lol bullshit ;)

remove the scII logo omg ! :D

Great read, really nail the gameplay aspects.
Some others would be related to increasing public exposure/audience like: spectating features (demos, GTV...) not buggy and easy to install, able to run smoothly and being fun to play, specially for newcomers.

Bored the shit out of me.

This might not be rocket science, but they guy pretty nailed down the concept. Good read.

This was an okay read, but I think most of it seemed pretty obvious..

Some thoughts: I actually went straight from QuakeWorld (DM, mostly duel) into playing CS competitively. Obviously coming from QW I wasn't overly fond of the game at first, but what hooked me in and kept me there was the competition. CS flourished competitively imo because it was a) massively marketable (and initially/originally free and who didn't own Half-Life?) -- every man and his dog was keen to play some, b) in essence totally non-random and balanced and c) released and popularized at the perfect moment in regards to internet connections and availability (similarly to the timing of StarCraft in Korea). The sheer number of online games available today also actually limits the competition of any single game due to the possible-community being split over so many different games offering them different types of enjoyment and entertainment. It's near-impossible to compete with so many different types of games with just one (ie. in general, people who play Call of Duty won't be overly interested in a game like Quake Live -- obviously a generalization, but to prove a point).

P.S. As someone who spent a lot of time on it, I find it pretty funny that TF2 is mentioned at all. Originally TF2 had a possibly decent future as a competitive game, but as time goes on it's just becoming more and more of a joke. It was absolutely never intended to be any sort of competitive game. ETF2L is pretty successful because there's a lot of teams and a lot of competition which keeps the game going (but I don't know for how much longer), but in Australia with the game just getting worse each update, 90% of the decent teams have quit (including the entire top 3-4) and what's left is a bunch of fresh-to-FPS gamers straight out of World of Warcraft who can't understand what we're whinging about. I also hear some top US teams are starting to die out now too. Any ETF2L'ers have any opinions on this? How is it going over in Europe?

How is CS "totally non-random"? The recoil patterns alone make it extremely random. The price/weapon damage potential isn't exactly balanced either, you're still getting random ass headshots from the deagle while you have kevlar and helmet with an M4. Just sayin. It's popular because it's easy to get into.

The recoil isn't random though. You can learn how to control it. If you were some sort of cyborg and programmed the exact movements to counter-act recoil, you could COMPLETELY control it. Also everyone uses the same items, and everyone has to play each side (CT/T). Deagles are fine, because if you're in a position where buying deagles over an m4/ak is appropriate then you're on the backfoot, and in general deagles won't beat out a decent player with an M4 -- it's impressive if they do, but it's in no way some kind of 50-50 chance. They also only have 7 shots per reload and fire pretty slowly.

Spread + terrible hit registry = rofl

Seriously, trying to defend CS here will get you destroyed.

Have you played on lan? or are you one of those guys who jumped in pub for 2 minutes on 30/20/5000 rates and decided it had a shit netcode? Also as I said above, the spread IS NOT RANDOM.

I couldn't care less what the majority of ESR think of CS (and as someone who's been registered on this site since 2002 I'd like to think I know how ESR feels about CS). I'm just giving my opinion and facts about the game.

An opinion is something that can go either way, whereas you're defending something that is patently absurd, and provably wrong.

I've sat in for many of the CAL teams that frequented the LAN centers that I have been working for, so I've got plenty of experience. Nice try, though. I bet you're the type who came into said LAN center talking about how you can see the difference between 98fps and 99fps when you're playing on a monitor at 60hz.

Nothing you just said actually backed up what you're proposing.

P.S. I wouldn't be caught dead using 60 hz. ;)

I didn't propose anything. You can't hide behind crates on a forum, so you're going to have to do better than that.

If CS wasn't a competitively-sound game, and was truly random like you initially seemed to imply, then the top teams wouldn't be nearly as consistent as they are. We are talking about competitive games after all.

If you're just some bandwagon StarCraft follower who since watching Bisu 6 months ago can no longer accept that any other game is competitive, then I'll just give up right here and let you believe whatever you want.

If CS wasn't a competitively-sound game, and was truly random like you initially seemed to imply, then the top teams wouldn't be nearly as consistent as they are. We are talking about competitive games after all.

You can control random to a degree, but there have been plenty of absurd victories in CS. You could try to argue the same thing for WoW or poker - they're equally shit games.

If you're just some bandwagon StarCraft follower who since watching Bisu 6 months ago can no longer accept that any other game is competitive, then I'll just give up right here and let you believe whatever you want.

Not a fan of Bisu, actually - note the Zerg avatar. Favorite player at the start was GGPlay for his on-edge plays. No other game IS competitive anymore, aside from maybe WC3/DOTA. Even CS is in huge decline lately, so it's no wonder that Quake is dead. TF2 actually has a good chance of taking over as the new CS.

Absurd victories? There have been plenty more upsets in SC lately than in Counter-Strike, not to mention the race imbalances of the newer maps. I'm not discounting StarCraft, I love it, but that's a pretty hypocritical argument.

Upsets in SC can be attributed to player error, whereas in CS, losses can be blamed on the game AND player error.

So you believe 100% that when a protoss loses to a zerg on Battle Royal it is completely player error?

Terrain issue - not gameplay/engine related.

edit: FYI they dropped that map

god damn i hate ZvZ...

That's like blaming Q3 for pro-q3dm6 being unbalanced.

Don't try arguing with Vedic, he's an idiot that never shuts up, uses strawmen, and he will camp on his positions regardless of any arguments you might put forward. Tournament results show how the CS competitive scene is not random (for example, fnatic just won the last three major events in a row). Plus, if a team stops playing for a while, it'll have a hard time catching up since top teams have very tough practice schedule.

That doesn't make elements of the game not random....

