In Response To: Re: Hey Wu...? (Louis Wu)
: The vast majority, actually. Very occasionally, I find myself in situations
: described by your examples and arguments... but it really is the minority
: of games I play (and I'm past 3500 competitive games at this point).
: I cannot remember the last time I saw a team in the lead fall back and NOT be
: aggressive, for example. In fact, the larger the skill gap, the MORE
: aggressive the winning team usually is (in my experience).
: Your discussions of Invasion gametypes I had to pass over; I have very little
: experience with them (I find the gametype to be dull and predictable, so I
: play it rarely).
: Hang on, I have to go back through HBO's front page to find the earlier parts
: (they don't seem to be linked on your site anywhere)...
: I certainly won't argue that objective-holding doesn't happen; that's one
: negative I've seen quite a bit of. But the other complaints you had didn't
: resonate at all with me.
: I did NOT understand what you were saying about winning teams in Neutral Flag
: taking the flab back to their own base - I've NEVER seen this happen (not
: ONCE that I can actually remember), and I have no idea why anyone actually
: WOULD. If you made a mistake, the other team would have the flag in
: scoring position! Why would you do that? (And again, in all the games I've
: played, others clearly agreed with that question, since nobody ever
: brought the flag back to their own base.)
: I've seen slaying without scoring in Speedflag - but rarely by people picking
: up flags. Your sentence "the carrier has less incentive to capture it
: and progress the game" doesn't apply very often in the games i've
: played; more commonly, the winning TEAM has less incentive to pick up
: flags and score them. (When you're carrying flags, you're more obvious to
: the other team; why would you put yourself in that position if you had no
: intention of scoring?)
: Your complaints about players needing to choose an aggressive role (shooting)
: or a passive one (objective-carrying) made no sense to me; I thought that
: was the whole POINT of objective games. If carrying the bomb did NOT
: render one player on attack nearly useless, for example, what would stop a
: better team from simply rollling over a worse one EVERY SINGLE TIME? My
: fondest Assault memories are all of games where we were outmatched,
: killing-skill-wise, and still came away with the win because we were
: sneakier or smarter. Your arguments make it sound like you don't consider
: it a win unless you score more points AND have more kills.
: Your only complaint about Oddball (that winning teams drop, but guard, the
: ball while slaying to extend the game) is, again, something I don't see
: very often; yes, it happens, but not the majority of the time. Oddball is
: one of my favorite gametypes.
: I completely reject your complaints about Hot Potato - the randomness of the
: explosions is THE ENTIRE POINT. You want time with the ball, you risk
: blowing up. That's the game. I obviously find this less frustrating than
: you do.
: I haven't been able to get a stockpile game in so long that I can't really
: address your arguments - but my recollection of games I've played doesn't
: square with your description; I can't remember 'non-confrontational'
: games.
: Your Headhunter complaints struck me as downright silly. If a vastly superior
: team allows their opponents to win by capturing only skulls of their own
: fallen teammates, THEY DESERVE TO LOSE FOR BEING STUPID; I've never seen
: anything REMOTELY like this. When teams are mismatched, the winning team
: in Headhunter is almost ALWAYS the more-skilled-at-slaying one (again, in
: my experience); Headhunter is NOT a gametype I've seen a lot of
: objective-holding on (or rather, objective-non-holding).
: The fact that picked-up skulls makes you more visible to the enemy is, again,
: THE POINT - I love that there's an instant 'equalizing' mechanism in the
: game. Again, the only reason I can see to complain about this is if you're
: someone who feels that you shouldn't ever have to suffer being killed by
: someone 'less good' than you are - to me, it seems like a pretty elitist
: complaint.
: I guess my biggest problem with all the segments you've released so far is
: that they describe the worst-case scenarios in each gametype... but
: suggest that those scenarios are common. My experience has been in almost
: every one of these cases that these worst-case are in fact very UNcommon,
: and in several cases nonexistent - so saying that the gametypes 'suck'
: because these POSSIBILITIES for unpleasant play exist is simply unfair.
: I've spent enough time on enough forums to know that there are plenty of
: people who do nothing but gripe about how awful Reach is, how 'unfun' it
: is to play... that has NOT been my experience, and in fact when I see
: unrelenting negativity from folks with thousands of games under their
: belt, I tend to ignore what they have to say, because if they really hated
: it that much, they'd find something else to do.
: Which is to say, I feel as though you've unfairly presented the situation in
: your discussion so far. (Clearly, you're doing that to set up the stage
: for your suggestions, coming at some point - but personally, I'd find your
: arguments more compelling if you didn't feel the need to exaggerate how
: bad the current situation is.)
: As always, these are personal opinions, and in fact I'm only presenting them
: because you asked. (I hadn't planned on participating in the discussion.)
...And that's why when Wu says he finds your arguments unfounded he damn well means it.
(Just a joke if anyone is unsure of my meaning)
| 
