I resorted to being cheesy and still failed, so one day I hope to be as good as he is to be able to beat even the button mashers and the cheesy people and everyone MOUAHAH!!...uh, yeah.
Having played at probably over 100 fighting game tournaments at 8 on the break and other arcades on the east coast during the peak of fighting game popularity (ie 1994 - 1997) I can tell you that all fighting game tournaments come down to a combination of skill, and exploiting an overpowering move or character. Players that refused to embrace a top-tier character never won tournaments and usually were the ones who bitched about cheese. Players that won tournaments could usually play with any character, but embraced the cheesy/exploitable strategies that went with the game. For example:
Mortal Kombat 2 - Most players used Jax (Ground pound was over powered) or Millena (Jump away and air throw sai all day).
Street Fighter Alpha 2 - Most players used Chun Li (insane damage on custom combos) or Ken (alpha counter with glitched range which made it too long)
X-Men vs Street Fighter - People would constantly fly off screen with storm and use her "float" move to stay off screen to charge their super meter then come down, use a super, and fly back off screen.
Killer Instinct - there were a number of infinate combos in KI, which I saw used in tournaments plenty of times.
All in all I see the same crap playing games online today. Go play any FPS and 80% of the players are running around with whichever weapon is overpowered, not to mention the ones that run maphacks, aimbots, etc. Log onto a MMORPG and who usually has the most money? The people who are duping, macroing, or just exploiting stuff in game. A good example is in Star Wars Galaxies, a Jedi who uses their powers in front of any other player is subjected to instant PvP. This means Macroing any of these powers to gain experence while you are AFK is suicide. So, what the Jedi's do is they go inside a large house with a balcony, climb to the top where no one can get them and AFK macro there. While using their powers inside the house would push them outside with a temporary enemy flag to everyone, for some reason on the balcony they are immune. So that is where they camp and level.
The point is, any game with 2 players that isn't co-op is going to have exploits/cheese and the players who exploit the cheese along with having skills in the first place are always on top of the heap.
"That is, a newly spawned player cannot be injured for 5-10 seconds after spawning unless he or she engages in an offensive attack. (This last part is to stop those that are newly spawned from tipping the balance of power in reverse.)"
This is eactly what UT2004 does. Unfortunately, many server admins deliberately turn it off.
The new fad in UT2004 is "lev lifting". Due to a physics bug, you can lift the huge tank-like vehicle with the Raptor (a flying vehicle). This should be fixed in a patch.
The problem is this is not always even possible, hence the whole idea of the "cheese" move in the first place. The best example I can give is in DOA2 for the XBox, some of the characters are faster than the others, but to balance gameplay the slower ones deal more damage on average. You can get into situations though where if a faster character (like Kasumi or Ayani) knocks you down and stands over you, you can never get back up without being immediately knocked down again.
I've had this problem with my brothers quite often and so we actually spent some time fight-testing the scenario to see how to escape that situation and we were unable to find any effective way to stop it. Even holding the block button as your character stood up was useless because the slower fighter executed the block command just slightly after the game considered him "in play" giving the faster opponent a moment to execute a hit.
At this point it comes down to whether your opponent misses their timing, but that doesn't mean they're a better player, it just means they can hit the red button at the right time, over and over and over in the same scenario. Part of being a better player is being flexible in your playing and mastering all parts of a game, not the one exploit that can't be defended against.
In Halo my brothers and I have all become adept at owning other players in certain levels with certain weapons, so sometimes we agree on slightly altered rulesets beforehand to help balance play. We all know the exploits, and we all use them from time to time, but we've found that our skill has increased tremendously when we force ourselves to not rely on the easy kill ever. How will you ever get good at hitting someone with a pistol shot from 200 yards if you're always using the sniper rifle? Nowadays we're so good with pistols we may have to phase those out as well.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
There are a lot of uninformed highly-rated posts already so hopefully I can shed some light.
