Guild Wars 2

In quite a few recent posts, some users have attempted to lazily shut down arguments by calling people “scrubs” and referencing this sirlin article: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub. I’ve seen it being applied so often and so badly, that it’s time for me to demolish it – so you can quote this post whenever someone quotes the former link.

To start, we have to decide on one of two positions:

1. Do we play the game based on how it’s intended to be played by the game designers? Or..

2. Do we play the game “as is” without taking into considerations intended behavior, without bothering about what the developers wanted and what they think is right?

If you take the first position, then you must necessarily agree that any behavior/effect/damage whatever that goes against the judgment of the game designers is wrong. In this role, the game designers are essentially god – laying down not just the mechanics, but also morality. What the game designers intend is “right”. What they do not intend is “wrong”.

This means exploits are wrong because it’s not what the game designers intended. When GW2 was first released years ago, I remember there was an exploit allowing users to buy cultural weapons basically for free. Some users bought thousands of these weapons and were later banned. So here we have a situation where the game mechanics allowed you to do something, but where you refused to take advantage of it because god wouldn’t like it.

If however, you subscribe to (2), it means you treat the game world like the real world. There is no “higher authority”, you get away with whatever you can, because it gives you the best chance to succeed. If you belong to (2), you would have no problem taking advantage of the recent bug giving doors in WvW distortion and abusing any other mechanic you find. Because in your world, there is no god. In the real world, lobbying is a “bug” in the system. But since there is no god, there is no single authority to judge what is and isn’t a bug.

So decide – are you (1), or are you (2)? If you are (2), then if you take it too far, you will face the wrath of god and get your account banned. So (2) is actually a delusion. The game world is not the real world. The game world has a god who enforces rules and morality. So (1) is the only clear “real” situation. (2) is a fantasy.

In game world, god comes down at regular intervals and changes things around via “balance patches”. He makes His Will known by nerfing, buffing, or changing stuff. He’s essentially saying “My bad. I intended something else, and the current rules of the world do not further my goals”. Since this is god, it means that the previous mechanic was wrong, and the new one is correct.

Was the previous mechanic an exploit? The world “exploit” is used only for truly egregious mechanics that go against god. But in principle, every balance change is an “exploit” fix. But god is just and merciful. He won’t kill you unless you really kitten him off.

Bottom line: Every balance patch fixes an “exploit”. The question is only one of degree. Was it a huge exploit, or a tiny one? Tiny ones are called balances. Big ones are called fixes. But they are the same thing in principle.

Now coming to scrubs.

The Sirlin article linked at the beginning, assumes there is no god. That there are no balance patches. That all exploits are valid. In fact, if you don’t abuse an exploit, you are a “scrub” for artificially placing a limit on your ability to win.

Moreover, the article gives no explanations for its assumptions. It says for example:

_Who knows what objective the scrub has, but we know his objective is not truly to win. Yours is. Your objective is good and right and true, and let no one tell you otherwise. _

It tries to browbeat you into accepting the basic premise without providing any rational, that winning is the only thing that matters. That you have to use an exploit to achieve the “good and right and true” objective.

This is objectively false. God does not want us to use “any means necessary to win”. Now because god is merciful, he won’t cancel your account if you use a small OP mechanic deliberately. But if it’s big enough, he will.

The so called “scrub” is merely someone trying to get god to listen to their opinion of what is intended and what isn’t. The “scrub” is merely calling the attention of god to something they feel is wrong. In the real world, this would be naive. In the game world, there is a very real god who often listens via the prayers known as the “forum”.

And sometimes, god listens.

“Scrub” around here is merely used to dismiss other people’s opinions.

“You have no idea”, “L2P”, “Scrub”.

All that sort of nonsense is aimed to dismiss and devaluate other player’s valid feedback.

Many responses to the very reasonable and more than accurate concerns about the current broken situation with builds capable of single-handedly taking out a full defensive character without sacrificing survivability are quickly responded by these people with all sorts of obvious lies. Obvious to anyone but themselves.

But they are not trying to lie or anything like that. They have truly deluded themselves into thinking the situation is sustainable when it is not. That players leaving PvP after 15 matches because they can’t understand how can a single character meant to be fit a role is doing things it should not, and being both able to deliver lots of damage while taking lots without even evading it or using Protection. And some will even be puzzled when the inevitable fixes to some of the broken things arrive. Fixes that are hardly ever enough, as this is not an Arcade fighting game. This is an online MMO, and it’s subject to latency issues. And so the game can’t be designed without that in consideration.

