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+ Show Spoiler + I haven't been able to contribute much lately, so I'll be posting my thoughts on some topics that have completely beaten to death.
Some thoughts on what cheese is, why it's frustrating to watch, and whether players have a responsibility to avoid it. TL;DR at the end.
What is Cheese?
"Cheese" is a word that gets thrown around a lot in the StarCraft 2 community. Like many other terms, it has lost much of its meaning and usefulness since casters, players, and fans have used it to describe almost any strategy that is aggressive, abusive, or that they simply don't like. Following are three essential aspects of cheesy play that I think capture the essence of why people dislike watching cheese, while still being specific enough so as to not encompass all execution-heavy, aggressive, or non-standard strategies. Of course not every cheese will have each of these elements, but they are good guidelines for deciding if that two-base push is a scrubby, all-in cheese, or simply a strong strategic play.
The most important aspect of cheese is that it limits the scope of the game in some fundamental way. That is, the cheesing player is intentionally curtailing or avoiding certain essential aspects of the game to gain an advantage. Some good examples of this in the SC2 world are the set of hyper aggressive cheeses that include proxy builds and the all-in six-pool. The cheeser in these cases is cutting out the importance of macro, mid-to-late game strategy, and large army control (all usually considered essential RTS skills) in favor of entrusting the outcome of the game to his superior unit control. Strategies like this can make the game feel more like a UMS micro map or some sort of training exercise rather than an actual game strategy and skill. The mini-game-like, degenerate nature of these cheeses makes results feel hollow and unimportant- like the winner did not actually possess the qualities that one usually must to be considered good at the game. Another example of this scope-limiting play right now is the Morrigan/Doom combo that Chris G has been having success with in UMvC3. It can turn a match into a test of bullet-storm like projectile avoidance and it is frustrating to watch an immobile character get slowly chipped to death with little recourse.
Another basic aspect of cheese is that it often seems to take more skill to defend than it does to execute. At lower levels, the cannon rush is a classic example of this. It is relatively easy to place cannons in a few predetermined locations at someone's main or natural, but it takes practiced snap judgment and serious knowledge of game mechanics to fend them off and come out ahead. Of course a truly skilled player will be able to overcome this strategical leverage, but when cheeses like these succeed the results are often regarded as unfortunate flukes rather than indicators of skill.
Finally, some of the most derided cheeses are the ones that rely heavily on elements of chance or other unknown factors. This these 'coinflip' strategies are often based around pivotal events whose outcomes are difficult to control. Will he scout the proxied stargate? Will he have blindly made detection? These can be the most aggravating because it opens matches up to the world of hypotheticals. Whoever is on the losing side will bemoan the fickle fates and say that things could have or even should have ended otherwise than they did. Probability plays at least some part in most competitive gaming, but it feels like an affront to the very nature of competition to bet everything on a 50/50 chance instead of playing a "real" game. Some of the clearest examples of rage-inducing random cheese were Marvel and AE about a year ago, when a well-played Seth or x-factored Dark Phoenix could reduce games to a handful of dice rolls weighted heavily in their favor.
Making Peace with Cheese
The one thread that runs through all of these factors of cheese is that it allows less skillful players to beat more skillful players, and "bad" players beating "good" one seems to go against the very idea of spectator esports. This sense of injustice when a solid, standard player gets cheesed out by a worse player, combined with the fact that cheesy games are often far shorter and less substantial, can lead to quite an outcry when it happens in a prominent tournament. And the fans' displeasure is oftentimes understandable, since a cheesy finals can be a serious, intentional anticlimax to weeks of building tension and excitement.
So, knowing that cheese can lead to a worse viewing experience for the fans, should players avoid it? Absolutely not. Because even though exciting, well-fought games are obviously more enjoyable to watch, the purely competitive aspect to esports is the foundation of what the scene is all about. The whole point of watching people play games against each other is that both are trying their absolute hardest to win. If that should ever cease to be the case, there would no longer be any value for the spectators, who then might as well be watching a Funday Monday (which I love, for the record) or professional wrestling.
