Slippery slopes and intuitive games

[Zpock]

I don't want to push the casual vs competitive gaming too far since it's easily flammible and could really go either way depending on a lot of other factors like defenses strength, metalmaker simcity styled economy and more...

But consider such a game with two players of equal skills, it could easily happen that in a high percent of games played they would have a long drawn out and boring low conflict stalemate until one builds his superweapon 1 minute earlier and then goes on to win.

There can be many styles of games however and this could be fun in some ways for sure...

[KDR_11k]

If you think collecting res until you get a superweapon evens the slope you have never played SimBase (or at least not vs Lurker). Res as a victory condition does create a slope as more res means more unit production too (sure, if you have to stockpile res you get set back by making units but you can still afford as many units as your enemy while ressing faster). It's actually a runaway situation where every advantage creates a bigger advantage but it goes on for a long time because the res goal doesn't change no matter what the difference in income/growth is.

Why is this a slope? Because your goal is to accumulate points and more points also make you stronger and capable of accumulating points faster (by capping more res). If getting points has no advantage outside of winning when you hit a certain number (or drain all enemy tickets or however it's implemented) then they are not the slope and getting ahead in points does not mean that you can increase your point gain.

[Zpock]

I guess you could setup a victory condition of either the player having the most territory at time X, holding a certain territory at time X, or to reach X% territory first. An example would be the critical points scenarios in dawn of war, where you hold 3/5 for 5 minutes to win. Collecting special things spread on the map is another example, I think it was done in age of empires (relics, or artifacts)?

[Forboding Angel]

But consider such a game with two players of equal skills, it could easily happen that in a high percent of games played they would have a long drawn out and boring low conflict stalemate until one builds his superweapon 1 minute earlier and then goes on to win.

Ahhh but we are forgetting ControlVictory.lua here

[Pxtl]

If you think collecting res until you get a superweapon evens the slope you have never played SimBase (or at least not vs Lurker). Res as a victory condition does create a slope as more res means more unit production too (sure, if you have to stockpile res you get set back by making units but you can still afford as many units as your enemy while ressing faster). It's actually a runaway situation where every advantage creates a bigger advantage but it goes on for a long time because the res goal doesn't change no matter what the difference in income/growth is.

I realize it's not perfect - the only way to remove the slippery-slope is to completely change the nature of the game as an RTS - to remove any concept of growth of a player's combat ability relative to his adversaries, or any resource. I just figure that sort of approach also encourages a more sane ratio between starting resources vs. expansion resources. My main point is that most agree that the best part of a game is the fight for territory, the jockeying for position. So, by removing the focus on crushing the home base, you can allow players to spend the entire game grappling for turf.

[zwzsg]

Preporced players and superweapons

Yeah, I know what the masses want!

Now, more seriously:
On preporcing: To porc means to spend the game building an heavy fortified base, and never venture out of it. What I suggest instead is to give player a tough to crack small nut so they don't worry about maeking D-fence and instead are free to go build squad of tanks and roam the outside, grabbing outside ressources, fighting enemies in the open, right from the start.

On superweapons: I don't like nukes, bertha, orbital cannons, and all other superweapon that are basically a huge economic drain to get a button the pressing of which makes win appear. Bertha are the worse, because as the receiving player, it's the most frustating experience to get all your structure get blown one by one as fast as you rebuild them without being able to do anything about it, and as the giving player, it's also at frustating experience to lead a war of blinking dots, instead of seeing the cool explosion, and what you're actually exploding. Nukes and orbital strike have the redeeming effects of 1) beeing cool to watch 2) Blowing lots of things at once so you really feel the blow. But they still have the annoyance effect to be a structure that offer a win from a single button press, and to completly bypass all defenses (k beside anti, but having a structure whose sole purpose is to counter another single structure always seemed silly to me.)

I much prefer superweapons such as Krogoths, V/ID4/Aeon saucers, Expand & Exterminate's "epic", etc.., that are actually unit, huge and detailed, with multiple weapons system and cool animations. Mobile units that have to be driven into the enemy base, to go into contact with the enemy units & structure. To endure the damage of all the defender guns at once, and resist because of armor not because of higher range.

Against a nuke, it doesn't matter how many turret you have. Zero turrets, or a hundred turrets, it's the same for the nuke. So the defending player feels betrayed by the game mechanic, for he has built tons of defense, annihilators, doomsday machine, DT'ed HLT, and they are all totally useless when it comes to the thing he really needs to defend against.