And so, the problem is a positive feedback loop. The ones benefiting from the progressively worsening situation keep dismissing new player’s feedback no matter how reasonable it is, disheartened and frustrated, they have no other option other than give up on PvP, which leaves the wrong people still around, as PvP festers into an environment hostile to new players.

MithranArkanere.8957:

And so, the problem is a positive feedback loop. The ones benefiting from the progressively worsening situation keep dismissing new player’s feedback no matter how reasonable it is, disheartened and frustrated, they have no other option other than give up on PvP, which leaves the wrong people still around, as PvP festers into an environment hostile to new players.

I think that I really like this point.

Also, if I may add something against the “scrub” argument, some forget that abusing bugs will not help them in the long run: they get used to play with it, and once it’s gone they no longer have this advantage. Taking the easy way out will not make you a better player.

The whole point of this article is that anything that is possible within the game should be treated as a part of the game. It’s not the players’ responsibility to ensure that they only use ‘fair’ tactics; rather it’s the developer’s responsibility to ensure that only fair tactics exist within the game.

The long and short of it is that when playing the game anything that can be done should be done, and when outside the game and discussing balance there are only things that are good for the game and things that are bad for the game.

Intended and unintended are meaningless terms. Just because something works as intended doesn’t make it good. In the past hambow warriors were clearly far too strong to be good for the game, yet every mechanic used by that build was intended. Likewise, something being unintended doesn’t make it bad either. I don’t believe that dodge-jumping was intended, yet it’s been accepted as part of the game and some content was even built with the expectation that players will use it.

ANet already does enough by not banning those that exploit obvious bugs like when Descent to Madness did insane damage. A damage that, while befitting the name, it obviously shouldn’t have dealt.

And so, although there won’t be repercussions, they will have no place to complain when a bug or unintended mechanic is fixed. They had their fun, they better get used to the proper mechanic once fixed. The only ones at fault for them getting used to a broken mechanic to the point on depending on it is on themselves. ArenaNet is not putting those intentionally in the game to trick them. They happen because imperfect humans are making the game, not the Enterprise’s computer AI.

No amount of players ‘defending’ a broken and unfair mechanic should have any weight in keeping it, specially when it goes against skill descriptions, it’s obscure, unintuitive, convoluted or only available to those under specific conditions like being under a certain latency or being able to enable a certain visual setting without losing FPS.

Now, there’s some unintended mechanics that may make it to the game, because they end up being more fun but not overpowered, when that happens, descriptions must change to fit the actual mechanic, and game update notes MUST make it very clear.

And yet there’s people who would even complain about a skill description being changed to give away the actual mechanic. The only reason I can think for that happening is an unskilled player not wanting to lose the unfair advantage in which they were relying to obtain undeserved victories.

It’s the internet, everyone who doesn’t share similar opinions is a scrub.

Amen!
/15 prayer to Abaddon.

Well written but… My moral for any video game is to play it for entertainment because that’s what video games are designed for; entertainment.

I won’t do something if I don’t think it’s fun because I don’t see the point in subjecting myself to something I don’t enjoy. In the real world, I do things I don’t enjoy because they’re necessary to survive. In the game world, I won’t do anything I don’t like because it’s a video game and it’s not necessary to sustain me.

In other words: that Mesmer over there? F_ck him I’m gonna run like little girl until he leaves me alone because fighting Mesmers makes me wanna pull my hair out. He’s having fun, I’m not. I’m not his entertainment, we should entertain each other.

Why would we want to demolish a well thought out, well written, sound logical case? Simply because the term is missused or used as a derogatory term?

I guess it only follows that if we misquote, missuse, or misunderstand the OP’s demolition post we can ignore and throw that out too.

GG.

Also, reading the OP it’s quite clear you’ve not read the entire “Playing to Win” thesis. Thus you make all kinds of false arguments. Just so you know.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Also, reading the OP it’s quite clear you’ve not read the entire “Playing to Win” thesis. Thus you make all kinds of false arguments. Just so you know.

Also I find deep irony in the fact the OP wants to call people out for misusing the term “scrub” but go on to conclude with his own personal definition of what a scrub is. Meanwhile the definition is given in the link provided by the author who originally defined the term…

The derogatory term “scrub” means several different things. One definition is someone (especially a game player) who is not good at something (especially a game). By this definition, we all start out as scrubs, and there is certainly no shame in that. I mean the term differently, though. A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win.

So much unnecessary over-complication.

Major parts of the sirlin article seem outdated now. It was written during a period of gaming where it was unlikely for there to ever be a balance patch. Complaining about imbalance or exploits back then didn’t serve much purpose because it wouldn’t change anything.