What elements of CS do you consider to be random?
And regardless of your answer, the tournament results (which are EXTREMELY consistent) do show how limited the "randomness" argument is :)
(the second part of my original post was about CS being competitive, not about its randomness or not)

This whole discussion started when somebody disagreed that CS wasn't "random". It was clear to me that person was talking about elements within the game and not the overall long term tournament results (Which even in very random games can proove consistent).

stafu addressed that point in his next post though. If you still think elements of the game are random, please tell me which ones and why :p And also whether or not you think they have an actual impact on tournament results (which are still an indication of whether or not the said random elements make a difference).

Well if you're going to get anal about that type of stuff, technically speaking nothing in a game is "random" at all. The degree of "unpredictability" in the recoil of CS is ultimately detrimental to the game.

They aren't quite "random" enough to completely decide games and thus tournaments but it is "random" enough to lower the skill ceiling and decide some firefights and thus the occasional round.

It's like the shotgun in Q3, it was never game breaking random but it was enough to decide individual battles sometimes.

CS is a success despite this flaw which just goes to show how great the concept of Plant The Bomb games are.

You may like CS, that's fine it's a really nice competitive game but denying simple things just to defend the game is ridiculous.

I don't go around defending the blatant random factors in Q3 (Spawns, MG/SG et cetera) just because I like Q3.

What you say about the recoil pretty much stops being true for the best players. You could maybe have a point if spraying was used for every situation in CS, when it's not. As soon as the difficulty to master spraying starts playing a role and endangering their ability to make kills, they use other ways of controlling the recoil, by tapping following certain time patterns for example (I don't want to get into details but it's not simply about firing a bullet after each X milliseconds). This is best true for long-distance shooting.
Obviously though, it depends on how well you have learned to control the recoil. zet, for example, became famous not only for his aim but for his ability to control the recoil better than most pros.
For me, spawning in Q3 for example brings a MUCH higher degree of randomness. You can argue all you want about spawns being balanced etc, that's not the point, it's still randomness.
edit: just saw you mentioned spawns in your following post :p

Spawning in Q3 is just as bad as the hit registry and previously mentioned spread/recoil/damagekick. Even still, why are you trying to defend how random CS is by trying to bring down Q3 to it's level? Oh, that's right, because you don't actually have any real argument.

Yeah, I don't defend spawns at all and think they are one of the biggest problems with DM games, especially duel.

What you just said shows why there is so much consistency though, the players actively avoid getting into situations where recoil and spread can be a deciding factor.

Imagine there was no spread and the recoil was totally linear (But maybe quite strong or something so that it's not like running around with an LG), then there would be no need to avoid these situations as much and players who excel in these situations would have a bigger advantage.

I precisely wrote that it depended on how well you had learned to control the recoil though :p zet sprayed much more than most other pro's, simply because he was better at it and could use it in more situations (sometimes while running for example).
You know, I'm not saying we're on a scale where with enough training, a human could put all the bullets in the same pixel. I'm simply saying that contrary to a belief that is popular among the quake community, the recoil is not the random and barely controllable thing than some make it out to be. The impact of what remains too hard to control for humans in the recoil when spraying is, in my opinion, lower than the one spawns have in Q3 for example.

No problem with that :)

what about how tiny little things can have a huge effect on the game (not saying its bad btw).

This isn't gotfrag - nobody sane will buy your bullshit here.

logged in to plus you

Watch Fnatic vs SK or any other topnotch team and tell me were the game errors made one team win.

Its a silly statement you make. Recoil-handling is a skill. Sure you can get a lucky headshot sometimes. But lets say iv'e hitted as many "lucky headshots" as "lucky rails".

And for the record. My friends and I hadnt play CS for long time.
Our aim was terrible but our teamplay was still up-2-date and we smashed teams with much better aim then us becouse of our cordinated grenades.

Saying Q3/SC is more skilled game is just bullshit. Its different games. CS teamplay is so much more developed and progressed then lets say Q3 tdm/ctf.

Trying to defend the game with one portion of what the game is made of does not work - you can't discount the fact that aim simply isn't worth the risk due to the random factor, and is still the deciding factor to how every match ends.

CS is two dimensional compared to Q3 TDM.

Lets not start the tdm argument again :(

You're an idiot. Q3 TDM is the poorest team play mode of all games.

and still lightyears ahead of CS.

no

You have no clue of what your talking about.

I Guess you havent played in somewhat serious CS clan to make that statement.

Q3 TDM teamplay is NOTHING compared to CS.

Look for example at a retake of B2 @ Inferno by roccat.
Look at CT side @ D2 by wnv. Well its all there infront of your eyes. But you are clearly to dumb to understand it.

You know what, you're right.

Never before has such great teamwork been seen in Quake 3 TDM, it's not like taking control and keeping control of multiple armours, weapons, powerups and advantages positions requires any teamwork or co-ordination.

It's not like any of that all happens in complete real time for 20minutes without any breaks or re-sets, with items having different timers so that control is constantly having to shift so that you don't lose them.

Shut the fuck up you blind moron.

Sorry to have to start this fight up again, but they just wouldn't back down. =P

lol, come on now, you can't be serious. CS requires much more communication, coordination, and allows for a lot more depth both on the strategic and the tactical levels. Of course, there's obviously more to Q3 TDM than just adding the frags of each player, but it's nowhere near what teams display in CS. I mean I love both games but let's be honest here, in terms of team play CS is in a different league than Quake. The fakes/double fakes etc are much more advanced, having rounds precisely means you can coordinate an attack in much more detail, you have flashes and smokes that add another dimension to fakes/coordinated attacks... The slower movement means you can divide who takes each angle/line and hold it, etc...
The example zrC was probably talking about: http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/story/42002/

You brought up the fakes/double fakes thing last time, then all you had to backup how advanced it was, was flashbangs and smokes...

You can fake and double fake in Q3 TDM too, just the speed of the game means that it's usually not a particularly successful strategy to employ (Better to just co-ordinate a multi-direction attack shortly before the spawn of an item).