Against a Krogoth, on the other hand, even the lowliest light laser tower gets to participate. The result is the same, superunit wins, but the fight actually requires some micro from the winning player, and the losing player gets a hopeless chance to fight!

Also, I dislike superweapon that are limited to 1 (or 3, it's being limited that bugs me), and orders of magnitude superior to the rest, but I'd prefer a game with many tech tree, with still immeasurable difference between the first tech level and the last tech level, but with also all degree inbetween. In fact I'd want a game with so many tech levels you can never reach the higher tech, so every n00b attempting to porc and tech up to biggest baddest unit get mauled by lower unit several hours before reaching the top tech. And the base given at the beginning would only be "tech 2 defense and tech 3 ressources producer". So impossible to attack with few tech 1, but easy prey to tech 3 or 4.

So for my game proposal, more than bases impervious to everything but the highest superweapon, I meant bases impervious to few first level unit, but perfectly stompable with an army of tech 2 and some cunning.

I guess it depends on if you want a competitive game or just some casual type game where people can relax and just porc->winbutton. Really a lot of people, most even, do prefer the latter...

If it is so easy to porc->winbutton, then it is for both players. But we're still talking a regular RTS where you win by making the opposing team lose. Therefore, there is a self contradiction in your statement, which proves its falsity. There is no hard/easy in multiplayer games, as what's easy for you is easy for you opponent, and so hard on you.



In truth, to win, you still must stay concentrated on fight outside the base, to gain the middle or whatever, that will give you the edge necessary to win. Between even skilled player, the most little slip in the early skimirsh will create an imbalance that'll eventually make one player and not the other win. Also, I feel stupid arguing that since the initial question of this topic is about how to remove the slippery slope.

Remove the slippery slope means makes the game not decided by the first early mistake. It means the first early mistakes must be recoverable. It means you are allowed to make mistake. It means you can be more relaxed. I'm providing a solution to remove the slippery slope problem (= to make early game more relaxed), and now you are complainging that it's making the game too relaxed and not enough hard core!!! Well, flour, if you wanna be hard core, then you don't wanna remove the slippery slope!!

[Forboding Angel]

In funta and evolution, the orbital laser has a radius of 500 and in evolution a damage of 10k.

Not everyone thinks of superweapons in TA and supcom sizes...

Also Z, your jumping off the deep end here. Come back to the land of realistic proposals pls.

[zwzsg]

But your orbital laser isn't short ranged, is it? If it is low power but can shoot anywhere in the map, it's like a bertha, which I said dislike even more than heavy-power strike-anywhere weapons.

Also, three tech level isn't that deep is it?
Make given starting base immune to few tech 1.
Make given starting easily killable by many tech 2 or few tech 3.
(As for chances against many tech 1 or few tech 2, I dunno what would be best.)

[lurker]

It's high power, anywhere on the map, very slow reload, you only have one. And forb, it really should be moved back to the com. I agree with just about everything you've said zwzsg, but the berthas. Doesn't it take a lot of flak to protect a bertha, and even more ground defenses to actually make it safe from attack? Berthas aren't that hard to kill unless the other person was also porcing, and doing it badly.

[TheRegisteredOne]

z, your argument sucks, if a player wants to porc, he is helping the other player defend by not attacking. If I am against a porcing player, I'd be the one building the super weapons because 1. I have more territory and thus more resources to waste, 2. I don't have to spend all my money building impervious wall of defences.

[Forboding Angel]

It's high power, anywhere on the map, very slow reload, you only have one. And forb, it really should be moved back to the com. I agree with just about everything you've said zwzsg, but the berthas. Doesn't it take a lot of flak to protect a bertha, and even more ground defenses to actually make it safe from attack? Berthas aren't that hard to kill unless the other person was also porcing, and doing it badly.

Really!!? I'm glad you think that, cause that's what I wanted to do but I figured everyone and their mother would fight me on it.

Here's the thing that irritates me with z's line of thinking. It takes into account no other game styles and compares everything to what would be a TA equivalent. Lurker, care to tell me the last time anyone tried to porc in evo and didn't get crushed? Porcing in evo is possibly one of the hardest things you could attempt.

I suppose I should just be a dick to people who are vets in other games/mods, and crush them early instead of letting them win 90% of the time so they have time to check out the tech, the gmae mechanics, etc, but I hate doing that because the first thing that comes to mind in that other person is OMG OMG OMG FLASH RUSH KEKEKE, then they get these stupid ideas about "I can win only by using light tnaks" etc. Then I get to sit there and listen to their suddenly enlightened balance "FACTS" and how they kicked my ass because X is so OMG OP.

