Tales of Tyria #15: Playing to Win

This week we have very little news so we have a short discussion on WvW thanks to some listener feedback. Then we jump into the deep end and try to wrap our heads around competitive play. When is it OK to use an exploit? When is it OK to use something that other people have labeled as "overpowered"? What is greifing? All these questions and more.

 Episode 15:

• 5:55 - Mailbag: WvW - Is 2 weeks too short?
• 13:20 - Roundtable: Competitive vs. Non-Competitive

Weekly Question:

When is it OK to use an Exploit?  When is it OK to use an ability that is commonly seen as game breaking?

Let us know what you think and send us feedback. Also, watch us live on Sunday nights @ 8pm EST.

Comments

[FFF12321]

Hey guys, just checking this out and had a few comments on this broadcast:

1) On Playstyles (the segment on competitive v casual et al). Something that I kept thinking of over and over was that people play games for different reasons. There is an article by Mark Rosewater, lead designer of Magic The gathering, that describes precisely this. In essence, there are only a few types of players of any game. The primary three are Timmy, Johnny, and Spike. Timmy likes big effects (the Whoa look at that! guy). He likes flair and big moves and things that are "Cool." Johnny likes interaction - hes the innovator, he's the one to mix and match skills until he finds that silly combo that is perfectly legal and powerful, but obtuse. Spike wants to win. That's it. His entire goal is to win the game by any means at his disposal. Then there are a few other subtypes (one, Melvin, doesn't apply [he likes collecting things], however Vorthos does apply. A Vorthos type player loves the lore of the game, the visuals, the setting. He likes reading the books and reading quest text and all that jazz to feel immersion in the game. Obviously, people can be any combination of player type, but I feel that this describes the casual v hardcore v competitive much better than that triad of descriptors.

2) On exploits. I felt that you guys were equivocating on exploit, bug, and abuse. Here's my take: a bug is an event in the game that occurs that is not intended by the creators. A bug in and of itself poses no problem, it's just a result of the thousands of moving parts that make up modern games. An exploit is what a player does when they encounter a bug - do they report it or do you *exploit the bug* for their own personal advantage. In single player games, an exploit is basically a cheat, but as you are not affecting anyone else, it is purely up to the player what they do with it (do you really want a sword that does infinity damage? Why bother playing at that point). However, with Multiplayer games, exploits can completely destroy a game if they cannot be repaired. Also, because the game is by nature multiplayer, anything you do will (in)directly affect other players. There have been exploits that allowed for the duplication of items for example. Doing so crashes the market - that item is now practically worthless, or the exploiters can sell their item and do market tricks to artificially raise the price and ruin the experience for everyone else because they cheated. Also of note, I feel that if you care about your game, then you are obligated ethically to report any bugs you encounter - saying nothing puts you on the same level as the exploiters by being a silent assenter. And if you are as truly competitive as one guy seemed to imply, wouldn't you rather win by skill and mastery of the game and not because you can exploit a bug better than everyone else? Shame on you to think that it's ok until there is an official response to patching - often times, the developers are unaware of the problem or the problem is not easy to fix (again, thousands of moving parts) or they tried to fix it before making a statement. No announcement does not absolve you of cheating.

Related: I feel that "abuse" of a particular skill/ability/character that is NOT bugged is not really bad per se. If the character is working as intended, then the only problem is with the people choosing to use a less effective legal method. HOWEVER, that character *may be over powered* relative to other classes, even though it is non-bugged. WoW runs into this very frequently - with each patch, some classes get nerfed and others get buffed because they underperform relative to other classes. Abuse can only be thrown around subjectively but at some point everyone should agree that class X is far too powerful for any number of reasons (is unkillable by most other characters of equal or better skill/gear, can only be countered by ability X that a small number of characters have, etc).

