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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
Genuineness in Competitive Gaming
As might be inferred from some of my other blog posts, I play Dota 2, a team-based battle game. Less obviously, though, I've been involved in competitive multiplayer games for a long time. Before Dota 2, it was Sc2, and before that, HoN, BF2, Melee, CS, Brood War, and other games. These games were always a huge source of fun and competition for me. Probably one of the best parts of playing a competitive game is getting better, and playing the game at higher level. This kind of experience is only really possible when there is a vibrant competitive multiplayer community.
A commonly-referenced dichotomy in gaming is between Casual gamers and Competitive gamers. Competitive gamers try to become good at the games they play, and take pleasure in increasing their skills within the bounds of those games. Casual players do not spend as much effort trying to become good at the games they play, but nonetheless take pleasure in attempting to win when they do play. I consider myself a competitive player. People who play games competitively and understand game design as an art are often mortified at the impact of casual gaming on the industry. Whereas one might characterize mechanics like denying in Dota 2 or limited Control Groups in Brood War as "fake difficulty", the opinion of a competitive gamer is typically that these mechanics are real difficulty.
An aside on difficulty: I distinguish fake difficulty and real difficulty relatively easily, but I'm not sure everyone agrees with my definition. Fake difficulty is difficulty that falls outside the bounds of an accepted skillset for a game. For example, in the story of X and Nada, when kkongji plays against X, X simultaneous plays Koong-Koong-Dda with Nada to demonstrate his gaming prowess. When he defeats kkongji it shows he is definitely better than kkongji because of the fake difficulty he added on. Although it would certainly be more difficult to play word games while playing Starcraft, nobody has seriously suggested this be added to tournament or ladder play because we believe this added difficulty would be "fake" rather than real-- just as having to constantly run at 6 mph while playing Sc2 would be "fake" difficulty. Fake difficulty is difficulty, it's just not difficulty I want.
The other day I realized I used the word "Tryhard" as an insult. I was playing a game of Dota, and was up against a trilane (Context: dota has 3 lanes, and early on in casual or non-competitive play, the two side-lanes have two player each, and the mid lane has one player. A very powerful and successful strategy is to run one side-lane with 3 players and another with 1 player. This assures you victory in the tri-lane, and the guy who's left alone can gracefully lose his lane, giving you an advantage as the game progresses). My lanemate and I were losing rather handily to the trilane, and in a moment of frustration I uttered in teamchat to him, "fucking tryhards," to which he replied "I know, right" and proceeded to begin BMing the trilaners .
At this point, I had a moment of self-reflection (since I was waiting to respawn) and realized that I shouldn't consider tryhard to be an insult. Tryhard is the word casual players use to insult competitive players. The fact that these three friends decided they could best win by implementing a pro strategy should be to their credit, not their detriment, in my eyes. In fact, if they weren't friends but random pubs who actually planned out such a thoughtful strategy, they deserve even more credit.
There will be times when going full-on tryhard mode is inappropriate. I wouldn't try to utterly crush my 12-year-old cousin at tennis, nor would I bust out wave-shining against my sister if I introduced her to SSBM. That being said, I consider the status of tryhard in my current language use to be inappropriate. When someone is legitimately trying hard, even at something as inconsequential as a video game, their effort at least deserves credit for being genuine.
"Tryhard" is the gaming equivalent of the bullies who would shit on nerds for doing well in class and being interested in reading. "Tryhard" is inverse jealousy, the most cutting of gaming insults. Clearly my adversary is a mouth-breathing nerd who plays too much! When I accuse someone of being a tryhard, I accuse them of an excess of earnestness and effort. This is intellectual hipsterism, a critique of the genuine in favor of the ungenuine, the evidently superior cynical outlook that anyone who tries harder than me is worse. As long as everyone better than me is a tryhard and everyone worse than me is a casual, I avoid thinking about my loss, I avoid improving, I avoid competing and becoming better,-- in Dota 2, in gaming, in school, and in life. If I always claim I pull my punches, I never truly lose a match.