If you try to porc in evo you will get rolled over, it's as simple as that. For example, the emp tower. Nevermind the fact that you get a grand total of 4 of them and they are pathetically weak vs damage, only inflict a 3 second emp (so if you destroy the tower or hit it with an emp missle which lasts 15 secs you are perfectly mobile) and a million other disadvantages.

Lurker knows as well as I the cpweapon spam that people try to use, then go OMGOMGOMG when a heavytank waltzes in, smiles and destroys them with 2 shots.


Umm tl;dr, I agree with you Z, as long as it is taken out of the *A context and put into something meaningful.

[zwzsg]

Well, bertha are costly and end of tech tree enough that people, and not just porcer I mean, usually have lots of defense by then. And they have such range than in most maps they can hit the heart of the enemy from the safety of your most defensed area. I heard that always having 10 or so thunder is the counter to Bertha, however, I tried but never successfully countered a bertha that way. But then I'm not an elite TA player, and too often feel all the weight of the difference between theory and practice.

Also, what tro said: the porcer always lose, because he has less ressources. Wait what I am arguin?

Ah yes. Give each player a mini-porced base won't lead to porcing being the only effective strat, as, as a tro said, the porcer always lose in the end.

Here's the thing that irritates me with z's line of thinking. It takes into account no other game styles and compares everything to what would be a TA equivalent. Lurker, care to tell me the last time anyone tried to porc in evo and didn't get crushed? Porcing in evo is possibly one of the hardest things you could attempt.

I use TA wordings are they are easier and shorter ways to convey my ideas, however, the concept "a weapon that can strike anywhere while not letting a chance to retaliate is not funny" is I'm fairly confident tranposable to other games. I don't say it's imba however. Just that I prefer game to ends with every gun firing and lots of explosion, than with a single gun firing and a single large explosion. But then if your mod orbital strike is low power and easy to get, it's probably not a game ender, so uh, don't get angry like that, I see no one here saying evo is badly balanced.

[KDR_11k]

Zw, the whole POINT of a superweapon is to ignore the money your enemy spent on building his porc (because porc is usually more cost-effective than mobile units in combat and if he spends all his money on it there's not much you can do). To stop one you actually have to go out and kill stuff. An epic unit is just a large attack that is killed by making even more defense, a superweapon punishes you for only defending. Limits on superweapons obviously limit the difficulty of eliminating them, it's feasible to strike one building, it becomes much harder to eliminate five spread around the map.

Stuff that just loses you the game if you build it is what I call a "noobtrap" and it definitely violates the second part of the thread topic: Games that don't make it unnecessarily hard for you to learn them! It's stupid to place a trap in a multiplayer game as information is shared between players and it will only hurt those who haven't heard that it's a trap yet. Of course in SP you can surprise the player but not in MP!

BTW, starting at T2 or T3 just relabels stuff, the tech you start the game with is always T1. Most games don't number the tiers, players just do so to talk about the phases of the game more easily. But if you want a game where defenses beat the crap out of T1 and get raped by T3/4, try Gundam.

[Forboding Angel]

I use TA wordings are they are easier and shorter ways to convey my ideas, however, the concept "a weapon that can strike anywhere while not letting a chance to retaliate is not funny" is I'm fairly confident tranposable to other games. I don't say it's imba however. Just that I prefer game to ends with every gun firing and lots of explosion, than with a single gun firing and a single large explosion. But then if your mod orbital strike is low power and easy to get, it's probably not a game ender, so uh, don't get angry like that, I see no one here saying evo is badly balanced.

I'm sorry Z, what I said didn't convey my meaning very well. I Didn't mean that it ACTUALLY irritated me. Maybe a better choice would be to say that it just rubbed me the wrong way or that it was bugging me.

Also I completely understand why you are conveying things in TA terms, and that's okie dokey, I suppose I just wanted to clarify.

[zwzsg]

Your point with superweapon is ok with me as long as epic unit are more effective and thus more used in skilled game than superweapons. I don't mind nukes and orbital strike, as long as it's used as a damocles sword on porcing, and not as the only effective way to end a proper game.

Still, if an epic unit was well balanced, it would also be a counter to porc, as:
- Offense concentrated in a single unit works better than swarm against concentrated heavy defense.
- The expanding player is ahead in the ressource race, so get his epic unit before the porcer.