There is nothing more advanced about any CS strategy or the teamwork involved than in Q3 TDM. You just don't read about it or see it laid out on a plate for you since it's concealed in the apparent chaos of the whole thing.

That's the point, the speed of the game AND the absence of flashes/smokes make this aspect of team playing almost non-existant in quake.
edit: I'd like to add that you guys seem to reduce fakes and double fakes to a "hey we're there! oops no we're on the other side" maneuver, when it's clearly not limited to this. It's also getting information on your enemy's position, getting to angles, about slowly gaining ground, something that quake hardly allows because of the speed.

Actually, you can do that pretty effectively in Q3 and you'd be stupid not to. I can't think of a single map where it wouldn't be a good idea to do those things, even on pro-q3dm6 and q3dm7 it's in your best interest to do those things.

You can do these things and have success it's just generally not so obvious or the most common strategy. Basically, there is nothing about CS teamwork or strategy that is more advanced in any way than Q3 TDM.

ok, let's break down the different aspects even further then. Do you have something in Quake that would block someone's view, allowing to create confusion as to whether someone is there or not, with no possibility for the said player to have a clue except by showing himself to the opponents? Do you not agree that the said device increases the subtlety of fakes/double fakes?

"Do you have something in Quake that would block someone's view, allowing to create confusion as to whether someone is there or not, with no possibility for the said player to have a clue except by showing himself to the opponents?"

We call them walls.

Post your reply edits: although joking aside I'll grant you it does add some interesting options. I'd like to use this in SC2 actually, Blizzard seem to have started using the first part of it with brush but not in a player-deployable way. Quake 3 is too fast for it to be that relevant, it does make me think that a CS/Quake3 hybrid would be more interesting, what Quake 3 players dislike in CS doesn't preclude CS play, I mean you could still give some dodging and personal combat ability reward while having the same team organisation gameplay. Obviously strafe jumping would not work with CS play.

heh, I was obviously referring to a device that a player could use to create the said effect ;)

have you tried rtcw or et?

Invisibility, also grenades and plasma can do a similar job. Whether it's more subtle or not is irrelevant, the propostition made was that CS teamwork and co-ordination is more advanced, it's not it is just different (or if anything, less advanced).

Sorry for the delay.
This is getting ridiculous, how do grenades and plasma achieve even REMOTELY the same effect as smokes in CS? I'll reply with your own sentence: "You may like Q3, that's fine it's a really nice competitive game but denying simple things just to defend the game is ridiculous."

So are you going to spend your entire time trying to argue how different they are, or are you actually going to argue the merits of strategy in their use?

I think I've had this discussion with you before. I remember the attempts to simply say "flash adds depth" without actually backing up why this is any sort of deep strategy, or why the lack of a flash would be any worse.

With your argument, I could just say "CS doesn't have item timing, which means it will never be as deep as Q3."

Timing doesn't require teamwork and co-ordination....


Wait...

to dumb

Don't you mean "too dumb?" Let's be honest with each other, and admit that CS is simply a horrible game. Q3 might not be great, but CS is still worse. I might even be willing to say that RA3 is better than CS.

Well, actually it is - RJing the whole map on map9, getting Accuracies with useless mid airs (just for fun) is far more attractive then getting a random headshot, when u are in better position on dust2.
But I must say that TDM is much better than any clan type game (I don't know if that is the name for it - but rounds + no health regen) the fun factor of wining 1v3 or 1v4 is much bigger than a nice quad run.

CS strats being attack this corridor with 5 guys because we think they'll only cover it with 2 this time. Send one or two guys to look like we're attacking that way and send 3 the other way. Fuck me that's deep. The stumbling block with convincing Q3 players that CS has deep strategies is that we've met CS players.

I can also simplify. Wow hard to go to RA and shoot some rockets and then go QUAD and go for a run. YEAH REAL SKILL.

fucking moron.

I love how you attack Q3 instead of attempting to deny what he said about how shallow CS strategy is. Did he strike a nerve?

You could call me a fucking moron or you could attempt to back up your view. Why don't you try to argue for what you believe rather than insulting me?

urban terror > cs

that's like saying "q3 tdm strats beeing let's rush to quad because it's coming soon, oh that's deep."

Not really a very good point. Both Q3 and CS are much deeper then that.

Well explain the depth of some of those strategies (specifics, no hand waving vagueness). I don't think either game is strategically deep and they are really about the skill of execution.

Are you talking about strats or about tactics? If by strats you mean the general plan before the game begins, one example that comes to mind is walle (in-game leader) letting NiP lose the first map of a grand final vs fnatic (where NiP only needed one map, coming from the WB), knowing that they were going to choose to replay the map. They managed to "scout" most of what fnatic was doing during the first map, both as attackers and defenders, and proceeded to destroy fnatic the second time, 16-3.
Inside a single round, you have pre-planned attacks/retakes/defense setups, and you also have adaptation based on the enemy's positions.
It's obviously hard to give an example for the latter since it depends on what the enemy's doing, so the best way for you to convince yourself is looking at a demo from fnatic's recent events, cArn (in-game leader) does an exceptional job at reading the opponent's game (lately he's honestly impressed me a lot, even though GeT_RiGhT, f0rest and Gux headshot people left and right, you can tell that cArn is vital to fnatic by how the team moves together and in reaction to the opponents).
Aside from the example zrC mentioned, and to avoid going into lengthy explanations here, I googled these three to show you pre-planned attacks, how coordinated they are. The first two do not involve fakes, the third one does. Don't simply look at the video though, read the explanations.
http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/story/42551/
http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/story/41440/
http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/story/42648/
You'll easily find other playbooks on gotfrag, some explaining the different most basic setups/attacks on both sides, such as this one: http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/story/40340/?spage=2. But again, if you want to look at actual live adaptation mixed with pre-planned attacks, recent fnatic demos are the best solution :)

Maybe they need to develop these retarded strategies because the game itself is so fucking limited?

