WARNING! Wall of text incoming!
(I wonder if anyone will read it all...)
Awesome post, Mike35: this is exactly the kind of stuff this thread is great for. I see where you're coming from, which makes it easier to explain my own opinion and where I disagree.
I've read a few of Sirlin's articles, and from what I've seen he does think that if something is so good that it is game breaking, it should be banned, like Akuma in Street Fighter 2. .
Well, Akuma's case is a bit special. He's not supposed to be balanced with the rest of the characters, which is a very bad, but conscious, design decision, rather than a mistake in the balancing process. The decision to simply ban him as a character is a relatively straightforward one, much like, say, banning Big Blue in Melee. It's just not designed for balanced play, not was it intended to.
This distinction is moderately important because Akuma being intentionally unbalanced doesn't make the rest of the game balance suspect of being shoddy, like an unintended unbalanced tactic would.
But he doesn't seem to be against the type of play that many would consider "boring." Let me find the quote I've had in mind from one of his articles...
"I am known secondarily for some of the same traits as Ortiz: my patience and ability to annoy opponents. But I am primarily known for my obsession with doing the same move over and over again. I try to find moves that are 100 times harder to stop than they are for me to do. If I can find something I can do over and over and over without fear of retaliation, then I am at my happiest. When I do discover such things, it doesn’t say much for the game’s design, but that isn’t my problem as a player, and I have no obligation to anyone to play a game “as it was intended” or in an “exciting” way. Janowski caused the two bishops to be called “the two Jans,” but I have caused myself to be called “low strong” after Rose’s move in Street Fighter."
From this, it seems that Sirlin thrives on the type of play that personally I could never enjoy. Completely spamming a ridiculously good move over and over again is when he's "at his happiest."
But notice that this in fact is doing his opponents a favor in the long run. Either someone will come up with a countertactic sooner (it's much easier to come up with a counter when you know your opponent is going to do a certain move, it's mixups that make it much more difficult), or he will go on to win the tournament and this will expose the broken move for the community to evaluate. This is also good, since there will now be much more people testing the move and its possible counters. This in turn has two outcomes: either someone will come up with a counter (and then the counter-counter game begins anew!) or all of the community decides that the move simply can't be countered and act accordingly (probably banning it). No matter what path we walk along, in the long run we reach a better outcome sooner if he does abuse the move.
Also note that all of this is secondary to the original player (let's say Sirlin)'s objective, which is to win the tournament. By discovering this knowledge nobody else has, and more importantly, that trumps any others', he deserves to win the tournament. He will probably not win the next tournament, and each one after that the move will be progressively less useful, which is, IMHO, exactly how things should be. In the end, everyone understands the game better and is equipped with weapons to fight this move.
No matter how many tournaments I could win (hypothetically, of course), I'm just not sure I'd want to be "the guy who wins at Street Fighter by using the same move over and over again." I love to win, but I also play video games for enjoyment, and like I said before, I would sooner stop playing a game than continue to play a game I wasn't enjoying, regardless of whether I was winning or losing.
You're making several assumptions here that are simply not true. Most importantly, you're treating the game as a static snapshot where nobody ever learns from the previous tournament and every single one is the same. This is not true!
Let's assume that Sirlin was totally devoted to the play style of "using one single move over and over". This is actually not true since that would actually severely limit his options and would definitely not be "playing to win": if you read more of his articles you'll find that he has had to change and improvise when his tactic of choice wasn't pulling its weight, as everyone else. In any case, let's assume that he is. Even so, Sirlin's fun resides in many things you're overlooking.
First would be to find the "secret knowledge" (as he calls it) that nobody else knows, by exploring each characters moves, their properties, their recoveries, safety, priority, and so on. You're probably imagining how long this would take for a complex game, and in a sense, I imagine it would be like a treasure hunt. Finding the treasure would be incredibly rewaring in itself, and we still haven't begun playing!
When he's chosen that move, he has to learn how and when to use it. I'd like to highlight something here: Sirlin's article seems to give some people the impression that he just crouched and mashed strong kick. As anyone that has ever played Street Fighter can probably tell, that's ridiculous. Using just a move is not the same as spamming it; and this in turn isn't equal to mashing it, either. Sirlin obviously used it in the situations that it could be used without fear of retaliation: it was still up to him and his skill to put himself in those situations, and of course, to refrain from using it when he would be vulnerable or would not hit. Indeed, spacing.
Then, of course, is the tournament itself, which is a completely different thing. He's now facing wildly different opponents and characters, many of whom have been as busy as him researching. Will his tactic lead him to the top? Or will he be destroyed by the first noob that manages to find a counter that he simply never thought of? As you can imagine, there's a world of fun to be had in this uncertainty. And of course, he STILL has to play well! Even assuming that his find gives him a distinct advantage, he'll probably be facing opponents that are simply better players than him, so he can't slack off.
My point is, there are lots of fun to be had with even this seemly dull approach, and many of these are completely different types of fun that someone who is not "playing to win" would have.
