[quote]Introducing...the Scrub The derogatory term “scrub” 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. [b]I mean the term differently, though. A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about.[u] A scrub does not play to win. [/u] [/b]Now, everyone begins as a poor player—it takes time to learn a game to get to a point where you know what you’re doing. There is the mistaken notion, though, that by merely continuing to play or “learn” the game, one can become a top player. [b]In reality, [u]the “scrub” has many more mental obstacles to overcome [/u]than anything actually going on during the game. The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. He’s lost the game even before deciding which game to play. [u]His problem? He does not play to win.[/u] [/b][b]The scrub would take great issue with this statement for he usually believes that he is playing to win, [u]but he is bound up by an intricate construct of fictitious rules that prevents him from ever truly competing.[/u] These made-up rules vary from game to game, of course, but their character remains constant.[/b] Let’s take a fighting game off of which I’ve made my gaming career: Street Fighter. ............ [b]A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which one tries to win at all costs is “boring” or “not fun.” Who knows what objective the scrub has, [u]but we know his objective is not truly to win.[/u][/b] Yours is. Your objective is good and right and true, and let no one tell you otherwise. You have the power to dispatch those who would tell you otherwise, anyway. Simply beat them. Let’s consider two groups of players: a group of good players and a group of scrubs. [b]The scrubs will play “for fun” and not explore the extremities of the game. They won’t find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. [u]The good players wi[/u]ll.[/b] The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns. As they play the game more, they’ll be forced to find counters to those tactics. The vast majority of tactics that at first appear unbeatable end up having counters, though they are often quite subtle and difficult to discover. Knowing the counter tactic prevents the other player from using his tactic, but he can then use a counter to your counter. You are now afraid to use your counter and the opponent can go back to sneaking in the original overpowering tactic. This concept will be covered in much more detail later. [b]The good players are reaching higher and higher levels of play. They found the “cheap stuff” and abused it.[u] They know how to stop the cheap stuff[/u].[/b] They know how to stop the other guy from stopping it so they can keep doing it. And as is quite common in competitive games, many new tactics will later be discovered that make the original cheap tactic look wholesome and fair. Often in fighting games, one character will have something so good it’s unfair. Fine, let him have that. As time goes on, it will be discovered that other characters have even more powerful and unfair tactics. Each player will attempt to steer the game in the direction of his own advantages, much how grandmaster chess players attempt to steer opponents into situations in which their opponents are weak. ..... Can you imagine what will happen when the two groups of players meet? [b]The experts will absolutely destroy the scrubs with any number of tactics they’ve either never seen or never been truly forced to counter. [u]This is because the scrubs have not been playing the same game[/u]. The experts were playing the actual game while the scrubs were playing their own homemade variant with restricting, unwritten rules.[/b][/quote] http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub