My sister and I used to play Monopoly to its bitter end. And it was always bitter. In recorded history, has there ever been a game of Monopoly that was fun for more than one person? I never played one. Why did we play? I have no idea. It was supposed to be fun.
When I play against a deck like Waygate or Freeze Mage or Res Priest, I often wonder if the other player knows how spectacularly miserable their opponent (me) is. Basically watching the other player play solitaire.
But…so what? Does the other player owe us anything? They don’t know us. They’re trying to have fun. And who knows what is fun for another person? Some people can’t stand, for example, playing against Mill Rogue, but while it can be frustrating, I actually like the challenge. You can generally see it coming a mile away and have to immediately adjust your strategy. And the other player has to counter your counters.
When I craft my decks, I think about how much fun they might be to play and how effective they might be against the popular decks. But I don’t really consider whether the opponent would find it fun to play against my deck. Should I? I don’t know.
You play this game for fun
If it’s not fun, stop playing
I mean, a well designed multiplayer game should be fun both while winning and while losing; because who would play a game that’s only fun %50 of the time?
Outside of basic Hearthstone etiquette (don’t rope, don’t BM), I don’t think my opponent is owed anything from me, nor does my opponent owe me anything. I can’t control what other people play. I can (try to) control how I approach each match. I can choose to be aggravated, or I can try and shrug it off. A lot of the unfunness of Hearthstone, I think, comes down to how we approach the game (and for some, the inability to take breaks from it).
There are multiple types of players but for the sake of keeping it simple lets deal with two.
For fun, players
To win, players
Those that play for fun can be seen in the forums where the posts talk about the actual game play and tend not to focus on win rates of decks etc… while the opposite is said for the more competitive folks, where the win means everything.
We’ve seen it in sports for a very long time. Coaches have abused players in order to achieve wins. Unfortunately people will stand on the others below them in order to achieve their own goals and they are fine with whatever damage it causes anyone that isn’t directly important to them.
Honestly who is to say who is right and who is wrong? Play the game. Control the things you can control and maybe… just maybe try not to be a douche along the way
Different people consider different things as fun. The majority of people do not like playing against control or OTK decks, ofc. However most people don’t want to improve their gaming experience either. If you want to torment Priest, equip silence (owl) or play rogue.
Accept Invites. If you are concerned about 3. then wait a day. I tried adding someone to ask for their deck list recently and they didn’t respond and I am still sad.
We don’t owe the other player anything. The game is AI driven using virtual mechanics.
Since I wholeheartedly without any doubt believe the game is rigged I enjoy doing other things while collecting the daily to buy a pack on that day or the following earning the 50 - 60 gold a day plus if I top deck better than the other guy.
Now this morning a narrowly beat a Warlock Shuffie Shuffie deck. I had just the right cards to put em away by turn 6 before he could shuffle shuffie a second time or play a spell for more health like he/she did 2 times already.
Then I faced a Demon Hunter braindead deck
Drop Blazing Battlemage
Drop Battlefied attack with hero and Battlemage power up battlefiend
Drop Satyr Overseer use 0 cost power up attack get more minions and do more face attacking.
Turn 4 Play Warblades attack attack attack make more minions and powers and face.
Turn 5 Play Kayn Sunfury and win.
Then I beat a mage as he/she ran out of freezes before they could power of creation which I am sure was coming.
Then I faced a top decking Demon Hunter. See the above game for the exact same outcome except for turn 1
Play Blazing Battlemage Coin play another Blazing Battlemage.
During this time I was working on my designs in Tinkercad try to make pieces for my 3d printer. I let my turn go the whole time each and every turn the whole game while I was doing something constructive and beneficial vs something that is on automatic mode. I dont owe the player on the other end anything. He isn’t playing his cards. The game is.
And this is why competition is bad and should be avoided as much as possible. Basically all games and sports today are in essence a game of musical chairs where in my opinion it feels much worse to lose than it feels good to win. That’s why I’m not interested in most multiplayer games and sports. But Hearthstone can be approached a little differently in my opinion. There are many crazy RNG effects and just for fun stuff going on. Basically it’s how it doesn’t take itself too serious and appeals to the very casual audience. I have a lot of fun just playing the game and doing my best with all the RNG and Discover stuff. That’s why I love Hearthstone so much. You just need to play with the right cards and with the right mindset.
Well, it’s not like I’m not aware of that and tried it. But almost always it’s then group against group competition. Which then means cooperation within group but competiton towards the other group. It is only uplifting and bonding because of that cooperation. Therefore I would not say that competition can be seen as a good there. But it’s quite complicated and not so clear-cut. As a general rule of thumb I would say it’s like with alcohol. It’s basically poison so you should not consume it. But if you don’t overdo it, it also won’t kill you.
It is much more complicated nowadays due to influence of media, sponsorship, etc.
However, we can continue seeing examples of ‘loser’ teams congratulating ‘winner’ teams, sharing tips and stradegy among competing managers, leagues/teams uniting for common good, etc.
More ‘positive’ showcases can be allow through more opportunities to allow they to do so. Bringing back to HS, the “defeat the LichKing” event is an example, which was not made available to the common player.
Thus, it is not the fault of competition but the form/structure it is.
Don’t say do that with a grudge? If the goal is to win and to lose sucks… But yeah, you can adjust to that and so on. As I said it’s complicated.