The competitive component to esports is so essential to the scene that it outweighs most other considerations. If a sub-par player somehow finds himself in a high-profile match against a superior opponent, he should cheese the hell out him. If the worse player can limit the game to a realm in which he has an advantage, he should do it. If there is an ez-mode, abusive strategy that he can leverage, use it. If throwing in couple coin-flips increases his expected value in a match, break out the roll of quarters. The whole of esports takes place within the context of competition, and any hint of one player taking it easy on another, or of not utilizing every tool he has available to win, delegitimizes the whole affair.
A valid point to made here is that if the fans aren't enjoying the games the scene might shrink and sponsors might start to drift away. That is not the players' concern. We now have developers who are dedicated to maintaining the competitive and entertaining aspects of their games. One of the earliest examples of this I can think of was the set of bans during the Mirrodin era of MtG, after Pro Tour attendence went down by a huge percent. That's their job, and they do it fairly well. If they fail, and if a game becomes inherently unwatchable due to abusable, degenerate strategies, hopefully modders take over or leagues institute specific rule sets to increase the spectator value of the game. If not, and the game dies, then that was its fate, because no game in which players are not trying their hardest to win is really an esport at all.
TL;DR- The label of "cheese" should be used less often, and should specifically describe strategies that allow less-skilled players to beat skillful ones. Fans' annoyance at cheese is justifiable, but players should do it anyway if it will help them win, because pursuit of victory is the very basis of spectator esports as a whole.
  
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Very goods blog 5/5, i like your point you made, and thank you for reminding people that its more important to players to win than to show good games.
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Not really. I disagree with most of your post. The fact of cheese is that it's just a metagame phenomenom. Born and bred of the Metagame.
I.E: If everyone cheesed, all zergs would open 11pool and nobody would cheese. But then all the the other players would all open macro... then giving the zerg opportunities to cheese and so on and so on.
It's misleading to talk about "skill" in the way you do, when the fact is, Cheese exists as a very aggressive metagame to punish metagame that isnt defensive enough to hold it.
Basically, if cheese was really too good then literally everyone would open 11/11 as a standard style and it would still come back down to skill.
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It's like picking Antimage in a pub.
Don't be an AM picker.
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I completely agree. Well written. Makes me feel better about proxy gating all my PvPs today :p
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On July 07 2012 08:58 EnE wrote:
Not really. I disagree with most of your post. The fact of cheese is that it's just a metagame phenomenom. Born and bred of the Metagame.
I.E: If everyone cheesed, all zergs would open 11pool and nobody would cheese. But then all the the other players would all open macro... then giving the zerg opportunities to cheese and so on and so on.
It's misleading to talk about "skill" in the way you do, when the fact is, Cheese exists as a very aggressive metagame to punish metagame that isnt defensive enough to hold it.
Basically, if cheese was really too good then literally everyone would open 11/11 as a standard style and it would still come back down to skill.
could you imagine if crazy all-ins pre 4/5 minutes were the metagame, and people got mad at cheesey macroers that played safe, and made the games take forever? especially those guys who took it past 10 minutes and made second or even third CC/nex/hatch?
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On July 07 2012 09:06 Hnnngg wrote:
It's like picking Antimage in a pub.
Don't be an AM picker.
it's more like picking prophet imo. An AM needs to at least know how to last hit.
that being said, i disagree with the OP on a lot of points, specifically "The mini-game-like, degenerate nature of these cheeses makes results feel hollow and unimportant- like the winner did not actually possess the qualities that one usually must to be considered good at the game."
and
The one thread that runs through all of these factors of cheese is that it allows less skillful players to beat more skillful players, and "bad" players beating "good" one seems to go against the very idea of spectator esports
and any reference to 'cheese" not being a "real game."
fact is, if player A cannot defend against cheese then it is HE not the cheeser who has a limited skill set, and therefore deserves to lose. Also, there's way too many greedy players nowadays. I for one would like some more cheese in my metagame.
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On July 07 2012 09:20 Warpath wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2012 08:58 EnE wrote:
Not really. I disagree with most of your post. The fact of cheese is that it's just a metagame phenomenom. Born and bred of the Metagame.
I.E: If everyone cheesed, all zergs would open 11pool and nobody would cheese. But then all the the other players would all open macro... then giving the zerg opportunities to cheese and so on and so on.
It's misleading to talk about "skill" in the way you do, when the fact is, Cheese exists as a very aggressive metagame to punish metagame that isnt defensive enough to hold it.