Maybe this is who I am after years of competitive gaming, but I can't call people tryhards any more. Not as an insult, at least. Whatever meaning this word had for me as an insult has been obliterated. Genuineness is gradually fading away in our world-- cynicism and detachment have come to supplant it in the information age. Earnestness, even manifest as an effort to game, is below most of us. I pursue the genuine effort, the eagerness to improve that is the core of the my competitive gaming experience. When I lose, I accept my loss: I tried to win with all my strength, and I was out-played. I will not shirk from the truth. I know what I am.
Tryhard.
Proudly.
 
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I forgot where tryhard comes from, but when I was in the CoD youtube community, that was all I heard from people who wanted to put other players down. You were either MLG pro or a tryhard scrub, there was no medium. Trying hard is a good idea, under all circumstances.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
I'm still bad at dota though. I just try hard.
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I hear that. I think it's so dumb to use as an insult. The point of the game is to win, why wouldn't you try hard?
That being said I also used it recently in a game when some team ARed wisp, prophet, and just proceeded to tp gank all game long. One of the most frustrating and least fun games I have ever played of anything, in a very long time.
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Yeah. Tryhard is a really...weird insult. It's like "HAH! You see, you kicking my ass is completely irrelevant, because you're trying harder than me, and that's bad for some reason!"
As for the whole fake difficulty thing, I'd argue that limited control groups are a form of fake difficulty, whereas denying isn't. Limited control groups are purely a matter of execution, making you spend more actions to make the same moves. There are a lot of good things about Brood War, but limited control groups aren't one of them.
Denying, on the other hand, involves interaction with the opponent. They're trying to last-hit, and you're trying to deny. It's a contest, like micromanaging your units in Starcraft. It's not just "Jump through these hoops to perform these actions", it's an added dimension in which you can interact with your opponent. I definitely think denying is a good mechanic. It allows skill to play a larger role in the laning phase.
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I think "tryhard" as an insult means "You try hard at something that doesn't even matter. The things you put your effort into are worthless." It doesn't insult the effort - it insults where the effort is spent. And when you think about it like that, it actually feels like a really mean thing to say, because it might actually have a point.
For example, if I called you a tryhard while you're playing DotA or SC2, it could imply this: "You actually put so much effort into this game? This game is worthless, that's why it's ok that you're beating me. At things that actually matter, I'm a better person."
But infact I don't agree with the logic behind the insult always. It implies that if you put more effort into something that isn't crucial, you'll put less effort into something that is important. That might or might not be true. But if it is true, hearing it could be a painful thing.
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I wanna start this post by saying that i fully agree with you, and if you enjoy a game you should definitely try and become better at it.
However, i believe you're only looking at the abuses of "tryhard" as a insult, while there's a flipside of the coin, because one thing is to try and improve by learning the system and playing along with it, another matter entirely is to mindlessly search for abuses and shortcuts to avoid the mental/physical effort to actually become good at it.
For istance, imagine that for every smart nerd as per your "bully" example, who reads and is interested in what he studies, there's a "fake" nerd who doesn't care at all about the subject, he just puts a ton of effort in memorizing as much as possible of the book and cheating like a master, thus achieving comparably good results, would you feel this second category of "tryhard" is worth of any praise at all?
I'm terrible at explaining myself, let me make up an example:
+ Show Spoiler +
We're all in our teens again, and we're playing some beat'em up with our friends in the local coin-op. In a few games, it becomes clear that "Tom" and "Bob" are the best players in the group, but while they are evenly matched, they have wildly different styles: Tom is a combo player, who knows the game system's ins and outs, and playes a smooth game.... and Bob learned the unblockable move of the best character, and abuses the shit out of the annoying gimmick.
In my humble opinion, you can call both of them "tryhards", but the word kinda changes meaning when directed at either of them.
Now, i know that you might think: "that only happens in imbalanced/bad games", and yes, at the very top of a good game it clearly doesn't apply, it would be foolish to insult a progamer in Sc2 cause he abused a loophole during beta or something similar, cause he clearly knows what he's doing anyways, and he's probably spent a lot of effort in researching it...
