Competitive Gaming: My Experiences and Share Yours

[The Vault Dweller]

Competitive Gaming

For those of you who want to read a thread about all sorts of competitive gaming experiences you can read this all, but for those that want info on a specific game, but not all of the ones I'm going to cover here is a list of what's in this thread in the order they are mentioned.

Magic: The Gathering
Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne
Dawn of War: Soulstorm
C&C3: Kane's Wrath
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance

A note to the reader: When I refer to "competitive" I don't just mean taking a game seriously and playing to win. I refer to playing the same game for a long period of time against the best opponents you can get after each loss self-critiquing your actions (like via replays in RTS) to see what your opponent did. It doesn't matter whether or not the game offered money for high level play in tournaments or even if you got there just that you tried.

Also this thread refers equally to the subject of competitive gaming as in whether it's worth it to take it so seriously and whether particular games are good or bad as far as the community goes.
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Magic

Oh what a wonderful game. So easy to learn and so hard to master. I played a whole year before I figured out what separates good decks from bad and in a few years the people that taught me stopped playing, because they couldn't beat me!

Then I started playing in tournaments. I never scored below average, but never took first place. Also I hardly played in any except small local comic book shop setups. This is where I learned to stop loving the game.

With so many different card combinations building a deck took years of self-taught skill, lots of testing, and a deep understanding of interactions between your deck and your opponent. However almost everyone "net-decked" which meant they copied successful decks made by pros and used in high level tournaments. I could go to a local tourney and play against only two maybe three different decks through the whole day. It made the game quite boring to think I was missing out on all sorts of unique experiences from how many different decks there would be had everyone made there own.

Also the spite from other players. Giving other people a run for their money playing decks they had taken from pros and often paid hundreds of dollars for (as people copy decks the cards get low in stock and high in price) really made them mad. They'd accuse me of being a noob (though I was usually playing longer than them) and of being lucky. Given I had a large advantage in that my opponents often weren't ready for my deck in sideboard or knowledge since I was always a "rogue" player.

I gave up the game when they decided to make four sets a year instead of three. I had already been spending more than half of my fun money on Magic by far, but with that I would probably have to give up all my others joys. A shame since it's one of the few fun things I've experienced that is also highly rewarding as a hobby.

Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne

My instinct for creativity and a competitive outlet to test it forced me to do something I had never tried before. Playing RTS online in ranked ladder.

The community was huge and old. It took me a long time (three months) to get any good. The best I could do was barely above average. However Blizzard had incredible quality with this game. Near-perfect balance, many different strategies between the four factions, four heroes, units, and maps. It took a long time to get old.

What really did it were the cheaters. Map hackers and more so disconnecters who couldn't handle loss and played only to win. It's really disheartening to beat someone legitimately then lose, because your opponent is dishonest. Of course how can I expect a competitive situation to not lead that way?

Dawn of War: Soulstorm

An incredibly unique RTS series that deserves merit if only for having realistic victory goals and resource use. You captured points not resources and you ordered troops not bought or built them. All in a well-done setting that always needed a great representation like this.

Unfortunately the company didn't give half a damn about the support. The game had numerous balance breaking bugs from the outset and didn't get patched until after a half a year! By that time the community dried up. It was however nice to have a small enough community to actually play against well-known people in normal matches. Made me feel very personal.

When I quit after about three months I was in the top 25%.

C&C3: Kane's Wrath

I hate EA games. They ruin great franchises. This was no exception. The changes they made to the C&C setting were not only unforgivable, but also were things which there were nothing wrong with and had no reason to be changed such as the tiberium.

Unfortunately I must admit that the game itself is quality. Great variation with units and abilities that are all sensibly done. Shame about the bad balance as is EAs track record of ignoring customer support.

After a month of playing online and the previous experience from WC3 and DoW I was in the top 100 after a month. At my best I made it into the top 8 in a tournament and was right alongside old, seasoned pros had actually earned money when the game was new and it was offered.

Even as I type this right now I can't believe I did something that well. It was a small life wish of mine to do really well at some "sport" that I liked though not become pro since people like that usually lose their "lives" doing so and besides game "pros" don't really make money. Of course I (like any good player) was in it for the glory.

Also for those of you who would say "oh so once you got in with the best well if you did it once that's luck" remember that due to bad balance there were two overpowered factions (one of which won 65% under normal circumstances and the other 55%) and two underpowered factions (one of which had a 35% win chance and the other 25%). I was playing with the 35% faction. That's a huge disadvantage.

It also gave me quite some notoriety among the community something which still makes me feel all tingly inside even now though I gave up the game months ago. I played it for four months about half of my gaming spent in that time online.

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance

Now to begin I was already a semi-pro at RTS and I had noted many times in all the games I played that I had a lot better macro than micro. Considering that SupCom uses more macro than any game I had seen previously by far this made me highly anticipate the competitive scene.

I wasn't wrong. In one week of play I was already in the top 200 of players. To think I probably still had a lot to learn...had I not quit.

You see SupCom was great as well for being very well-balanced. Unfortunately it was so well-balanced due to how similar the units were. 2/3 had no discernable differences and the rest only in a token hard to tell way that really didn't matter. I played many games that were very similar regardless of faction, map, or strategy. I hated to give up something I was obviously great at, but the game was starting to bore me.