I hope you put more thought into your teamwork than into your posts mate :)

Your links are actually interesting, but I can also make an analysis of a high level Quake 2 team game on q2dm1 explaining why the superior team won. There's a lot of communication, teamwork (dropping weapons and such), area control.

In what way is counter-strike limited?

Basically very little room for combat skills. Strafing, jumping, dodging, overall movement ability.

That's not very related to teamplay though. So we could translate your original post to: "since CS allows less movement freedom, a higher level of teamplay is needed", meaning you agree with us :)

And what exactly stops Quake from having high level teamplay AND movement freedom? :)
Like I said in another post, I played high level Quake 2 TDM matches and there was a lot of strategy inside. Maybe if the game was played as much as CS we could have websites writing articles about it.

I bet if someone went back over SK vs Vikings demos for the Eurocup and analysed them in depth (And had things like overhead views like in CS) you'd see exactly the same type of things happening in Q3 TDM as in CS.

I never said they were exclusive. I was merely referring to your original post that could be read as "because they have less room for manoeuvre in the movement department, they have to work harder on the strategic aspect".

Movement/aim/timing and strategy are not mutually exclusive.

Well Bunnyjump, Russian/Cripplewalk And Aircontroll.
Doubleboosts with jump-timing(D-boost with 2 persons up to Inferno window).

I cant say its verry limited. But with your statement if im getting it correctly CPMA/Painkiller is the game with most skill?

Correct me if I'm wrong but how does any of those apply to combat situations? I assume jumping and others make your aim go haywire.

Well russian/Cripple walk you use all the time. When you are going around a corner, when dodging bullets from awp's.

Bunnyjump you use mostly too dodge awp, Boosts you use for better possitioning.

Didn't they patch that russian-silly-walk?

Yeah but due to public demand they reverted the patch.

So basically, it's just what ix said except well co-ordinated (Which is no surprise really given they pre-plan them and are in communication with each other).

I'm glad we got to the bottom of things.

Coordinated execution is an aspect of team play, is it not?... Are you refuting that CS is much more advanced that Q3 in this domain?
My post is clearly not only about execution though... I fail to see your point.

What I'm saying is that all you have said so far is what ix said. Essentially nothing that puts it above Q3 TDM in any fashion.

You haven't answered the first part of my post though: is coordinated execution not an aspect of team playing? Surely you agree that in regards to this, CS goes far beyond Q3?
About ix' post, I asked what exactly he meant by strategically deep.

Of course it's an aspect of teamwork and no CS doesn't even remotely go beyond Q3 TDM teamwork.

If anything you need much higher levels of co-ordination throughout a Q3 TDM game than CS.

In my post, by "in regards to this" I was addressing "coordinated execution", not teamwork in general. If you disagree even on coordinated execution I frankly don't know what to say, to me it's obvious that CS requires more coordination, and ALLOWS for more coordination due to the speed, the grenades, and the rounds which allow the players to go to the exact same spots at the exact same times, so you can build more precise maneuvers. I don't see how you can compare quake to this. Could you give me an elaborated example, similar to the ones I gave?

edit: I won't be able to continue this discussion now since my "break" is over and my exams finish on the 15th of June. I'll make sure to come read any answer :p

lol

Er... have you ever played Q3 TDM?

I know that whenever I play with my team (and we barely have any teamwork) we co-ordinate where we go, what we do and how we do it.

The speed makes precise co-ordination more important and more difficult.

I didn't say there was no coordination in Q3. I said it was nowhere near the degree of coordination CS requires.

Try and guess why that is?

http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/story/42648/

"As you can see, this strategy works best when you are able to get a handful of entry frags inside"

a strat that works if you kill 2 defenders early? wow... not to mention the fake was read by coL, they just got outaimed in that round. you should really find a better example.

If the defenders are not close then they don't need to be killed. In case they're close, the smokes/flashes to get the edge over them are pre-planned and are part of the strat. What's your point?
Well yes coL isn't going to stay inside forever are they? The whole point was that when they rotated they were too late (even though the terrorists could have moved faster).

you completely forgot an important factor of cs strategies.

The exact times you sit around waiting before you actually attack. It's über skilled :P

Against a somewhat good team you cant just wait around and go for your pre-planned attack tough. Becouse of counter-flashes, Players moving from poss 2 poss.

I mean you can watch Fnatics demos and copy one of the strats but you wouldnt be succesfull using them. Becouse no round is like the otherone.

So how is it in any way more advanced than Q3 TDM?

I mean, you have to have a plan before you start a map, you have to adapt very quickly based off of spawns and what the enemy do, you have to keep adjusting the strategy, you have to co-ordinate everything you do and you have to work as a team.

That sentence with minor adjustments works exactly for CS too, so where is this more advanced strategy?

I think Starcraft team play mode is worse than Q3 TDM.

or football?

What's random about football?

Any and all environmental conditions and the fact that no two footballs are exactly alike off the top of my head.

:D?

That's not a random factor of the game but external means which aren't controlled (Since weather can be by playing indoors...).

As for the balls, the difference is so tiny it's meaningless :)

Soccer is frustarating and uncontrollable, goals are a rarity and often the game conclusion is based on small hiccup rather than rewarding hard work and great performances throughout the game.

If you define randomness by lack of predictibility soccer takes the cake - the probability marginal of noobs beating the odds against pros is high compared to say tennis or quake.

The results are unpredictable but that isn't because of the rules of the game but due to the effect of the players playing the game.

Like you said, one mistake and a result goes a certain way. The result is ultimately in the hands of the two teams and their respective performances and not in the rules.

The other point you put across is totally irrelevant to this discussion (That soccer is boring/frustrating/unrewarding for hard work/good work)

"The result is ultimately in the hands of the two teams and their respective performances and not in the rules."

tell it to Chelsea.

Well, the ref isn't a machine!

But once again, the ref isn't the rules or the game itself he's meant to enforce them to the best of his ability and aims to minimise error.