But what would you think of a "bronze zero" player that happens to find TeamLiquid, and instead of trying to become a better (macro/micro)gamer only reads up a cannon rush/6pool/cheese guide just to humiliate his fellow bronze friends?
Damn, what a Jerk*!
*or Tryhard, if you like
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Your definitions are inaccurate.
Competitive gamers like the competition implied by the game: Can I kill the other guy? Can I beat him at denying, harass, the fireball game? Yes, I can, and I am going to crush him as hard as I can.
Casual gamers like the game. Can I deny/harass/shoot fireballs at the other guy? Can I get it right? Can I do that?
This is why casual gamers are much more often than not saying something is cheap while competitive gamers do not care. For casual gamers there is no fun in doing something simple that works a lot of the time because while they are too trying to win, obviously, for them the fun is in trying out lots of new things & learn more about the game. It is mainly becoming better at the game & cheesy strats obviously are not very helpful.
For competitive gamers, as long you win, it does not matter.
EDIT: The above is also why the subject matter of your blog should not be "calling someone a tryhard is anti-intellectualism". You are not more intelligent if you are a competitive gamer. You are stupid to think you are.
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On March 31 2013 17:28 Jinsho wrote:
Your definitions are inaccurate.
Competitive gamers like the competition implied by the game: Can I kill the other guy? Can I beat him at denying, harass, the fireball game? Yes, I can, and I am going to crush him as hard as I can.
Casual gamers like the game. Can I deny/harass/shoot fireballs at the other guy? Can I get it right? Can I do that?
This is why casual gamers are much more often than not saying something is cheap while competitive gamers do not care. For casual gamers there is no fun in doing something simple that works a lot of the time because while they are too trying to win, obviously, for them the fun is in trying out lots of new things & learn more about the game. It is mainly becoming better at the game & cheesy strats obviously are not very helpful.
For competitive gamers, as long you win, it does not matter.
EDIT: The above is also why the subject matter of your blog should not be "calling someone a tryhard is anti-intellectualism". You are not more intelligent if you are a competitive gamer. You are stupid to think you are.
Well, i feel that what you're saying is both true and isn't... competitive gamers are clearly in for the thrill of the competition, however they're in for a competition that they enjoy, otherwise they wouldn't keep competing in that game.
For istance, a competitive gamer will often/usually cheese at least once in a Bo series, because he desires to win and he's in a "vale tudo" mindset, however he wouldn't play a fundamentally broken game, as that would take all the competition and the getting better aspect out of it.
I remember reading some discussion in TL where it was estabilished that "bad" games for competitive purposes were the ones where a gimmick was the supreme strategy, on which no "scene" could thrive (it was a fighting game discussion)
Basically, when a casual says something is "cheap", they probably mean an effective but not enjoyable tactic (for example last hitting).
When a competitive is lamenting the cheapness of something, it's usually either a perceived (or real) imbalance or something that takes away from the skill needed to play the game (for example, a game with little micro potential)
Competitive gamers like the competition implied by the game: Can I kill the other guy? Can I beat him at denying, harass, the fireball game? Yes, I can, and I am going to crush him as hard as I can.
Casual gamers like the game. Can I deny/harass/shoot fireballs at the other guy? Can I get it right? Can I do that?
I think you got 2 different competitive mindsets here tbh, the "I competing vs Others" mindset, and the "I competing against myself" mindset.
Imho the real casual would be like "Is denying harassing/shooting fireballs funny and immediately rewarding? do i enjoy it?"
TLDR; as i see it, the casual player desires to find his every action enjoyable, while a competitive player enjoys the flow and the long run of the experience
->related image + Show Spoiler +
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I remember being a "tryhard". It was 2001 and I was trying to get into Cal-i from Cal-p in counterstrike, after completely dominating this pub server I was a "regular" in. The term wasn't "tryhard" back then, but the definition was similar.