That’s cooperation not competition. In my opinion at least…
That now really depends on what exactly we’re talking about. Generally speaking “competition” (as I would define it) always fosters conflict which most of the time leads to more or different problems. We will never achieve perfect harmony but I would rather try to avoid conflicts and the problem they cause if possible. Just like with alcohol. There are always bad side effects even if minimal. I choose to rather avoid that if possible.
Positive or Negative effects arise from the environment the competitors are place in.
Alot of negative examples we may see arise from “poor” management where the environment focus too much on ‘individual’ performance.
using an example:
There is an award for the best sales person. This creates a very individual focus competition. By adding in a combined performance reward, it shift the focus to have the team benefit with a top performer, as his/her efforts contributes back to the team.
In HS e.g. A guild like aspect would be able to bring some change into the fold.
edit: correction: In HS , the nearest we have maybe in BG where 2 players compete but still can allow one to ‘encourage’ another.
p.s. we may not need to avoid, rather explore possibilities?
In this example there is still a not mentioned competition underlying everything: The competition of the groups (like different departments and also the company itself) towards other such groups. This inherently will create conflict as they’re litterally trying to sabotage one another for each groups individual gain. At least that is what I mean by “competition” and was my point.
The problem I see is that depending on what the competition is about you’re going to neglect your competitiors which is suboptimal.
Example:
Two cell phone companies work on a new cell phone and have different ideas and approaches. They work in secret because in a competitive environment you could of course openly share information but why would you do that? The “win” of the other/s goes at the expense of me losing. It’s irrational to help others in a competitive setting.
But what if they instead would actually cooperate without any competitive element to it? They could learn much from their shared information on how to do this or that or whatever.
Just you look at any invention. They are all done due to cooperative elements and the competitive elements are hindering progress.
For example the flying machine required many different attempts and only because the previous experimenters didn’t withheld their information in a “competitive fashion” others could begin where they left and don’t had to resort to “trying a shot in the dark”. (Most died anyways with their attempts but you know what I mean. Also you now have companies with copyright extented far beyond the death of the author, so…)
Yeah, I would really like something like that. That should reduce the competition for people that would rather want less and focus more on the casual “just have fun” aspect.
Maybe. It all depends on the exact context. As I said it’s all very complicated when you go into the details.
I already had such a discussion with someone. But looking back it seemed to me we were totally talking past each other. And the same seems to be happening here…
I don’t know what you exactly mean by “competition” and for me it’s rather hard to describe to be honest. I can just give a link to an ebook on the subject I read once: https://www.tromsite.com/books/#dflip-df_6704/1/ That’s why I think “competition” should be rather avoided if possible.
It is hard to explain too much here as it will derail the OP thread.
(should create a separate thread to respect OP if you wish to disc more)
Thus, I will try to end this within this post, as short as possible.
I believe there is many cross partnership among competing companies to develop part of/product. (Apple, IBM, Motorola)
There are many cases of such ‘sabotage’ while if we look at them, it usually indicates a poor management as source. Top companies recognize these ‘sabotage’, and have culture and practices to manage these groups.
Not all true. Inventions that happens because of competition should also be given due credit. Without the competition, we may not see Personal Computers being made available to public as it was not the norm then. Nor will we see Apple impact to the technological market.
Competition in those cases, create an opportunity for people/groups to break away from the norm to new invention. Had they had co-operated, the tendency to be held back by red tapes and bureaucracy is much higher.
I see otherwise. What I’m trying to do, is to open my world perspective to you, as well as yours to mine. In that sense, we may (give a chance) understand each other better.
But only a part. Imagine a friend but they’re only there for you on the weekend. Yeah… thanks… I guess.
Not saying it always have to be perfect cooperation. But competition seems to be problematic in my view.
Well, only if the public recognizes and condemns that.
Also you seem to be missing the point. “Competition” (at least how I see it) is always about “sabotaging” the other in order to gain individual advantage. This doesn’t have to be bad. But generally it tends to cause conflict and with that many problems may arise.
A good example is how we “compete” with diseases (like Covid-19) and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. But when it comes to humans it’s… more complicated. They can get angry, want revenge, etc. I think when we can’t properly estimate the potential dangers we should always try to do things in a “cooperative way” because… just think about yourself: Would you rather get help from others or instead be forced to beat the [REDACTED] out of the others to survive? And where does that lead…? I don’t think we should focus too much on it. Only as much as really necessary. Or if we can rather safely assume that there is not much “drawback” in “competing”.
And what about the fatalities? I’m asking because the other person brought that up as well but specifically mentioned war. And yes, the progress due to the war efforts certainly helped a lot in the devolping PCs and whatnot. But at what price? And how can you be sure it wasn’t possible to achieve it otherwise? Like with complete peaceful cooperation on every level? I wonder…
Because it’s impossible that anyone would share something like that freely just to improve everyone’s life.
To be fair, as I said it’s irrational to help others freely in a competitive setting, but I’m talking about the principle.
Competition is based on conflict and as that can potentially create many problems as opposed to cooperation which is the exact opposite and tries to harmonize everything.
As I said it’s impossible to get “perfection” but I think we should still strive for it.
I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at here, but for what it’s worth government itself is of course also a “player in the game” and forced like everyone else to be in constant competition.
Could you imagine a world where not everything is about “How can I screw over the other one so that they don’t screw me over first”? Maybe something worth thinking about.
Yeah, I know. But language and communication is very tricky here. What exactly is this “competition” anyways? I certainly can’t just show you a picture of it. It’s a made-up concept which can differ considerably form person to person.
Ultimately everything is down to communcation. Everyone is right in their own way. We just can’t communicate everything properly.
