cza wrote:I don't see the opposition to maximizing points. It's the nature of the game, and among the "bosses" and the pros just below them, tourney or non-tourney, that is standard practice. You clean. I can't speak for others, but I still am up and down on the quality of my cleans, especially in 1v1. It is something that requires practice. If a player does not want to sit around for cleaning, then they can leave the game if they have nothing left and don't care. Also, I sit through plenty of games when players are on slow in the early and mid phases when I think there isn't a great reason to do so; I feel no obligation to play fast later in the game just because they ran out of units. If I need to go slow, I go slow.
Well you say that here, but the last game you played with Tom kind of contradicts that. You had him completely beat but dithered around for ages. At least you kept it on high speed. But you then got quite upset when he left, and made a point of punishing the CPU. I'm sure it's not what you meant, but another way of describing that play style is that it's valid to frustrate another player till the point that he quits and then wring every last point from his automated corpse. I guess we disagree about about the point of the game. It's not about cleaning, it's about ending the game with a higher score. Finishing with a comfortable lead is nice, but pulling out a narrow come from behind win is just as good. Score differential matters if it's A) a tournament where point aggregate is an issue or B) if your intent is to make your win appear to be crushing (can also be seen as wanting to humiliate your opponent). In pub/friendly/informal matches it's kind of poor sportsmanship.
With all that said, the point of the game is winning. If the other guy still has subs, or some other way of picking up a lot of late game points, it's fine to build up a good cushion. I don't think there are any hard and fast rules here, and everyone will have a different interpretation. But just as a general idea, cleaning for the sake of cleaning (especially when it means excruciatingly slow speeds long after they're necessary) is a bad thing for friendly matches, doubly so if we're also considering server availability.
cza wrote:As I've said before, if you have no idea who you are playing against, assume it's someone like zoro's dog. Relax your game accordingly as events reveal a weaker player. If you lose because you thought you were playing someone else, that is entirely on you.
Entirely on you? Are you really saying that the aliased player receives no benefit? Of course one should always play hard as a default setting, but it's more complicated than that. This is a pretty small community and some people have pretty distinct, sometimes predictable, play styles. Knowing who your opponent is while you're unknown, even if it's not as extreme as throwing on a [DEMO] tag, is advantageous. Sometimes very much so, sometimes it's almost irrelevant. Still, any (avoidable) factor which makes the outcome of a game less dependent on the pure skill of the players is a bad thing. I can't think of any reasons to play under an alias other than to try and gain a strategic/psychological advantage. We wouldn't run a tourney with people using aliases (though if both players did it might be an interesting twist). I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that aliased games shouldn't be seen as part of peoples' records.
Aliases also make it harder to set up enjoyable games. Sometimes you don't want to, or don't have time to, play a super high level game. Or one against someone who plays excessively slow. Or against someone who just isn't fun to play with. That can wind up frustrating for everyone involved. Anyway, I have no interest in playing Tobias any more. In 1v1s at least. We had a nice 2v2 a little while back. If he didn't use aliases I could just leave him to his own devices instead of having to say that publicly.
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