Basically, if cheese was really too good then literally everyone would open 11/11 as a standard style and it would still come back down to skill. could you imagine if crazy all-ins pre 4/5 minutes were the metagame, and people got mad at cheesey macroers that played safe, and made the games take forever? especially those guys who took it past 10 minutes and made second or even third CC/nex/hatch?
In different circumstances sure.
The evolution of current RTS gameplay sure is interesting subject. If we think about it BW actually pushed forward expectations of RTS competition. Thats why people today are "angry" at cheesers and are praising "macro play". If BW died at 2002-2003 (not sure about years ;P) maybe not. We would be at least 5-6 years behind with many blind shots called by blizzard developers in terms of SC2 development . Yes kind of long shot by me ;]
About more in topic discussion. I believe SC2 produce hate toward cheese because of inequality of execution/defense. And i have to say Blizzard is main culprit here. Cheese was hated in BW sure, but in most cases it has this more "honest" feeling. But i may be completely wrong on this one, who knows what will happen in few years and how much SC2 will standarize (it has to) or change in further development.
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Personally the only things I feel that are really cheese are strategies that have no next step. A 6 pool is a cheese because the zerg (unless vs FFE and the zerg gets lucky) is fucked afterwards. Same with Cannon rushing and proxy rax Marauders/5 rax rine, etc. the point is that they can't have that vital next step that really defines a strat. Now this doesn't mean that All-ins are cheese, All-ins can have a next step, the player just chooses not to have that next step in terms of having a stronger army now, rather than not having any army and building attacking buildings, or proxying in the hopes of the opponent being unlucky and not scouting it. All-ins tend to not require luck, but skilled execution whether or not its harder to hold them off than to execute them I.E. 1/1/1 All-in. The main part of cheese is that its very important to have to keep players from getting way too greedy, its the Prisoners Dilemna in Starcraft. One player can pick to sell the game out / cheese the other player, but if he fails he cannot win. As soon as one player cheeses, no one can be trusted NOT to cheese, therefore it keeps crazy strategies out, like 5 nex before gateway.
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Yes, Thank you.
5/5 for truth :D
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i have no problem with palyers that mix in cheese here and there i think its important for players to be able to know how to cheese so they can punish greedy play
but i have a huge problem with people who cheese on ladder, especially the people who say GL HF while cheesing since its not fun to defend cheese
BTW i define cheese as any strategy that relys on your opponent not knowing its coming, has a certain amount of effectiveness that cannot be increased (like 6 pooling for instance theres only so much you can do with 6 lings) and is easily defended if you know what to do (like a diamond could probably defend a masters 4 gate if he knows 100% its coming with enough time to prepare)
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I'm going to be perfectly honest here and say that I only hate cheese when it's done against the players I like. It's just so soul crushing to me as a spectator sometimes to see it coming for like 2 minutes, and then watch the player I want to win be completely oblivious to the fact that it's happening for the whole time, and then he just... dies.
It's especially painful to watch if he actively tries to scout for it but misses it by an inch, which happens relatively often.
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Cheesing in a tournament to try get a free win is fine. But people who ONLY cheese on the ladder(there are many of them, even in GM) are just the scum of this earth.
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I hate cheese.
I do however think players should cheese the shit out of some people. You are NOT a good player if you lose to cheese; you are an incomplete player who plays risky and benefits from it rather than getting punishment.
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Pro players who lose to cheese deserve it. If any random masters player can defend cheese by scouting then so can pros. When genius proxied Naniwa it wasn't cause he isn't as good, its because Naniwa plays a style that can be abused and Genius did just that.
Losing to cheese is like a speeding ticket, no one likes them but it always makes your more cautious in the future.
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How about we just avoid words like cheese or metagame since only a handful of people have ever used them properly or knew what they meant in the first place. Would make life much easier.
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On July 07 2012 21:12 surfinbird1 wrote:
How about we just avoid words like cheese or metagame since only a handful of people have ever used them properly or knew what they meant in the first place. Would make life much easier.
This a fucking thousand times over.
Every, single, fucking, streamer, that isn't a pro that has used the word metagame (cheese doesn't even fucking exist, is being attacked before the 10 min mark seriously a cheese? Early aggression is the true term).
has butchered it to the point that metagame means a strategy, a reactionary strategy, a particular build order, a timing attack, a map specific strategy, or even army positioning...
