A few of my best friends are highly competitive gamers who only play to win and take fighting games in particular very seriously. During the time I've spent around them, I've heard a lot of opinions (Edgehogging isn't cheap! Spiking your opponent to death at 0% isn't cheap! Using one move over and over when your opponent can't escape isn't cheap! Chaingrabbing your opponent to death on a stage with no edges isn't cheap! If it's within the scope of the game, it's not cheap!). Because these guys were the only people who I played video games with for a long time, I came under the impression that their views were universal. When I started to meet a lot more gamers, casual players among them, I started to realize that not everyone feels the same way.
A lot of the new gamers I've been meeting recently are the polar opposites of my competitive friends. They don't care whether they win or lose, goof around a lot during matches, and laugh when they get killed. They only play the games to have fun, whereas my competitive friends play as though their very life depends on the outcome of the match. Not many of the casual players whine when I do something "cheap", but others have expressed that they feel certain actions are unfair to the other player and are comparable to kicking someone while they are down and unable to defend themself.
This isn't meant to be a discussion about competitive versus casual, though - the only thing I'm curious about is which group is more prevalent. I was almost ignorant of the fact that there are players who love to play on Pokemon Floats with items on until I started playing with other people beside my competitive friends. Now that I realize there are two groups, I wonder which one is the majority.
On message boards, I see a lot of serious discussion about winning, competition, and tournaments. Among my new friends, I never hear these topics discussed. Are competitive gamers just a very vocal minority, then, who drown out the voices of the fun-lovers? Surely you will encounter more competitive gamers depending on what message board you go to and what section you're in, but what about the grand total of all Smashers combined? How many of them play Smash because they want to see Samus kill Pikachu, not because they actually care about winning? And how many of them are the sort who consider their victory at a game to be the highest measure of one's worth?
I bet I'm probably going to get biased answers because I'm asking SmashBoards of all places - but beyond that, I'm not entirely sure what section this thread belongs in. There's a General Brawl and a General Melee, but I didn't see a General Smash. If I ask about competitive gaming in the Brawl section, I'll probably get a lot of nays, whereas the Melee section would probably praise competitive gaming above all else, but I decided to go with the Brawl board since it has slightly more traffic.
(To state my own personal opinion on the matter, I despise Melee and love Brawl. I believe that Melee is flawed and imbalanced - too fast-paced and technical for victory to be viable for anyone but the top 10%, while Brawl fixes Melee's mistakes by removing the requirements of rapid motion and physics exploits in order to win a match. I also think that edgehogging is cheap because it removes skill from the equation and unevens the playing field; if the other character cannot return to the stage, he cannot compete and thus has no chance at victory. I'll only edgehog someone when they have more than 100% damage, because at this point you are one hit from dying anyway; I count my edgehog is that 'hit'.)
A lot of the new gamers I've been meeting recently are the polar opposites of my competitive friends. They don't care whether they win or lose, goof around a lot during matches, and laugh when they get killed. They only play the games to have fun, whereas my competitive friends play as though their very life depends on the outcome of the match. Not many of the casual players whine when I do something "cheap", but others have expressed that they feel certain actions are unfair to the other player and are comparable to kicking someone while they are down and unable to defend themself.
This isn't meant to be a discussion about competitive versus casual, though - the only thing I'm curious about is which group is more prevalent. I was almost ignorant of the fact that there are players who love to play on Pokemon Floats with items on until I started playing with other people beside my competitive friends. Now that I realize there are two groups, I wonder which one is the majority.
On message boards, I see a lot of serious discussion about winning, competition, and tournaments. Among my new friends, I never hear these topics discussed. Are competitive gamers just a very vocal minority, then, who drown out the voices of the fun-lovers? Surely you will encounter more competitive gamers depending on what message board you go to and what section you're in, but what about the grand total of all Smashers combined? How many of them play Smash because they want to see Samus kill Pikachu, not because they actually care about winning? And how many of them are the sort who consider their victory at a game to be the highest measure of one's worth?
I bet I'm probably going to get biased answers because I'm asking SmashBoards of all places - but beyond that, I'm not entirely sure what section this thread belongs in. There's a General Brawl and a General Melee, but I didn't see a General Smash. If I ask about competitive gaming in the Brawl section, I'll probably get a lot of nays, whereas the Melee section would probably praise competitive gaming above all else, but I decided to go with the Brawl board since it has slightly more traffic.
(To state my own personal opinion on the matter, I despise Melee and love Brawl. I believe that Melee is flawed and imbalanced - too fast-paced and technical for victory to be viable for anyone but the top 10%, while Brawl fixes Melee's mistakes by removing the requirements of rapid motion and physics exploits in order to win a match. I also think that edgehogging is cheap because it removes skill from the equation and unevens the playing field; if the other character cannot return to the stage, he cannot compete and thus has no chance at victory. I'll only edgehog someone when they have more than 100% damage, because at this point you are one hit from dying anyway; I count my edgehog is that 'hit'.)