Now, patching is the norm and player feedback can shape the game. We give ANet a lot of grief but many of the changes we have gotten have come from the forums. If you were to go back you’ll see many Warrior additions came directly from the forum suggestions.

We also now have always-online games such as this where the devs have basically said “if it seems wrong, don’t abuse it.” We’ve seen exploit abusers banned because they intentionally took advantage of oversights in the game. They don’t do this as frequently with skill/trait bugs but tbh they’re generally fast about fixing stuff as bad as Decent to Madness.

OP is also not wrong that there are people who use the term “scrub” to defend the abuse of something or in an attempt to shut down an argument. We see it plenty irl too, call someone a name to avoid having to actually have a real discussion.

There’s also the fact that there are different philosophies on how a game should be balanced. For example, I believe that a fight should be fun for both sides of a fight. Some builds/setups aren’t necessarily “OP,” but the fun is entirely one sided. Sure, I can beat a D/P Thief, but i rarely have fun while fighting them. I can think of few people who enjoy the idea of fighting someone who can spend 3/4ths of the fight in stealth and the other 1/4th blinding you every few seconds. Yes, if you catch them they die, but many walk away saying “man that was annoying” rather than “man that was intense!” Sadly, Mes has gone down this path as well with PU. I’d get started on D/D Ele but it’s such a complicated problem…

The other balance philosophy is that so long as only a few specs aren’t totally destroying everyone then it’s balanced. I personally find this to be absurd because games should be fun for all parties.

bhagwad.4281:

This is objectively false. God does not want us to use “any means necessary to win”. Now because god is merciful, he won’t cancel your account if you use a small OP mechanic deliberately. But if it’s big enough, he will.

The so called “scrub” is merely someone trying to get god to listen to their opinion of what is intended and what isn’t. The “scrub” is merely calling the attention of god to something they feel is wrong. In the real world, this would be naive. In the game world, there is a very real god who often listens via the prayers known as the “forum”.

And sometimes, god listens.

Your argument would be more plausible if top-tier players (such as the ones in the recent WTS) weren’t already using so-called “exploits” in paid tournaments sanctioned by ArenaNet. If you watch the matches, it’s blatantly apparent that the participants used “unintended” mechanics such as jump dodges and stow casts frequently throughout their games. Nowhere in-game is there a tutorial on how to jump dodge or stow cast, nor are they mentioned on the official wiki or website. However, does ArenaNet (“god”) punish players for taking advantage of them? No, instead those players receive cash prizes and various item rewards.

In fact, the developers did apply a balance patch to a skill (Lightning Whip) because it was too strong in combination with stowed casts, but instead of removing the stow cast mechanic entirely (the logical response to an unacceptable exploit) they simply altered the skill itself in order to remedy the issue. This would seem to indicate that these “exploits” have been acknowledged as legitimate tactics, in spite of your implications to the contrary.

In the end, the only thing PvP is good for is reward tracks. “Skill” doesn’t really matter, just who has the cheaper/stronger build, who gangs up of the others more, or who watches the points better.

The post was too long and regurgitated too many points too many times. It would do you good to shorten this up and make it concise, otherwise 9/10 users would not read this nor would they understand exactly what it is that you are trying to state.

I’ll respond to you with:

• Let’s turn the title “scrub” in to “legit player”. Legit players like to play by the rules because they understand the next point listed bellow.
• Games do not exist unless they have rules. Rule sets are what make a game to begin with. When players exploit rules, this means the rule needs to be altered or fixed as it indicates a weakness in the game’s rule set. When a player flat out breaks the rules, this means they are cheating and not really playing the game to begin with. These kind of players shouldn’t be allowed to play the game with legit players to begin with.
• But what does a legit player do when god the programmer isn’t listening or paying attention? What does a legit player do when god seemingly doesn’t care about the rules and physics in his game reality anymore? Well… that is a good question.

Jasher.6580:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Also, reading the OP it’s quite clear you’ve not read the entire “Playing to Win” thesis. Thus you make all kinds of false arguments. Just so you know.

The article is a very good one, and explains the entire “learn to play” phrase (when used correctly, at least) very well, which is many game issues are solved at higher levels of play, because strong tactics have counters for the most part, and a whole lot of gaming is in fact pretty well balanced because of this. It’s entirely fine to have a rock-paper-scissors approach to balancing, and to tactics, but it is very often that strong tactics don’t have good counters, or that the entire meta becomes based around a single tactic and its counter.

This is where people get confused. A whole bunch of people throw out this article to say that the above situation is fine (as in, our current meta is entirely dictated by celementalists and countering them), but that simply leads to a binary form of gameplay, which is boring after about one match on each side.