I will however never forget the two hour and fifteen minutes match I had in it one time. Previously the longest match I had ever played (in a serious game) wasn't more than an hour long. This more than doubled that. It was on a huge map with lots of water and many small islands. Obviously the low resources meant less units and lots of water meant high travel time so it was easy to scout (with planes) and easy to counter with lots of time to prepare. It also appropriately ended with multiple experimentals for us both. A splendid ending. Splendid.
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Now tell me your experiences. I'm especially keen on hearing what some FPS fans have to say. I have a feeling they dealt with a lot more retardation in their communities (particularly the popular games) than I ever did.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

 

[rcorporon]

I've never done a lot of actual competitive PC / console gaming, but I spent many hours playing in Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II tourney's growing up in an arcade.

 

[Aphyosis]

I used to scrim CS Competitively when i was younger, which was actually my introduction to competitive gaming. At the time i was 13 or 14 i think, but i could play fairly well. The team i was in played for fun more than anything, so we didn't win any tournament's or ladders, but we came close a few times.

To this day the only thing that has matched the fun i got out of competitive CS was actually in WoW where as a guild you'd push and down endgame bosses.

Honestly i can't say i was near as competitive as what you were. I didn't go over replays and shit, but i was pretty committed to the games we played and remember a few instances of epic rage. Can't give you much more detail than that, it was years back and its all a bit hazy for me =(

 

[SuAside]

I played CounterStrike from the early betas onward. Ranked on local (national) ladders and on Clanbase (BE, EU, UK) mostly. Was never anywhere near CPL (cyber professional league) level, but it was competitive.
Win some, lost a lot more. Was great fun to play with friends, develop & implement tactics, bullshit & laugh over Ventrillo or TeamSpeak.


I played World of Warcraft for 2-3 years, I think? I was the shaman officer in a guild that ranked top 10 in PVE progression. Which isn't easy to do since the americans always had a day head start (I hear that changed now).
Was a lot of "work" but also pretty fun (I even had a bunch of groupies, wtf?). I lost interest when Blizzard just kept nerfing and making the dungeons futile. Also realised that I was just playing (and paying) not because I loved to run those dungeons over & over again, but because I wanted to hang out with my friends. Well, guess what, I can do that in a bar too.
I got out of the game after the opening event of AQ (so I never experienced anything but the 40 man raid instances etc). Overall I'm glad I got out when I did. And even if I wanted to I would never be able to invest the same time in the game as back then (was still in college back then, now I work).

 

[mor]

and the obvious suspect in competitive + RTS is SC

 

[Dario ff]

I think that the game I got most competitive ever was Super Smash Bros for the original N64. Then I went to emulators and Kaillera... Until I met one day this guy who played on the keyboard with a single freaking hand. God that was hard.

 

[SimpleMinded]

Your comments on magic the gathering are similar to why I stopped playing. People's lack of originality mixed in with dumping far too much money into it killed the excitement. I want a game of skill, not who's willing to dig the deepest into their wallet.

 

[Alphadrop]

Nearest I've come to competative gaming is back in the day playing RTCW. No competitions or anything though.
Despite having a 56k modem when most people had fancy ISDMs and what not I still managed to garner a reputation as a very good medic by spending hours playing it after school.
Never got around to playing Enemy Territory which had all the leaderboards and stuff though or else I might have something to show for it.

 

[mor]

Nearest I've come to competative gaming is back in the day playing RTCW.

you mean RTCW ET the mp version, its my favorite game nostalgia FPS i loved it.

 

[Ravager69]

The only competetive gaming I did was in Call of Duty multiplayer. The first one was a blast, I simply loved playing with bolt-action rifles. Of course, I was called a cheater 90% of times, since I usually fired split second after seeing the enemy (and mostly did one shot-one kill). United Offensive, the expansion, introduced vehicle combat and HUGE maps. Also, the accuracy of weapons was seriously lessened, so killing an opponent with a Thompson from 100 meters when running just wouldn't happen. I remember hiding in ambush, waiting for the tank to pass and show it's rear, so I can destroy it with a Panzershreck. Then take down the rest of the enemies with a Enfield\Mosin Nagant. But the best were the jeep raids - riding through 3 tanks with 5% of health bar left...good times.

Call of Duty 2 had a lot worse multiplayer. Tight, narrow and small maps with barely any open spaces and godly-accurate SMGs. Run&gun.

Call of Duty 4 introduced some new stuff and I simply loved playing with a MP5\Colt 1911 combination in hardcore mode. But it didn't last very long, as eventually people learned to exploit map glitches and the airstrikes\helicopter support so badly, that it completly ruined the game for me.

 

[Alphadrop]

Nearest I've come to competative gaming is back in the day playing RTCW.

you mean RTCW ET the mp version, its my favorite game nostalgia FPS i loved it.

Nope, plain ol' RTCW multiplayer, before ET came out.
Still had classes but none of the levelling stuff.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

and the obvious suspect in competitive + RTS is SC

I'm afraid to get anywhere near a community that old and that large. I'd be a minnow swimming with sharks. Same with SC2 even though it's not even out yet.

Your comments on magic the gathering are similar to why I stopped playing. People's lack of originality mixed in with dumping far too much money into it killed the excitement. I want a game of skill, not who's willing to dig the deepest into their wallet.

You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear someone else say it.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

 

[rcorporon]

Agree 100% about Starcraft. In university I used to play with just my buddies, for fun. I became friends with a guy who played competitively and was very good... we played once and I learned what real Star Craft skills were.