Street Fighter has been brought up a lot in this topic so let me use this as an example (I don't actually play Street Fighter so forgive me if I'm not in touch with all of the game's terms and characteristics). I saw a video brought up on a forum once. It was a tournament match between two Guile players. They each spammed projectiles at each other, usually canceling the other out, and very occasionally one would jump, block, or move in for a quick poke. This went on for 3 rounds. Now I'm betting some would say that it's an awesome stale mate between two amazing players and there's so much going on in that match despite the way it looks, but this is exactly the type of thing that turns me away. I know I can't be alone, because almost everyone seemed to agree that it was boring, uneventful, and would most likely be unenjoyable if they were to play games that way.
OK, now ask yourself the following question. Was it the fault of the players for playing the game the best they could? Or was it the fault of the game, if when played at the highest skill level, it looks that boring? If you want to play a game that's flashy, aren't you better off finding another game that simply has a more exciting top level gameplay? (I know I'm not being fair with Street Fighter here: it's not that the game devolves into projectile spamming at high levels, that was simply an unfortunately player/character/skill level matchup).
But more importantly, are you sure it IS boring? Sure, it might seem boring to you from the outside, the same way I find most sports to be mind-bogglingly boring, but do you think the players themselves were bored? I highly suspect not. Isn't the most important thing of a game the fun YOU as a player are having? Screw spectators! :D
Now let me bring up another video that I bet almost everyone here has seen. This one's easy to find so I might as well post it again.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KS7hkwbKmBM
I've seen this posted plenty of times before, and people are always saying "one of the greatest moments in fighting game history" and similar things. Why is that? To me, it looks like it's because it is an absolutely outstanding comeback and a display of ridiculous skill. Could 3 rounds of projectile spamming produce a reaction like that? Would it ever become a legendary video, exciting for not only hardcore fighting gamers, but all types of gamers everywhere? Not likely.
Without even looking at the link I'm guessing it's Daigo's legendary win against Chun-li by parrying Chun's super, isn't it? ^^. That is the stuff of legends.
But, anyway, let's analyze this from a "playing to win" perspective. First of all, do you believe that Daigo fights to be flashy? Do you think he purposely parried all that to make people go wow? Or rather, do you think that he parried all that because he had no other choice, and therefore, his only option to win was that?
Let's put it another way. If he wasn't down to the point that the chipping damage would have killed him, do you think he would have taken the chance to parry it? I'm pretty sure the answer is "no". He would have blocked it rather than take the huge risk of parrying it for the minimal reward of avoiding a little chip damage. Because, in a tournament, you play to win, not to be flashy.
But that precisely is what makes this video so exciting! If people in tournaments played to be flashy, we would see many people parry super combos like this, and it would become normal and even boring. Sure, it takes skill and reflexes, but that's not at all the reason this is so special. It's because what was at a stake, and because this was done to win, not to be flashy, that it's so unique.
Also note that the other player was also playing to win. Using chipping damage to finish an opponent low on health could be considered "cheap" by scrubs and avoided. Heck, in Alpha 2, winning through chipping damage made that victory's symbol a cheese!
. If he had refrained from using this tactic because of "cheapness", Daigo wouldn't have been forced to use a countertactic on the spot, and this would have never happened. See where I'm getting there? By avoiding the use of "cheap" moves, you're limiting not only your gameplay, but also your opponent's gameplay (since he doesn't need to counter it), and then, again, your own (no need to think counters to the counter), and so on. In fact, this video is a pretty good example of why "playing to win" makes players shine that much more.
All I'm getting at is that not everyone will find winning the "boring" way satisfying. With this video becoming popular among so many gamers (even those who don't play the game), this tells me that people enjoy excitement. And for some players, they want to be the one who pulls off these amazing feats in games, even if it's no more effective than the guy who spams projectiles the whole match.
As I mentioned, it's BECAUSE this was done in order to win (and in fact succeeded, against all odds) that it's so special. It's the CONTEXT that makes this one video one of a kind; without "playing to win", I'm certaing this would have never happened within this context, simply because that context wouldn't exist.
So I guess this turns into the same short argument I had originally had in mind. If winning through (to some) boring methods isn't satisfying, I don't see any reason to continue to do so. For those who are satisfied winning by any means necessary, please continue to do what works for you. But for those who find more enjoyment in their own custom style, their favorite characters (whether they're "top tier" or not), etc. I don't think they should be looked down upon. It is still possible to become a good player without throwing away what it is you enjoy about the game you play (which, admittedly, is purely subjective).
In one of his articles, Sirlin equates learing about a game's particular technique as climbing a mountain. The point of his article was that you can't know how tall the mountain is until you've climbed it, and that takes time. Sometimes, you'll find that the mountain wasn't that tall at all, and can then come down and choose another mountain to climb.
By limiting your options, you're efectively saying "I won't climb some mountains". In fact, you're saying "if a mountain seems very tall (the technique seems very effective), I will NOT climb it at all". But worse of all, you're saying "I'm having more fun down there that the people up there are", without even climbing the mountain to find out. Obviously, it's your choice, but I can't really think you can know for sure.