Stuff that just loses you the game if you build it is what I call a "noobtrap" and it definitely violates the second part of the thread topic

I meant more having a tree so long even a noob can't hope to complete it, but still so balanced that if perfectly evenly skilled good players played for 6 hour they would still be teching up at the end. But yeah, that idea still has flaw such as wasting developpment time making unit no one sees, and people being disappointed to not be able to see all units.

BTW, starting at T2 or T3 just relabels stuff, the tech you start the game with is always T1.

I meant giving free T2&3 structures, but having players still starts up by only being able to build T1 unit/structures and having a long road to go to be able to build T2&3 of their own.

[lurker]

The disappointment at not being able to use all these shiny units is the real kicker, where you need to step back and remember the point of it all: making a fun game.

And forb, are you name dropping me? O_o

[Zpock]

I'm gonna try a more serious (wall of text) post on the topic. This is the origin of the "slippery slope" discussion, AFAIK:

http://www.sirlin.net/archive/slippery- ... -comeback/

This guy is a pretty enthusiastic supporter of the play-to-win mentality, as opposed to the typical casual gamer wanting to have fun mentality. I personally think either way is as valid and take joy both. I have played lots of dwarf fortress, single player TBS games, RTS sp campaigns, WOW, RPGs... all casual gaming with no serious beating of opponents in sight. But I also enjoy watching korean starcraft progamers play and play some starcraft to try and imitate them, but at a very low level (my apm is 120 at best, usually around 100). I play with random hackers, n00bs and other lowlife scum on battlenet, but I do play to win as best I can and improve my skills a bit. You could say I suck personally, as I'm not really serious about it, but I do get and enjoy the concept of good players duking it out with no bars or holds. What I'm trying to illustrate with this is that I don't think either casual or competitive is wrong, like so many others sitting in once camp, but that I find both fundamentally legit.

I think that the design goals of a casual and competitive game are very much different. In a casual game, the goal is to provide as much of things like eye candy, story, feel, immersion, "epicness". In a singleplayer game this is easy to see, but with multiplayer you do unavoidably have human opponents that have to fight each other somehow which clouds the skies so to speak. I think that a casual game would try to take the edge off the competitive nature, to try and make it more into a form of theatrical play that the players participate in. Team games, for example, can typically feel much more comfortable since you're just one of many players, and you don't have to feel so much pressure to loose, since you are really just one in the team loosing, not the Loser of a 1v1.

Slippery slope could be an element to look at in casual contexts, in the way that it might help take the edge off to reduce it, or reverse even. I'm not really interested in going to deep with casual game design tough.

This brings me to where I wanted to start off my actual discussion, slippery slopes in a game meant to be competitive. The Sirlin article is written in this context, if you didn't notice. His idea is that slippery slope is inherently bad game design. The view is that games such as CHESS and starcraft are worse off then they would be designed with less of it. This is where I think the weak point of the argument is. I think that slippery slope is actually to be desired. I will try to explain carefully exactly why.

The reason why slippery slope is seen as bad is that, by definition, disadvantages compound over the course of the game. When a player starts loosing, it feels as if the game is already decided prematurely. Instead it is felt that the games conclusion should stay indefinite until the very end. Who wants to know the books ending before the last page so to speak? And we want comebacks, everyone loves comebacks right, the twist in the plot? So the more comebacks, the better.

I'm going to argue against the above paragraph and the position outlined in it in several parts.

First, the idea that the game is prematurely decided and over with too soon. For example, a handful of peons killed at the start of the game. Elegantly this would apply to both chess and starcraft, in chess loosing even one pawn or worse a knight/bishop is usually seen as an almost fatal disadvantage that puts the loosing player on the backfoot for the rest of the game. If you loose a few SCVs, drones or probes at the start of an starcraft game you can easily find yourself economically behind to desperatly fight a loosing battle as the opponent soon has more units then you do due to the exponential nature of the starting economy in starcraft. In TA terms loosing your first 3 mexes to a weasel rush on comet catcher is a clear sign your about to be pwned hard.

It's easy to argue that this is of course bad, the game has barely started and there has certainly not been any epic battles yet or some heroic comabacks for us to enjoy. At best we got to enjoy some minor skirmish with a handful of peons

To be specific, lets pick a proffesional starcraft best of 5 important matchup between two star players in an epic final. At first it might seem like loosing a few peons is just a random occurance, something that just randomly happens at any time to anyone, even such progamers. wrong. The player who got in to his opponents base and killed off a few of these crucial peons has carefully studied his opponents previous games. He has analysed the patterns and behaviours of his opponent, discovered that his opponent has a penchant for greedy builds on this map. He has practiced for several days a rush opener, an alternative opener incase the previous 2 games would go in such a way that he would feel like changing his game plan. At the beginning of the game, he has to scout his opponent, perfectly pull off a build order specially tuned with building placement on the map to try and avoid the opponents scouting efforts. He then has to sneak past his opponents well practiced anti-rush tactics, and finally potentially outmicro the opponents efforts to save his peons.