Nowadays, I don't play any real competitive games in 1v1, 5v5, or whatnot as MMOs and snail pace "progression" type games got me hooked -_-
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I always thought of tryhard completely differently, to me the word describes players who use strategies or other things they see in "professional" or other high level games to crush players on their level, but they don't really understand why the things they use are picked from better players. So often times they will fail horribly and lose or have a very close game against an inferior strategy/team composition, thus leading to "trying hard", but just being too bad to pull it off, because they wanted to skip certain stepping stones in becoming a better player or are just using this one strategy that works for them but they don't really see the bigger picture. The fact that your opponent is not doing as well as he should given the strategy he is using and that he should be in a very superior position to you (but isn't) is a crucial element of this insult in my opinion.
This can also apply to a bigger frame than one particular game (like always taking hero picks in MOBA games super seriously and expecting from your teammates to do that as well, even if you are playing in the equivalent of a Bronze MMR and should already climb in MMR if you were actually good enough to understand why the picks you choose are good on a pro level).
It's a weird insult to use and in my opinion backfires in like 90% of the time :D
Also I think it's a meaningless insult for most people, but if you actually insult a person who cares about getting better and is at the early stages of getting better at a game it can actually hurt them, so I personally don't like using it, even if the temptation is sometimes there.
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I thought tryhard meant to try hard in the wrong context. For example in LoL you can choose to play ranked games, or normal games. Ranked games are meant to be more serious (hence the name) with a more elaborate picking phase, points system and penalties for leaving.
But sometimes when you choose a normal game, you get players taking even that incredibly seriously, and getting upset by unorthodox champ choices, or even people trying champions they're not good with. Those people are tryhards.
It also reminds me of the old term 'powergamer', which was used for people who played games like Warhammer, and ignored the lore when building an army.
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On March 31 2013 16:24 jrkirby wrote:
I think "tryhard" as an insult means "You try hard at something that doesn't even matter. The things you put your effort into are worthless." It doesn't insult the effort - it insults where the effort is spent. And when you think about it like that, it actually feels like a really mean thing to say, because it might actually have a point.
For example, if I called you a tryhard while you're playing DotA or SC2, it could imply this: "You actually put so much effort into this game? This game is worthless, that's why it's ok that you're beating me. At things that actually matter, I'm a better person."
But infact I don't agree with the logic behind the insult always. It implies that if you put more effort into something that isn't crucial, you'll put less effort into something that is important. That might or might not be true. But if it is true, hearing it could be a painful thing.
I don't agree with the logic behind the insult for a different reason. Nothing in life matters more than anything else...everything will be dust in a thousand years. Whatever you care about at the moment you do the action is what matters the most.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On March 31 2013 19:18 Tal wrote:
I thought tryhard meant to try hard in the wrong context. For example in LoL you can choose to play ranked games, or normal games. Ranked games are meant to be more serious (hence the name) with a more elaborate picking phase, points system and penalties for leaving.
But sometimes when you choose a normal game, you get players taking even that incredibly seriously, and getting upset by unorthodox champ choices, or even people trying champions they're not good with. Those people are tryhards.
It also reminds me of the old term 'powergamer', which was used for people who played games like Warhammer, and ignored the lore when building an army.
I suppose this ties in with my example about tennis. There are times when you want to try your hardest (play competitively) and there are times you want to just relax (play casually). When I use it as an insult it's usually in a competitive context which is why it's pretty dumb for me to use it. But yeah if I were in a more relaxed setting, giving 100% effort would be pretty inappropriate.
Warhammer I think is an interesting example. I used to play WH40k, the sci-fi version of Warhammer made by the same company. I picked Eldar as my race, and really liked the lore of the last scions of a dying race with great powers and lost technology doing battle against the upstart humans and the demons they spawned with their hedonism. At the time I first started playing, there was a supplemental rulebook that gave ways to play Eldar that were considered cheesy and powergaming. I never bought it but heard stories about how terrible it was from my gaming buddies. We definitely considered such play to be too "tryhard" for us.
That being said, WH40k is a hobby game in addition to a strategy game. Part of the game is moving the miniatures around, but a lot of it is developing your battalion's lore, assembling and painting your miniatures yourself (some of which have to be custom-built or frankensteined from other parts) and creating a little work of art. I think we always looked down a little on the guys who would paint their army the three minimum colours and send them into battle without backstories and lore.
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