That's the problem. It's people wanting to win at the expense of variety and decorum. It's that low mindedness that keeps looking to exploit poor mechanics rather than use different stuff for fun.

There is a problem when something is powerful enough that it creates an imbalance just due to it becoming too prevalent. It's no fun when you can predict who is going to win and how.

Might as well have everybody give up and just use that one thing. Just get rid of everything else and have "OP rifle" 514.


We have enough vanilla assaults trying to prove their "manhood" with this game that they reject anything else lest it brand them a "coward".

Well, that's what you get from a kiddie console game GÇö kids.

Introducing...the Scrub
The derogatory term GÇ£scrubGÇ¥ 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.

Now, everyone begins as a poor playerGÇöit takes time to learn a game to get to a point where you know what youGÇÖre doing. There is the mistaken notion, though, that by merely continuing to play or GÇ£learnGÇ¥ the game, one can become a top player. In reality, the GÇ£scrubGÇ¥ has many more mental obstacles to overcome than anything actually going on during the game. The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. HeGÇÖs lost the game even before deciding which game to play. His problem? He does not play to win.

The scrub would take great issue with this statement for he usually believes that he is playing to win, but he is bound up by an intricate construct of fictitious rules that prevents him from ever truly competing. These made-up rules vary from game to game, of course, but their character remains constant. LetGÇÖs take a fighting game off of which IGÇÖve made my gaming career: Street Fighter.

In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations GÇ£cheap.GÇ¥ This GÇ£cheapnessGÇ¥ is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesnGÇÖt attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the designGÇöitGÇÖs meant to be thereGÇöyet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely. Why? Exploring the reasoning is futile since the notion is ridiculous from the start.

You will not see a classic scrub throw his opponent five times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimizes his chances of winning? Here weGÇÖve encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near youGÇöthatGÇÖs cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, thatGÇÖs cheap, too. WeGÇÖve covered that one. If you block for fifty seconds doing no moves, thatGÇÖs cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap. Street Fighter was just one example; I could have picked any competitive game at all.

So did the AR