To be fair, only one was probably an actual penalty and the "penalty" at Barcelona was far more clear cut (Bosingwa just dragging Henry over with no attempt to even look like a tackle).

either way a top class sporting event shouldn't be decided by factors outside the game. but.. football's popularity is largely due to drama so bad/corrupt refereeing fits into the picture I guess.

Of course not!

FIFA/UEFA are stupid as hell, there would easily be more goals if they sorted out how refs dealt with the rules (Harsher on rule breaking, even accidental rule breaking).

it seems refs have more to lose by calling a wrong penalty than by not calling a right one.

http://footballblips.dailyradar.com/story/bal...s_hamburg/

External element :P

So far everything mentioned has been external and only semi-controllable and minimised as much as possible.

And I was so sure I would get you with my dead serious argument :(((

Best is Man City versus Baloons :P

The mind of a referee under pressure, perhaps? :p

That's not a random factor of the game though.

It's an external feature of the game put in place to make sure the rules are followed and the ref minimises error as much as he can. In theory football should have some sort of mega robot ref that can see from thousands of different angles and follow the rules perfectly.

Ok, with such a definition no real life sport can be random according to you.

It depends on the rules within the game.

Give me an example of a random real life sport then, because i can't think of one.

No, I can't think of a sport that is inherently random within the rules either :)

Although there is no mega-perfect-robot that can follow the game, i still think the referee part could be improved upon by, for example, using goal cameras.
That's a decision made by the people steering the sport though, afaik.

Agreed

and hey, random spread in CS is not a random factor of the GAME though - it's just there to make the game more realistic!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those playing there is no difference between a random factor and a factor outside their control.

Of course they don't (and they shouldn't), but if it is not something that can be reasonably controlled then it isn't fair to complain that the game (That being the rule set) is random.

It's different in computer games because every rule can be specifically controlled. Most computer games however, introduce as much randomness as possible whereas the rules of standard games seek to reduce randomness as much as is reasonably possible.

One of the reasons they implement random factors is likely due to the real life sports having so many factors outside your control.

Obviously, the more factors outside the players control, the lower the skill gap will be (at average) which in turn brings in more new players, which in turn is a necessity for anything to be competitive (a large player base)

That's not what is being discussed as such :)

I agree with that, sort of.

TF2 actually has a good chance of taking over as the new CS.

HAHAHAHHAHAHA

DotA? Really? How can it be any near the competitiveness of Starcraft? :O Obviosly, its popular, but still...

I wouldn't say at the level of SC, but it's one of the biggest games at the moment, and one of the few games with an increasing playerbase.

But it also has random damage and hardly any personal skill involved.

idd

You're right, the recoil PATTERNS themselves are not random.

However, what IS random is the affect on your recoil when another player hits you. This is known as "stun" and is inherently random and what eventually pissed me off so much I now cannot stand to play CS.

This is a basic scenario: two players in a spray fight; the first person hits the second, the second player's aim is affected randomly, jerking the second player's aim into the first player's face. The first player dies even though he shot and hit first, he lost. The second player's aim was initially not on target until he was hit by the first.

Nice.

yeah, that totally never happens in quake.

The difference is that you can respond to the situation in Quake.

It doesn't

so you have never been hit by anything while using lg or shotgun or rail? amazing.
Or maybe your aim is always spot on so can you never get pushed in the right direction? amazing, too.

Oh and think tdm not only duel.

I only play TDM anyway :P.

But isn't what he is saying a different situation?

To me it sounded like being hit makes your actual fire/spread change. I've not played a lot of CS but I don't remember my physical character (And thus my aim) being moved due to being hit, in fact the opposite happened and I stopped moving.

becks missing the point as usual. the difference between randomness and hit effect on your model. in quake you can predict and compensate where your character will be bounced but in cs you can't predict how being hit will affect your spray. (or the opponent's - hence the example)

not everybody can predict rails from people you don't see on your screen, but oh well...

you missed the point. again. you trying to break some kind of record here?

The difference is one is player controlled and the other is rule controlled.

Players are meant to be random/unpredictable as long as they play within the rules (Which is generally the only way to play a video game).

Rules are not meant to be random/unpredictable as it creates situations where the skill sets of both players aren't equally tested.

For the record, stun normally has the opposite effect than what is described here, precisely because hitting first gives an advantage and makes it harder for the second guy to hit (even though this effect is in most cases minimal, except if you get hit in the head without a helmet). Unless you happened to be in the very unlikely exact position where a stunned-affected bullet goes to your enemy's head.

cg_damagekick 0

I'm not really active anymore, but as someone who played EU top 10 for a while, I can say that TF2 is much more about "meta-gaming" than most of the team FPS. While a skillful solo can decide a round, the overall winner is almost always the side with better teamplay. That is imho the reason, why forming a team in TF2 out of random skilled players is no guarantee for success. Players have to know each other, they have to know where everyone else is and what they do.
Whenever a team has to change their roster, they will most likely perform significantly worse over the next weeks due to the new player having to integrate.

Another problem is that Valve's updates are never meant as an improvement for competitive gaming and are solely aimed at the public crowd. I mean, it took Valve months to add a cvar to turn off crits.

Yet, there are ESR folks who can probably judge TF2's situation better than me (zerox, ekse, are you reading this? :p)

Very very true! The same thing happened here actually. The #1 team here (mad dogz) was also the team who stuck together with the same consistent lineup since pre-beta. By the time my team started catching up and having quite close games, we were pretty much burnt out and decided it wasn't worth it anymore (especially considering the actual competitions here were either for nothing, or some sort of sponsor trash -- first time it was cans of energy drink and like $250 for the whole team, and second time was GAMING MINTS!).

MD have just recently quit too. Now there is 2-3 decent division 1 teams if you're lucky and everyone else is either mid-low division 1 with no hope of going upwards in the near future, or div 2 clans who are just happy to stay div 2 and play that sort of scene.

It's the same in any active competitive scene I'm afraid.