Regarding shooting Pete Sampras to win in tennis: You wouldn't win the match! That's not legal within the limits of the game. Spawn camping is legal in several FPS games. Maybe the games were designed so poorly that this is the best tactic. If that's the case, you should do it better than your opponent if you want to win. If that means the game is not "fun" anymore, then play a better game. Possible within the rules of a game by definition DOES mean allowable (including exploiting bugs). Competitive games are about winning within the rules of the game... if you make up your own rules about honor, you are playing a different game that you've made up && you have no basis in reality or even agreeable reason. Scrubs cry "unfair!" but they just need an excuse to soften the blow that they can't defeat a simple tactic or that their game does not stand up well to serious competition. Do you want to win or whine?
Regarding Soul Calibur II requiring very little skill: Think again. Soul Calibur II was designed to have a more gradual learning curve than most other fighters on purpose to be easy to pick up but don't kid yourself in thinking your "beginner attacks" could in any dreamworld be "more powerful than any advanced player's most complex combo attack". You are way off base. If this is your opinion, I know I could defeat you 63/0 with one hand. Enter a competition to test your theory rather than replying with some anecdotal evidence about your living room experiences.
Regarding "cheese" practitioners having the capacities of "script kiddies": What do you say to someone who wins tournaments against the best players in the world with your so-called "cheese"? That they have no skill? They may have the best execution skill of anyone on the planet && also the best understanding of the game to know the greatest tactic (which could be a simple one). You're right that a simple tactic is often easily defeated so anyone wishing to win should figure it out but just because a tactic seems simple doesn't mean it's not the best thing (which you should do too && do better if you want to win).
Regarding fighting a "cheeser" isn't going to increase your skill in the least: Of course it will increase your skill if you constantly experiment with all the tools (moves) at your disposal in order to find the best counter. In Soul Calibur II particularly, almost every move in the game (including throw attempts) can be parried (called Guard Impact in SC2 terminology) which was designed in as a balancing feature. If you know when someone will attack next, you have the advantage. Studying even a simple tactic in order to either emulate or defeat it does make you a better player. You explore areas of the game you might not have needed to otherwise. Isn't this obvious?
Regarding "riding a move or two all the way to victory" as the same thing as "exploiting flaws in games": If a game has a design flaw, then it is not a good game. Get over it. If there are moves in a game that are arguably the best tactics, you will learn, practice, && execute them consistently if you want to win. Your fake morality about some arbitrary realism element in FPS (players not getting tired from jumping) is foolish. Jumping is a fair part of those games. If you think games should penalize jumpers with noticable fatigue, write such a game && play it. Otherwise, you're just making up your own weird rules that most reasonable people wouldn't even agree are right. Are you playing a game? What are the rules of THAT game? I'm not asking what you think the rules SHOULD be or what you wish they were. Nobody knows your made up rules except you && I bet your rules change even on you once you start getting beat by some other tactic. Learn to play the real game.
My close friend, David Sirlin, has written four popular articles on this
My "twitch" reflexes aren't very good. This means that I -really- suck at close-quarters combat in most first-person shooters. So, I grab the sniper rifle and head for the hills. It's amazing how many bunny-hoppers will sit still for a head shot as soon as they think nobody's watching.
The thing is, I make no secret of this. In fact, I don't like "perfect" sniping spots. If you can't hit me, the game's no fun. I think the UT "lightning gun" was a beautiful compromise for snipers. My goal is to make people cringe and cower every time they enter an area with an overhead vantage point. Their extra paranoia (often justified) slows 'em down enough that I actually have a chance when I do come down to ground level.
My preferred vantage point is on the top floor of a level within sight of the elevator or top of the stairs. That means that I have to watch my back and be ready whenever I hear the elevator. It also means that when I reveal that strategy after the game, the guy who was hit with half a dozen head shots -really- kicks himself. >:-)
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One comment the commentator made was on the difference between how Korean and American players deal with cheese tactics. He said that the American would probably say "OMG!! This cheese is so imba! Nerf it! NERF IT!!!!!" while the Korean would probably say "Ok folks, there's this new cheesy strat going around. What's the best way to beat it?"
