Scrub (gaming)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A scrub is a neologism that refers to a player who intentionally limits his or her strategic options due to their perception of those options as "unfair." This causes the player to be less effective in competitive play, and has led to a rift between players who play "just for fun" and players who play game competitively. The term may have its origins in the physical act of running ones hands aggressively over a six button control layout, "scrubbing" the buttons hoping for a win based on luck rather than skill.
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[edit] Origins
The Street Fighter series of games possess an arcade control layout consisting of six buttons, each producing a different attack. Because the buttons are close together, a player can opt to run a hand along all six buttons in a motion similar to scrubbing a surface clean. By making use of this tactic, the player will execute a series of random attacks that can overwhelm a beginning player, but are easily defended against by a novice gamer. Then again, button mashing could just be the player pressing buttons as fast as they can at random.
[edit] Tactical Execution
To a beginner, scrubbing is preferable to doing nothing, particularly as a fighting game's complexity overwhelms a new player. In certain games, depending on the level of competition, scrubbing can be tactically beneficial.
In X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom, a player using the "easy" control option can exploit the execution of random special attacks with single button presses. Also, some super attacks in the same series award additional hits and damage with constant button presses. As the exact damage-increasing combination of buttons is seldom known by beginner and experienced players alike, many have taken to scrubbing in the hopes of activating the buttons.
In Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO, random special moves can be easily executed in Extreme Offense/Easy Operation mode, though it is not technically scrubbing per se. This mode is meant for use with a game pad rather than a six-button arcade layout, hence no "scrubbing" action occurs.
Gamers who are defeated by scrubs are often humiliated that they were overcome by an unskilled opponent, thus leading scrub to be a pejorative term.
[edit] General Pejorative Usage
More recently, scrub can be used as a general pejorative term to belittle any manner of disagreeable gamer. One form of scrub refers to a player who intentionally limits his strategic choices due to a perceived imbalance in certain dominant gaming strategies that are based on exploiting a particular technique or combo with a particular character.
[edit] Tactical exploitation scrub philosophy
The scrub defines the exploited powerful techniques "cheap" and attempts to gather popular support for an honor system which avoids using such techniques or characters in competitive play.
This "scrub" vs. "expert player" dichotomy is not peculiar to fighting games, although that is one of its best known examples. In many games, despite the efforts of developers to balance gameplay, dominant strategies often emerge. Often these can be dramatic, with only a small handful of characters and techniques being viable in any particular game. Some players dislike having certain strategic choices limited by the emergence of more dominant strategies. For this reason, "scrubs" favor establishing limiting rules with the intent of minimizing or eliminating the offending strategy to enhance their personal enjoyment - a form of house rules. The "expert player" typically criticizes this as establishing a handicap to cope with rules they find too difficult to deal with. The "scrub" will counter this by saying that the "expert players" are exploiting tactics unintended by the developer to the detriment of the system as a whole.
Other reasons scrubs may not like certain techniques can be because they may dramatically increase the learning curve of the game without increasing the "fun factor", or dramatically increase the complexity of control input. One example might be "roll canceling" from Capcom VS SNK 2. This technique allows a character to be invincible while performing certain moves by inputting the commands for the move during the first frames of a "roll." The window of time for the input is only a few frames, or only a very small fraction of a second. This technique is difficult to execute and requires intense practice; however, it can be very beneficial to the player that has mastered it. While there was much debate on whether or not to allow this, most tournaments for this game allow the technique. The controversy over it has largely subsided, as the play groups that are most likely object to the practice are also most typically the ones least likely to utilize it, making it somewhat of a non-issue within each camp. It does create something of a rift between the casual and hardcore players, however.
What a fighting game player or tournament can consider allowable or against house rules is not exact, creating controversy over use of the scrub term. For example, almost all tournaments ban glitches; for example, in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Juggernaut's ability to permanently knock an opponent out of the match is disallowed. Some other techniques are only banned in the United States and not in Japan. On a local level, what is considered cheap play varies widely. Randomly hitting buttons (button mashing) is called by some as cheap, although it is clearly an inefficient strategy. Most efficient strategies are called cheap at some point as well, as is explained by Sirlin.net:
Here we’ve encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near you…that’s cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, that’s cheap, too. We’ve covered that one. If you sit in block for 50 seconds doing no moves, that’s cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap.
[edit] Countering the Tactical Exploitation Scrub
Another interesting emergent phenomenon is the arms race effect that occurs here. Many scrubs claim that the use of dominant strategies reduces complexity of play. This is only true for a limited amount of time. Eventually, a counter may be found to the dominant strategy. The tactic may eliminate the usefulness of the first strategy, thus setting the meta-game back in equilibrium. Alternately, a counter to the counter will be discovered that re-enables use of the original tactic; or a new playstyle entirely developed. This constant search for new dominant strategies can actually increase the complexity of play and leads to novel and unintended strategies that the developers did not foresee, which possibly ultimately leads to more strategic flexibility. A prime example might be Urien from Street Fighter 3. At first glance, he appears to be an unremarkable charge character. One of his "Super Arts," "Aegis Reflector," was intended for use as a projectile shield. Advanced players eventually discovered it could be utilized to establish unblockable setups (or traps) that otherwise would not be possible. Due to this discovery, Urien is seen as a highly competitive character when played by a skilled gamer, and also one more strategically interesting than a basic charge character.
Ultimately, the issue is reduced to "playing to win" versus "playing for fun (or casual play.)" The players marked as scrubs rarely are the tournament-going types, and primarily play casually with friends for the simple enjoyment of the game. This is contrasted to the more hardcore "expert players," who play for both the enjoyment of the game but also for the thrill of victory; and they are characterized by a more intense level of play.
The scrub title and controversy is primarily associated with the fighting game milieu, as fighting games are competitive games where design flaws can be very apparent once discovered, and difficult to repair later. In other games (primarily PC games, such as real time strategy games or MMORPGS) patches may be released to correct imbalances. Due to the logistics of deploying an update to many arcades internationally, only major glitches or game-destroying balancing issues warrant a new revision.
This phenomenon of "cheap play" and the controversy it comes with is also found in non-digital games. One notable example of this occurring in mainstream sports is the hockey example of the Neutral zone trap.
[edit] External links
- Sirlin.net - Playing to Win An essay in a three-part series on 'playing to win' and how the scrub vs. expert player dichotomy emerges.
- Playing to Win, the book A more polished and complete treatment based on Sirlin's 'playing to win' articles.