Just look at Q3TDM, all the teams who kept squad consistency and who worked the best as a team were the most successful (SK, QPO, IC et cetera).

oops +'d by mistake.
anyway, are you chin-pokomaster yet ?

Cluttered and long winded, if anyone wants to know what he says here is a...:

It is quite worrying that the writer doesn't understand the words he is trying to define but at least he got there in the end (more or less), perhaps he should have just used a dictionary though.

what makes a competitive game? everything but the game

authors prolly a tech student with nothing much to do at the beginning of the summer holidays. was fairly entertaining to see how much simple common sensical notions could be extended into boring essays.

If he had just looked in a dictionary he would have saved himself half of his column.

half? his entire column can be summarized as - for a game to be competitive it needs to be deep but not too complex and it needs a large audience.

There is one criteria for a good competitive game: large 'skill depth'. This is the difference between the highest skilled player and the lowest skilled player and the general difficulty involved in getting good at the game. The perfect example of a high skill depth game is Quake and this is can be proven simply. A new player playing a game like CS vs an experienced player will probably get a few kills. A new player playing quake vs an experienced player will get no kills.

Additionally, an experienced Q3 player will get a few kills in against an experienced CS player in CS, but an experienced CS player will not get any kills against an experienced Q3 player in Q3.

true, but in cs's defense, an inexperienced cs TEAM will get zero rounds against an experienced cs team

and also an experienced q3 team would get zero rounds vs an experienced cs team

Lets make the distinction between good and experienced here, there are many experienced CS/Q3 players out there who are terrible.

An bad CS team has non of the required attributes (Intelligence, Dexterity and Knowledge) and as such are incapable of providing a challenge at any stage for a good CS team.

A good Q3 team has some of the required attributes (Intelligence and Dexterity) and as such are capable of providing a challenge during the course of match against a good CS team.

A bad CS team wouldn't stand a chance in Q3 against a bad Q3 team let alone a good one. A good CS team could provide a fight for a bad Q3 team, but a good one would barely give any frags away.

I'd say getting 1-3 rounds off of a CS team in CS would be equal to getting 50% of the frags of the TDM team in Q3.

I disagree - due to the random nature of the game, it's entirely possible.

word.

But will 5 experienced Q3 players get a round from 5 experienced CS players in CS?

5 newbies could. On the flip side, an entire 5-man CS team would still lose to 1 experienced Q3 player in Q3 TDM.

and if you just counted the kills, 5 quakers would get less kills than one experienced cs player.


also the discussion is quite pointless, because almost every quaker has played at least a round of cs before. and vice versa.


/edit
added two commas and a period for vedic's sake.

edit: Thanks!

Still, no. Playing as an emergency ringer for multiple CS teams, I'd still commonly be at the top, or at least close to it. It could be due to the fact that I simply went to go kill people instead of molesting crates, though. I've aced on an "around the world" strat. =/

dei mudda

hat...

No shit sherlock. The Q3 player has 5 cs noobs to frag and the CS players 1 guy? Rofl.

I reckon they could get a round or two at least.

It's very unlikely they could win an entire match obviously.

vedic your example is pretty pointless considering in cs, kills don't matter... rounds matter. in quake kills matter - quite selective bias once again coming from you, didn't really think it through did you?

That's the entire problem with CS - aiming, despite being horribly broken in the game, is still how every match has to end.

Correct me if I'm wrong but how exactly do you win rounds in CS? Isn't by killing the enemies?

I think a very good Q3 team has a pretty good chance of winning a few rounds against a very good CS team. Round starts, they get a couple of kills, it's 5 against 3 now, it's definitely doable. (IIRC cs it's 5 against 5)

the sole goal of killing opponents isn't what wins rounds in cs, there's a lot more involved. it's not as if you'd get the enemy opponents lining up in 1v1 aim battles is it? because the point you are making here is that AIM ALONE which is the only real skill that will make the transition from quake to cs, is what they should be able to defeat the enemy team with. not to mention the fact that the varying weapon techniques require a long time to learn.

it's like saying, in q3 duel, if you don't have superior aim to your opponent you will lose because it's only about killing which is directly linked to aim? to make an example, take lugia (sorry lugia) vs any high tier dueller who uses his brain, he and his 50% shaft get raped. if you talk to any decent dueller aim is the last thing they will think about, they are thinking about how to get the advantage - it's no different in cs or any other game, or sport for that matter. but the important point here is that getting that advantage is based upon the context of the dynamics on the game which you are playing.

aim is a transitive skill yeah (despite gun technique which is a big factor in cs in the context of this discussion). but the context within which that aim works - for example, the teamplay and coordination, the general game-sense and game knowledge, or just generally the fundamental game dynamics is entirely different. 3v5 still isn't doable vs 3 people who know the game vs some randy quake aimers.

so my conclusion is that, for you to make that statement it is clear you've never played with/on the high level cs tier, and same goes for quake.

because the point you are making here is that AIM ALONE which is the only real skill that will make the transition from quake to cs

How the fuck is that the only point I'm making? :)
My post specifically said GOOD Quake players and they know more than just aim. They can dodge, hide, walk to avoid making sounds, make prediction shots, etc. Funny that you need to use a "randy dumbass all-aimer" as an example for your post to make any sense.

And all the team knowledge stuff also applies to Quake, so what's your point again? We were talking about how good Quake players can take a few rounds off a CS team.

Oh please, a few lucky shots and you can come back 1v5 even as a total newb.

the example laid down was 'top quake players versus top cs players' - you won't get lucky shots versus top cs players, i can assure you. seriously have you ever played with high tier cs players?

Yes, I have, and yes, I have.

But let me take a wild guess, you just happen to have no demos or screen or will to prove any of this, as with your mythical level 1337 WoW characters?

Why would I save demos of a game that I don't like? I was only playing to help some of the regulars who came into the LAN center that I worked at - they were sponsored by the center, and even got free play time.