It seems that every try hard and their mother loves to drop the word metagame because it somehow borrow from a perceived notion of professionalism within Esports.
"OH MAN DUDE, HE USED THE WORD METAGAME IN A SENTENCE, THAT MUST MEAN HE'S JUST AS GOOD AS THOSE GUYS THAT PLAY LIVE INFRONT OF TV AN STUFF RIGHT?"
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I see cheese as something that reduces the number of good decisions required to win the game. A skilled player is likelier to make more good decisions, and in a long game, there are more decisions to be made. So, as a game gets longer, the more skilled player has more chances to gain advantages through good decision making.
Cheese allows games to be decided through less number of decisions. If you choose a strategy that reduces decision making to the point where one decision decides the game, the outcome of the game hinges on that one correct or incorrect decision. If you plan on a 25 minute game, where hundreds of decisions are made, sure one wrong decision can have a significant impact on the game, but you can overcome one significant poor decision with many small good decisions.
A good player is defined by their ability to win games. A player that is more proficient at getting wins is better than the player worse at getting wins. I don't care if the one who is better at winning proxy gates every game. If a gold proxy gater is more efficient at getting wins than a bronze macro player, then he is better, period.
If you are honestly trying to win games, and you believe that cheese is the most efficient way of acquiring wins, then cheese away. If you believe that in the long term, learning how to macro will improve you as a player, then by all means keep doing whatever you're doing. The idea is that you're trading wins in the short term for wins in the long term. You're getting worse in order to get better. If you cheese, you'll be more efficient at winning, but if you continue cheesing for a year doing nothing different you'll eventually be worse off than learning how to play a long game. In this case, the idea is still to maximize your ability to win future games, sacrificing games in the short term.
The goal in both cases is the same; to acquire wins in the most efficient way possible
I look down on cheese only if I feel it's an inefficient way of winning. I feel like proxy rax reduces your ability to gain wins, so I look down on proxy raxers for choosing a losing strategy. Sure it can gain you wins against superior opponents, but I just think that you don't win enough to make up for the number of losses.
People tend to look down on cheese because of some honour code or something. If you're trying to win and choose a losing strategy, THAT's what I look down on. Not some sort of unwritten rule that it is cool to play macro games
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When i cheese a zerg as protoss by doing a 8minute all-in with only zealots, while this zerg double expanded and did nothing but build drones..just to mass roaches...who is the biggest cheeser?
Every opening is a strategy that can be used to take the game.. people should look at starcraft like a poker game, wich opening has the highest winrates? If it is a cheesy build, that has the highest winrate, why instead choose a more socially accepted build that will win you less games? This game is about winning, not honorable 17th century swordfighting.
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On July 08 2012 01:04 cydial wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2012 21:12 surfinbird1 wrote:
How about we just avoid words like cheese or metagame since only a handful of people have ever used them properly or knew what they meant in the first place. Would make life much easier. This a fucking thousand times over. Every, single, fucking, streamer, that isn't a pro that has used the word metagame (cheese doesn't even fucking exist, is being attacked before the 10 min mark seriously a cheese? Early aggression is the true term). has butchered it to the point that metagame means a strategy, a reactionary strategy, a particular build order, a timing attack, a map specific strategy, or even army positioning... It seems that every try hard and their mother loves to drop the word metagame because it somehow borrow from a perceived notion of professionalism within Esports. "OH MAN DUDE, HE USED THE WORD METAGAME IN A SENTENCE, THAT MUST MEAN HE'S JUST AS GOOD AS THOSE GUYS THAT PLAY LIVE INFRONT OF TV AN STUFF RIGHT?"
hahaha  . I'm so glad I'm not alone on this. I wonder what other word we can force to have a new meaning out of thin air? This could be fun, and we could randomly add the prefix "meta" to it to make it sound really intellectual and complicated.
But I think the OP makes a good point. The responsibility really shouldn't be on the pro-gamers to "balance" the game by only emphasizing the aspects that can lead to fair games determined by skill rather than luck. That is really something that needs to be determined carefully by Blizzard in consultation with many other pro-gamers. The only job they have is to be as abusive and exploitive as possible, in order to point out where any flaws may exist. And if the audience doesn't like how luck based the game can be, then they can hopefully make enough noise for that to change.
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EPT