My point is that the decisive moment, even if it happens early, is not just some random occurance that "just happens". It's the culmination of everything that happened in that game sofar. It's part of a whole. I find this much more beautiful then long drawn out games of battles back and forth, it's simple, to the point. Like a samurai opting to do his best to finish off his opponent in one quick decisive blow. The opponent did have his chance, he could have done a hundred things to avoid his untimely demise. And he has 5 games in a series to do it.

The comeback. Comebacks are good, their exciting. You thought you knew what was going to happen, but it turned out the other way! How delightful to be wrong. The problem is that the glory in the comeback is in it's unlikelyness. If you force comebacks into the game, they pale. A comeback is awesome since you didn't expect it.

There's this idea that the game should be left undecided until the very last moment, preferably after at least some time. I would like to say that the outcome is decided even before the game in a way. The better player will win. It's just that we don't really know, who is the better at this moment? But one is, his preparations where better, but we don't know so yet. We want to see the better player win trough a well executed gameplan, not the two players battle it out for a long time back and forth until one player finally comes out on top. A few such games are okay, variaton is always nice. But ultimately, if the game just flows back and forth in an eternal comeback cycle, it stops mattering what plans the player set out with. What they did in the initial stages of the game gets wiped out like drawings in sand. At the end, it's mostly just luck that decides which way the pendulum finally swings all the way, if both players had a real chance at winning multiple times. You get a fractured game, with dozens of little battles that are not connected, you can't speak of a game where this player pulled this awesome stunt and won, it was just a long drawn out game of this, that, then this and this and that.

Finally, the dreaded undead part of the game where a victor is felt to be assured and there's no point continueing to play according to consensus. The loosing player has only a very slim chance of comeback, what to do? Of course, this is so simple, the looser GG:s, resigns, or in TA:spring language, ragequits.

[Warlord Zsinj]

I am targetting IW at competitive gamers. The reason is that competitive gamers will only play a game that offers the depth and gameplay that they require. I'm not necessarily saying that I've achieved it - it's no easy task - but that's who my target audience is.

The reason why I say that is not because I want to alienate casual gamers - they are likely to form the largest part of any potential IW audience. The fact of the matter, in my opinion, is that if you target casual gamers (that is, the ones that want to play around with throwing hordes of ATST's at an impenetrable base), then the competitive gamers will not play; they require well controlled flow, good pacing, fair balance, the ability to 'come back', as well as limited 'undead' time (when defeat is evident but it takes a while to stick the knife in). In other words, they need tight game design. However, if you design your game with tight design in mind, then you will attract competitive gamers - and the casual gamers will have fun anyway, as they are typically making their own rules up (no attacking for 10 minutes! no air!).

In terms of superweapons, I personally don't much like big fat 'I win' buttons like the Wonders from the Age of Empires series. They just seemed totally counter-intuitive to the whole dynamic gameplay thing, because it would literally be a glass ceiling spelling the end of the game.

I like superweapons that can force the end of the game - I mean, they are there for specifically that purpose - but they shouldn't simply be 'if you build this you win'. I like the Berthas because they are expensive, but once they are built they don't automatically win the game for you. They do, however, force the other player's cards. It's like saying "well, I've spent these resources on this Bertha, and you haven't managed to kill me with your resource advantage (from spending on units instead) yet - let's see what you've done with your resources, otherwise this is going to kill you."
And the bertha won't insta-kill you. It'll slowly wittle you away if you do nothing - but you do have the ability to do something about it. It typically generates the desperate battles that might have been avoided through a game slowly staling and stalemating. Typically players get to a point where it is no longer cost effective to attack, and things become stale.

To an extent, that is really the purpose of Superweapons (in my mind); the game should be entertaining enough that forwards-and-backwards is occuring so that you are at the edge of your seat for the duration of the game. If it gets to a stage where players are reaching equilibrium, and things are becoming stale, it is the job of the superweapon to return the game to a more dynamic state. This, in my opinion, does not necessarily have to be an 'I win' button, simply a way to force players that have stopped attacking each other (that is, in a risky manner - no longer willing to engage in attacks that could cause their defeat through failure) to start going at each other again.