I find it hard to believe that the top american players who can compete at the international level (there are only a handful of them anyway right? I remember 3D and coL a couple of years ago) would ask a random guy from their cybercafe who doesn't even really play cs to practice with them at a high level. Who did you play with/against?

I personally find golf really easy. I recently beat Tiger Woods, it was pretty simple, all you need is a couple of lucky holes in one. I don't have any proof though, but that's because I don't like golf.
:p

actually, i put this theory to the test once, and it held up until the CS player, a friend of mine who played on a pro level but never really won anything, discovered the LG. then i actually had to start trying. he could not use rail or rocket for the life of him.

I agree with your point, but I think your proof which so many people bring up it useless.
Or would you say chess has a low skill limit only because even a newbie can take a piece from a pro?

A piece isn't a kill tho, pieces get sacrificed for the sake of winning the game, kills don't (at least not usually).

in rtcw they do.

In any case, my point is that it's a result of the gameplay / rules, not the skill depth.

I actually agree with both yours and his points, I just wanted to clarify that generally, a player wouldn't want to give kills away and he would not if he could.

well, generally you don't want to give pieces away in chess either.

After all a single pawn is often what decides the game. Sacrifices are rare.


Yes, yes, I know. I can't stop it :)

ok :)

It happens all the time in Q3 TDM, just watch a round of q3dm7.

I get it I get it, I was talking GENERALLY and mainly about CS gameplay :)

and as ini said.

Could be in order to deny quad.
Or in ctf to secure the flag.

Read above ^^

kiss my feet then :)

no can't do :(

not supporting one side or the other but lets look at the actual examples. two top quakers switched to cs and had quite a bit of sucess - fat and destrukt. not to mention they reached top skill tiers in very short time

do you know any opposite examples?

read my first five words again, please.

so?

do you understand what those five words mean and why your comment is useless?

no. enlighten me becks

I means I agree with his point: Q3 has more skill depth than cs.

I do, however, not agree with his way to "simply" prove it.


Apparently, reading also has quite the skill depth...

thanks for proving my point becks. I cba to break it down for you this time but I'll do it if you ask me politely.

oh, you are welcome.

I always knew you wanted help proving you are not that good at reading.

by all means

1. you agree with his stance but object to his example
2. I bring up a real world example out of curiosity
3. you read it as me disagreeing with your stance and thus fail at reading

yw

using the same avatar still makes you two look like best mates to me :<

if you make a tourist avatar I'll change it :)

:D

just make your own and upload it? :o

approev!

nuttin' to approve

;)

What is it?

teehee

Looks kinda like an SC2 logo?

you wrote "not supporting one side or the other but lets look at the actual examples."
which is clearly an introduction that you want to discuss my point.

If you wanted to discuss Spetz's point you should try to reply to him.

you were the one not satisfied with the example spetz has given.

he called it proof.

hence I was being helpful by providing a better example. ingrate

That's not a good comparison, since how many famous CS players that stopped to play Q3 do you even know, regardless of how they ended up doing?

The only example that comes to mind is BurningDeath, who used to play for DkH in CS. He ended up playing UT as "Burnie" and won the 2004 ESWC vs Gitzzz.

How many UT players have done well at Quake?

Destrukt sort of placed decently and I guess Zaccubus did okish...

On the otherhand Fatal1ty and WINZ both won/were very successful at UT.

uh, that was not my point... I couldn't find any example of a CS pro stopping to play Q3 :)

It's somewhat hard to remember everyone who has failed at Q3 from other games - the list is rather long.

My point was, you wouldn't have heard of them because any who did (If there are any obviously) would blatantly have done poorly.

If the UT players can barely cut the mustard, what hope do CS players have in a totally different environment?

I disagree. I don't think there's something physically inherent to CS players that would prevent them from competing with the best in Q3 if you turned every CS player into a Q3 player. In fact, I'm pretty sure the top 10 in Q3 would look very different (I'm not saying Cooller, Cypher & co are bad of course!) :)
Don't get me wrong though, I agree that Q3 is harder to get into than CS. But it has little to do with how good a person could end up being if you turned him into a player of one game or the other.

Hmm, I didn't mean to imply they can't be good per se but more that it would take them a very long time to make the transition to even reach near the top. Which is why we don't see any CS players ever make the transition (Because it's not worth the effort and any who tried quickly relised this and gave up) and the UT players who have tried haven't been a great success.

I think it's a lot easier to pickup CS and get up to speed.

not many people want to feel like noobs at a fps after years of playing.

Depends on what you mean by stopped and started to play Q3. For example ScreaM (from NiP/SK) stopped CS and then played some Q3 (though he didn't try to go pro in it or anything).

I was just presenting it as an example, not a definite proof for anything. just interested in any opposite cases, since I didn't know any.

okay I think I played some swedish cs pro in ra3 once, his aim was pretty good, but that's about it.

Well yeah but that's what I'm saying, technically you could argue the exact opposite by saying that you don't know any pro CS player that stopped and did bad in Q3... It doesn't make sense, because we don't know any pro CS player that stopped to play Q3 in the first place :p

well that's too bad isn't it?

Oh tourist... you're wrong again old buddy! Destruct didn't switch from quake to cs. He switched from UT to CS to PK to Q4 to Q3 (professionally). Why are you so ignorant?

thank you for ralaying this crucial piece of information, your input is well appreciated. do you have other examples you wish to share?

There was already another thread where you were wrong so often it made my head hurt. I hope you eventually gain some knowledge from my posts.

when facts make your head hurt:
www.aspirin.com

wtf are you talking about? You're wrong once again and trying to turn it around on me... Good luck with that.

i wouldnt like to do this scenario with a TF2 player/team and a Quake player/team

competition

when can we expect a new movie?

please dont :( im too lazy

suckerings :((((888(

GTV chat

ow yeah xD

quake is both slower and more random than cs

random, maybe...
slower???

:/

It's because those terms aren't well defined.

It's funny how people pick an element of the game, state that that element is random and thus the game as a whole being random.