I found it interesting that you think that boosting in BF3 or whatever is not OK when you just said that it's up to the player to find the optimal way to win the game. Did it cross your mind that they just wanted the EXP? For them, THAT IS the victory condition. While that is not the intended way for players to level up, it is coded into the game that you gain EXP by getting hits and repairing the turret or whatever. If this is not the intent for exp, then all the developers have to do is limit the amount of EXP you can gain off of one turret or something similar which would stop the "bad" behavior, while not stopping other "legit" players. Again, I feel that some of the talkers don't get *why* people play games and resort to other characteristics of the players that don't adequately describe that reasoning.

Further, your definition of "griefing is victory conditions that are not everyone elses" cuts out particular types of players that are *not* griefing - again, Vorthos wants to see the lore of the game. THey don't care about points or exp (necessarily). Their VC is not my VC, but their VC does not conflict with mine. If the game requires a section that has PvP, but Vorthos would rather look at the architecture, it's not really griefing (especially if they are at a much lower skill level anyways). In all, I feel that this discussion was weighted towards the cutthroat PvPers out there - the Spikes, in other words. And hey, you're free to do that while I got fight to be the first to Kill Boss X :P

[MrJokee]

Hi guys,
I've just finished listening to the SSN upload of Tales of Tyria on Youtube, and I had a question during the segment about exploiting, but first, I will indulge myself with a little comment to what the gentlemen in the lower right corner, Freelancer, I belive his name was, was talking about.
I completely agree that if you play to win, and I think that's the point of playing anything, you will use any and all means necessary to achieve victory. To sort of quote Machiavelli, "You should aim to crush your enemy so that he may never again rise arms against you." [It's quoted, he probably said it a bit more poeticly, but it basically means the same thing] However, if any of those necessary means are labeled by the Devs or the educated public (aka the high ranking and notorious players' consensus) are labeled an exploit, you should stop using them imediately. With that, my commentary piece is over, and the question time comes.

In regards to exploits, abuse, and bugs as you defined them, how would you look at multiboxing? By multiboxing, I mean, and I'll make an example of my longtime adiction MMO, the infamous World of Warcraft, the use of five characters, grouped together, controlled by one player, on several machines, overpowering more or less anything in their wake. For example, I remember running across a Shaman Multibox in Alterac Valley, on our side, and it was clear that the Alliance players couldnt find a counter to that, and when they finally did, it took so many players to bring that box down that they lost territory on the other side. So my question is, is Multiboxing an abuse? Is that exploiting? What would you consider it?

There is also the other angle I just realized, of what people call abuse. I traded one adiction (WoW) for another (EVE Onine), and with EVE, exploiting, cheating (ingame, not by third party software) is not only allowed, it is encouraged, because thats how the real deal would go down. I think MMO games are a sort of, great study of human psychology. You have the anonimity, and untouchability that the internet provides, and it can either bring out your worst, your best, or you'll be all the same.

Anyway, the last paragraph is just something I just thought about, the real question is the multiboxing, and I dont expect you guys to actually talk about it next episode, but if by some chance you found that an interesting topic of conversation and actually talked about it, I would have my virginity moment. :)

PS: Bridger, sir, what is the ETA on next Tales of Heroes, if you dont mind me asking?

[Bridger]

Wow guys, that is some Walls O' Text! but it gives us some great things to talk about next show. We'll definitely look into addressing those in a mailbag segment.

[Ava]

These are very nice insights people. Looking forward to this Sunday's show.

[M3o5nster]

I think the pro player (forgot his name) brought up a good point about using exploits and morality choices... Using 100 sonic booms may not be an exploit, but it's cheap in my opinion. To be honest I couldn't respect a win in that manner, whether it's Street Fighter, Battlefield, or any other game/sport. It severely takes away from a win, when done in a cheap manner, for myself. I keep speaking for myself because it's a personal choice to not use cheap tricks or play styles to win. Because deep down if I need to abuse a system against someone in order to win, the other person already won at the end of the day. It's a matter of morals and principles...

I understand not everyone will agree with me, especially those who enjoy just winning over all else. However as a gamer, and as a person, I hold myself to certain standards... I will say this in closing though; when you do beat someone trying to use cheap tricks against you, it feels that much sweeter.

Thanks for the broadcast, I enjoyed the discussion.