There are two main points that this comment brings up.
- First, many pro players are most likely accucstomed to cheese exposure that they see it as a normal part of the game. As one guy once said, "If it's in the game, it's in the game."
- And second, this got me thinking as to how other cultures deal with this. Starcraft is so huge in Korea, it's practicaly a spectator sport. I would assume that many cheese strats have popped up in public pro matches here and there. Of course, not being able to speak any asian languages, I cannot be certain as to what they say about certain imbalances in competitive games.
But I guess the main point that I'm sure others have pointed out, is that the only thing more annoying than cheese, are the people who do nothing but bitch about it.They way I see it, you have some people to whom winning will always be the most important thing, and those people will employ the most efficient means to achieve that end. Tough on all of us.
In my experience it's possible to use a proven repetitive tactic to achieve a "win" condition in lots of games. Yie-ar-Kung-Fu was the first game to teach me that. It's a personal decision as to whether you want to employ that tactic. The "win" payoff may exceed the "boredom" problem of the game no longer being challenging. It's not cheating, but it's not always fun.
A lot of the time you need to experiment a lot to find the right move or moves. Many times, these are exploits of unforseen conditions in the game world, weaknesses, or at worst, actual bugs. Finding and exploiting these within the rules of the game world can, in itself, be a skill. Sometimes it's just dumb luck. Either way, these tactics are usually far from obvious.
Online games carry an exponential risk of these "exploits" being perpetuated. As more and more users participate simultaneously in the game, people actively watch and copy successful tactics they see being employed. The first time I played Diablo online, I had been instructed on how to "dupe" items within about an hour of play. I might never have discovered this flaw left to my own devices.
A less serious example was the first few games of RtCW I played - mp beach was the first place I saw the Allies jumping on one another to vault the beach wall. This may have been forseen by the designers but I doubt it. It meant that, as Axis, you needed to be ready for it - fast. Is this a "cheesy" tactic? Borderline, I think.
This issue stems mainly from the fact that most on-line environments are permissive in their approach. In other words, if it's possible to do something, then it's allowable/acceptable. I think that's just a challenge that all players need to accept.
If you want to be vocal about it, tell the people who can rewrite the game to make the tactics unlawful be making them impossible, or "nerfing" their effectiveness (the idea of respawn temporary invulnerability made elsewhere in this thread is a good one). In-game bitching about it (unless you can poll for the offender to be kicked) achieves nothing and usually quickly degenerates into a pissing contest - making the issue worse, not better.
Personally, I like the idea of giving players the maximum amount of freedom to explore possibilities in the game to find effective tactics. The best games, however, are ones in which there are no single tactics or routines which cannot, ultimately, be countered or prevented.
Instead of presenting a counter-argument, you're already attacking my credibility. What's up with that?
If you can't beat a person who relies only on camping or on cheesy techniques, why should you expect to do so? Camping and cheesing are legitimate and good techniques that present a real challenge to some players. Like yourself. Demanding that players stop using these techniques is like demanding a handicap.
As long as you're only whining about camping in deathmatch games, I'm fine with it. What really pisses me off is whining about camping in team-based games! Uh, hello people, that's not "camping" that's "defending." I'm not "camping the flag" I'm defending it to keep it from getting taken! That's part of the design of the game!
I've gotten accused of camping for defending a power node in Unreal 2004 Onslaught mode, and it boggles my mind. Why *wouldn't* our team want to defend power nodes? Especially the important one at the middle?
Anyway, rant over.
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Glad you brought up the chess analogy because it's exactly what I had in mind. There are plenty of extra rules in chess. For example, no one is allowed to use a computer to aid them. And even in the seemingly strict rules of board moves, there are changes as well. It used to be that a draw was declared after X number of moves. But it was found that a certain set of pieces could force a mate only after X+N moves, so this rule had to be changed.