Stagnant metas and binary gameplay are both bad for game health in general. When somebody says “x build is totally dominating the meta and forcing the game into a stagnant pattern of a single binary build/counter pair”, and someone throws out the article, which is essentially saying “the game is playable because you can counter that build”, it’s entirely avoiding the point, which is that gameplay choices have been reduced to a single set of playstyles and that isn’t fun.

This isn’t to say that a lot of people wouldn’t benefit from the article, because a lot of gameplay does apply (for example, people hating conditions when they’re actually pretty weak if you play around them properly), but it doesn’t really make sense when people are talking about a single build not having a strong enough counter to have a complex meta, or being so strong that it forces a simple meta.

I prayed to god for 3v3 arenas and god didn’t listen! I guess I am a scrub!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

as an atheist jew from juyzey. your post made think of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrLequ6dUdM

To me the scrub arguments fall into 2 categories.

1. Using something that’s in game which while is strong follows “the rules” of the game as decided by Anet.
2. Using something that is in game which is really strong and clearly isn’t following “the rules” of the game as decided by Anet.

There are some grey areas (there always are) but in the case of using burns, that’s a balance issue and falls into category 1. Using distortion share to render a gate invulnerable or utilising certain spots in WvW to essentially trick the game into placing you somewhere you shouldn’t be is clearly category 2.

The problems arise when people use the “scrub” argument to justify category 2 playing to win and I feel that’s where the article is being misinterpreted.

Also before anyone jumps on my mentioning of burns, I feel they’re just a little too strong in some builds but I feel it should be dealt with on a case by case basis, the actual damage formulae I think is kind of where it should be. Maybe a slight shave of 10-40 points of damage would put it in the sweet spot.

His article is terrible, if he followed his own advice in life, then he would of “played to win” and gone into finance or something and be earning 10 times what he does now, but of course I assume he chose games, because at least in part he does what he finds fun, just like the alleged “scrubs” in his poorly thought through article.

The only thing worse than his article is when forum scrubs wrongly apply it to irrelevant situations, ‘playing to win’ at all costs might cut it if you are at Dreamhack playing DOTA 2 for $1m or whatever, but for the vast majority of people they are not in that position, they are simply playing a game for ‘fun’, so for instance the idea of playing some “cheese” build in order to “play to win”, that you find boring as hell rather defeats the point of playing the game in the first place.

zinkz.7045:

His article is terrible, if he followed his own advice in life, then he would of “played to win” and gone into finance or something and be earning 10 times what he does now, but of course I assume he chose games, because at least in part he does what he finds fun, just like the alleged “scrubs” in his poorly thought through article.

The only thing worse than his article is when forum scrubs wrongly apply it to irrelevant situations, ‘playing to win’ at all costs might cut it if you are at Dreamhack playing DOTA 2 for $1m or whatever, but for the vast majority of people they are not in that position, they are simply playing a game for ‘fun’, so for instance the idea of playing some “cheese” build in order to “play to win”, that you find boring as hell rather defeats the point of playing the game in the first place.

Then stop complaining and keep losing on your suboptimal builds.

Wasn’t the sirlin post about how “scrubs” want to play to look cool and use stylish moves in beat’em ups and how they would complain if someone comes along and plays more technical ?
So for example the scrub wants to kill you only with throws and some “normal” player comes along notices the throw fetish and simply uses fast punches to kick you out of throw animation.
And instead of trying something else the “scrub” will try his throw combo again and complains if you “counter his strategy” with the same move over and over and how it is “uncool, yadda, yadda…” .

I am pretty sure the sirlin thing was more about a healthy mindset of: “if something beats you, learn how to beat it or atleast how it beats you” instead of simply complaining and wanting your same old and proven moves to work on everything.

I am pretty sure it was more about “adapting and learning” and less about “exploits and balance patches”.

I partially agree with OP.

Only case where “l2p” is a real answer is if people are dueling with same build or playing a game that is completely balanced like CS;GO, BF, etc…

On buildwars2 it has no significance. Most 1v1 fights are determined by the build and not skill. Most classes have 1 or 2 combos and everyone knows them. It is not like an FPS where it is actually hard to land your hits. If you are not using the same build as the enemy the chances are you won because of your build is better than the enemy build or got luckier on the dozens of RNG procs that this game has (sigil of air, fire, etc…).

Looking on the forums I’ve seen people that run even the easiest builds like spirit ranger, turret engi, shatter mesmer, etc telling other to l2p. It is like OP said, people who get carried by the easy builds try hard to keep them every time more broken. Luckly anet is doing a good job at noticing the false feedback. It takes them a while but they end up nerfing them. Like the most recent shatter mesmer nerf.