Further, the bertha encourages the game to climax, but it does so through forcing the climax through gameplay means. That is, the enemy player has to either throw up their own bertha, or use units to kill the existing bertha. There are decisions, and therefore strategy, and therefore intelligence, involved in both the victim player's need to combat the enemy, and the bertha player trying to keep his bertha alive, power it, and target important enemy installations.
Because the bertha operates within the game world, it also encourages dynamic counter strategies to develop. You can hide your units behind tall cliffs. You can build tall sacrificial structures in front of important buildings, etc. You have dynamic ways to stop a bertha. The bertha itself is dynamic - on big maps it doesn't shoot the whole way so you have to set up weaker firebases closer to the enemy.

Superweapons need to be thought out as means for returning a staling game to fluid dynamism - not as a means to ending the game outright.

[Sleksa]

i agree with zpock. Competitive games are the most beautiful form of gaming i know, and its practically impossible to avoid the slippery slope in games(rts'es specially)

Atleast, the player who is winning should be rewarded for his actions. He outmicroed the enemy, outmacroed him, outscouted , or did all these things, and for that he should be rewarded with being closer to winning than the other player. Zwszg seems to be proposing an idea where the player who got outplayed would be rewarded for being outplayed, which is pretty disturbing. The player who did less work still gets rewarded.

Also the initial base-concept is lacking any realistic ground, For example it would be easier for the porching player to send out raiders(think ba banshees/ota bombers/fighters/jeffies etc) to kill the expanded player's economy. This way, the player who is expanding would be hurt from doing so by wasting his time to cover ground instead of building a superweapon(bertha, krog).

That site linked by zpock also holds many other interesting articles everyone should read ( http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/ )

especially these 3

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/intermediates ... go-to-win/

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/advanced-play ... st-player/

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/intermediates ... the-scrub/

Especially his mentality towards those people who cry out for imba or cheap things(the scrub article) is 100% correct. What's in the game can and should be used and exploited to the fullest to win, instead of living in a self-constructed ruleset

The loser usually takes the imagined moral high ground by sticking to his Code of Honor, a made-up set of personal rules that tells him which moves he can and cannot do. Of course, the rules of the game itself dictate which moves a player can and cannot make, so the Code of Honor is superfluous and counterproductive toward winning. This can also take the form of the loser complaining that you have broken his Code of Honor. He will almost always assume the entire world agrees on his Code and that only the most vile social outcasts would ever break his rules. It can be difficult to even reason with the kind of religious fervor some players have toward their Code. This type of player is trying desperately to remain a ├óÔé¼┼ôwinner├óÔé¼┬Ø any way possible. If you catch him amidst a sea of losses, you├óÔé¼Ôäóll notice that his Code will undergo strange contortions so that he may still define himself, somehow, as a ├óÔé¼┼ôwinner.├óÔé¼┬Ø

Everyone goes through this perioid though, for example i raged for every commbomb that got to me when i got to spring, i cried out for every rogue using stunlocks when i played world of warcraft, and cried out for people who used the magnum sniper in CS. The thing is to just accept that you cannot make every rogue disappear from wow, or ban awps in every cs server, and instead using them yourself, and learning counters to them.


The second point i liked in his articles is the "balance is found by playing" mentality.

What seems OP at first, will soon be exploited so much that people will naturally learn and make up counters to those things (such as flash in the OTA being later on killed by a mix of flash+samson)

There are instances though, where things go horribly wrong(like the weasels of caydr's last aa vsn). But those things happen far less than the "seemingly" op things.

[Pxtl]

I think an important question is always "is it fun" though. Comnapping isn't fun. The game is over before it began, and the attacker had to make such a huge gamble that even if it fails, the game may still be over before it began (his adversary can crush him now). It rapes n00bs simply by turning the game into a high-speed game of trivial pursuit - not their skill or their strategy, but by not knowing about some weird properties of some units.

This means developers do have a responsibility to block such tactics.

Also, I disagree that the slippery slope is a good thing, or caters to hardcores. I read Sirlin's essays back when it made PA, and remember that he often talks about Street Fighter - in Street Fighter, your combat potential is unrelated to your current health. If player X lands a hit on player Y, and a minute later player Y lands a hit on player X, then they're even. In RTS games, this is not so - if player X lands a hit on player Y, then a minute later player Y is less able to land the corresponding hit on player X.