The Conflict of Timmy and Spike: The "Cheap" and the "Scrub"

Note: This article refers mainly to 2 player fighting games (Ex: Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, etc.)

Cheap: A move or tactic that is felt to be unfair. Someone who is abusing the system to earn wins.
Example: Throwing 20 times in a row is too damn cheap.

Scrub: A (possibly) derogatory term for a novice player mainly used by highly competitive players. Mostly used for players who refuse to adapt to powerful tactics.
Example: Look at that Scrub complaining that I just threw him 20 times in a row.

There is quite possibly an eternal conflict between which group of players is justified. Are Spike's just really cheap? Or are those whiners just Scrubs who refuse to adapt?

The Casual Viewpoint: A group of friends are sitting around playing one of the many fighting games of the ages: Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, Marvel vs. Capcom. Much blood has been split. Much accusations of cheapness have been declared. Every player has their own signature tactic that, when used, elicits many groans from everyone else. Everything from the classic 'Fireball Spammer!' to 'Corner Turtle!'... from 'Button Masher' to 'You keep doing that same damn move over and over again.'

Timmy's Complaint: Spamming fireballs all day or hiding in a corner all day is not fun. You might win, but all you're doing is really just annoying people to death with your cheap tactics that are simply designed to win without any sort of excitement. Jump. Fireball. Block. Fireball. Etc. What we're doing is trying to have fun. We get that winning is fun but not if winning turns out to be looking at the same predictable pattern over and over again.

Spike's Response: I am spamming the same move over and over again. If it is so impossible to counter this one move, wouldn't I be foolish for not using it? Furthermore, what would be the limit to using this move if it is so impossible to counter? Even a single use of this move could be called 'cheap.' You know exactly what I am going to do, can't you just play around it? Is there no desire for self-improvement here? It can't be possible that I've found *the* impossible to defeat strategy while we're just spamming random moves here.

The Hardcore Viewpoint: A group of players are around their local arcade stand playing competitively. A newcomer comes to the playing field and plays around. After he is trounced by the elite players, he sighs to himself and complains about how they kept abusing the most well known absurd combos. And then comes the inevitable. He'll leave, and the elites will shake their head and decry him as a "Scrub."

Spike's Complaint: Complaining about tactics that win you the game are a moot point. If what you really want to do is *win*, then you will learn to adapt to increasingly new tactics. If you're getting bombed by planes, you can't complain that planes are "cheap" and that they are fighting "unfairly." If you want to win, you learn and adapt, not redesign the game so that is "fair" for you. Complaining about cheapness is really a sign of not wanting to improve your own playing skill and instead wanting to play a game which requires a lesser skill component to win.

Timmy's Response: If your only motivation to play is to win, then you prevent yourself from truly having fun with the game. In any fighting game, there are top-tier, middle-tier and bottom-tier characters. If your only desire is to win in high-level competitive play, that limits your play experience to simply top-tier characters. What an incredibly boring way to play, limiting yourself to 2 or 3 characters. Furthermore, our objective is not to win. It is simply to have a good time among friends or have a good time at the arcade. Your goal of "self-improvement" is ruining our play experience.

Loss of Diversity: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has a character roster of some 50 plus characters. If the players involved aren't very skilled, they will choose a team that consists of 3 members out of these 50 plus characters. However, the actual 'playable' character roster that tournament players choose from consists only of a mere 12 to 16 characters. Of those playable characters, not all the 'special moves' of those characters can be used, as some just are straight out terrible. (Example: Strider Hiryu has some 15 special moves. Of these, only 4 are ever used and that's stretching it.) The pure Spike mindset seriously limits the gaming experience.

If you'd like to take this to the extremely, look at Guilty Gear. 15 out of the top 16 tournament players all used the same character: Sol Badguy. The 16th player played a different character, Baiken, and predictably died very very early on.

Both sides have extremely valid points. One group is trying to have fun with the game experience. The other group is all about self-improvement. It would be hard to find a group of friends playing a fighting game who didn't want to get better and the fighting game *and* have fun.

Here's the thing though, for both groups: Decrying someone as cheap or decrying someone as a scrub doesn't actually help either of you achieve your goal.

Timmy: Suppose that one predictable move is too 'cheap' for you to handle. If your only way to beat this move is the other person not doing it, perhaps a fair degree of practice is in order? Going deeper into and getting better at the game can be more rewarding. If I had to pick between a Street Fighter with 'cheap' fireballs and a Street Fighter with no fireballs.. or a Street Fighter with 'cheap' throws versus a Street Fighter in which you couldn't throw... I'd rather have the fireballs and the throwing. It's more diverse. It's more gameplay. And once you learn how to handle it well, it's more fun.

Besides, nothing's better than showing that Spike just how vulnerable he really is. :D

Spike: If your ultimate goal is to find the dominant tactic of play, consider two things:

1. Playing to win all the time will quickly drive off all the casual players. If all you play with is with casual gamers then you will quickly leave yourself with no avenue of improvement.

2. Playing to win all the time will ensure that you *not* find the dominant tactic of play. It might ensure that you perfect your *current* dominant tactic, but that does not ensure that your tactic is the best.

Street Fighter example: Suppose you've learned to play Ryu *really* *really* well. All the casual players call your fireball / dragon punch traps cheap and you win the majority of the time. Newsflash: Ryu might not be the best character. Unless you vary your gameplay experience and try supposedly bad moves, you might never make the discovery that some other character might be the best character for you. The best character for you might be a really really weak character at first glance but if you keep doing your old fireball / dragon punch traps, then you'll never find out.


So relax. Go deeper into the game and learn to adapt. Or stop using that dominant tactic for a while. Who knows what you'll discover?