Let's split up these elements:

What could we mean by speed: Movement, aim velocity, reaction, tactical performance, communication?
What could we mean by randomness: Spawns, recoil, luck?

Let's compare these:

*Speed
-Movement: Quake is clearly faster.
-Aim velocity: Draw, in Quake players move faster, in cs you have to rely more on flicks.
-Reaction: CS as it's a reactiontestfest, Quake is it only when railing sometimes.
-Tactical performance: CS, overtakes require fast execution of tactics, great timing and alot of adaptation.
-Communication: Your game is wrecked if the flow of information isn't fast and accurate. In Quake it isn't as bad.

*Randomness
-Spawns: Quake's spawns can wreck a game, while it is only of small influence in CS
-Recoil: CS is ofcourse more random at this, as the recoilspread weapons in Quake aren't mainly used.
-Luck: Draw, Random cs wallbangs are as random as spamming a rocket somewhere and someone is walking into it.

yeah..
not to be harsh here, but one thing i didn't quite like about q3 (or any DM games)since early days...

- random spawn-

im quite agree with u.. it really wreck a game. I'd would like to see someone develop a system that would change the spawn point.
Let's say, if player A kills player B.. then it would've been better if player B spawns at the point farthest from player A (or from the dead body), so player B can have some times to pickup some items n dvelop some strategies...
it's a fair fight, isn't it?

Well, the thing with that system is that the killer (Person A) has full control over the spawn of player B. Quake 4 used that system and showed that on very small maps like Phrantic, you could rack up a lot of spawnfrags in a row if you knew the border line of the different spawns.

Also player A knows where player B is in such a system, and Quake maps are too small. So you can never pickup enough items to be even remotely on par with your enemy.

I think it's more a design problem of the game rather than just an issue that can be solved by implementing another spawn formula. It's a trade-off between predictability and the time the killer needs to get to the freshly spawned opponent. Maybe it can be mathematically proven or statistically which mix of predictability and distance results in the least spawnfrags (And you would also have to define a spawnfrag, how much time should pass to make it not a spawnfrag?)

spawnfrag time
15 sec.. imo

naaaahh... i dunno
:D

*Speed
1-Movement: Quake is clearly faster.
2-Aim velocity: Draw, in Quake players move faster, in cs you have to rely more on flicks.
3-Reaction: CS as it's a reactiontestfest, Quake is it only when railing sometimes.
4-Tactical performance: CS, overtakes require fast execution of tactics, great timing and alot of adaptation.
5-Communication: Your game is wrecked if the flow of information isn't fast and accurate. In Quake it isn't as bad.

1.Agreed
2. Bullshit ever heard of flick rails ? and it goes for many weapons
3. LOL reaction is a good part in Quake
4. BS quake timing ,stratagy ,weapon choice , positioning
5. Agreed

Doh, I'm a not too bad dueler so of course I heard of flick rails.

The thing is, in CS there isn't much tracking going on, it's all about how fast you can flick your crosshair onto the foes' head. In Quake having a good flick is always nice to have, but it shouldn't be a main part of your aim.

And of course reaction time is also a big part of Quake, but in CS you die off a single head shot with most weapons so getting an accurate first shot is way more important than who might hit a rail first.

And with point #4, I don't think you get what I mean. I solely mean the speed you have to execute something at. Yes Quake involves any of those things you mention but you simply don't have to do it as fast as a bomb spot takeover.

Bottom line is, I'm not saying CS is a better game by itself or for competition purposes but many people here look at CS as a game that requires no skill. I think professional Quake players would do equally bad playing a professional CS team in CS, as the CS team would in Q3 playing a professional Quake team.

The only difference between CS and Quake is is that CS is easy to learn and hard to master, and Quake is hard to learn and hard to master. In that sense I think a good Quake player would get medium CS skill faster than a good CS player would get Medium Quake skill. And the skill caps would take equally long to reach.

Great post, as is your re-cap of the different aspects, I agree with all of your points.

I think the skill cap would take less time to reach in CS - at least when it comes to individual skill (I know the team-game is also an individual skill, but I gotta draw the line somewhere). Anyhow. It's pointless arguing that a Q3 player will do well in CS because in CS Public, he is on his own just fragging away with the most basic deathmatch mindset already acquired in Q3. And in a 5v5 match 4 players can make up for a 5th player. So really, the comparison is just stupid because the one is 1v1 and the other is 5v5 which are clearly not the same. Not to mention the different ruleset of round-based vs time-based (or however you wanna put that) or the MASSIVE difference in involved elements.

I believe if you were to put 1 Q3 player in a decent CS team and vice versa, a CS player in a decent Q3 5v5 TDM team (I know, it's 4v4 isn't it?) we'd see pretty similar results.

I also believe if you were to put 5 Q3 players into a new CS team, they'd be quick to take some rounds from some pros as to compared 5 CS players forming a Q3 TDM team who'd probably get smashed for ever and ever. In my opinion however, this in no way proves that Q3 requires more skill, because 1 frag in a TDM can mean nothing in the big picture (most of the times), whereas one frag in a game of CS can mean a round (and in very many cases actually does), money for weapons/armor, or an entire game.

So coming to my point which has been mentioned in discussions like this over and over. The games are just way too different to make universal statement about skill which applies to both games equally.

I was semi-trollin' with my post but I agree.

Slower, what?

Great post Terbo

Thanks... it's amazing how any post on ESR can turn into a CS vs Q3 war... haha GG!

Tbh, i can't even remember the last propper cs vs quake flame war on here. Normally we're much more inbred and prefer comparing red apples to redish apples

Good read.

Not talking about the article, didn't bother with that.

Both Q3 and CS are shit ! GOT IT ?
WOW 3v3 FTW !

Worms Armageddon 1v1 FTW!

so true

Upon reading this thread, I've come to the following conclusion.

In order for an fps to be considered competitive, Vedic must hate it.

I like Starcraft.

Hello!?