List of stupid, recycled arguments against the patch
Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 2:55 pm
Are you an idiot and can't figure out why I told you your argument was stupid, or maybe you can't figure out why I don't immediately stop the test weekend after you present your terrible argument? Read on.
Argument: You can still cheat on the patch! Because you can still cheat in some way, there is no reason to stop resource glitching.
Response: This argument is obviously bad. It's claiming that stopping the most widely used, hardest to prove glitch entirely, leaving only forms of cheating that are much easier to prove, shouldn't be done because there are still forms of cheating left that are much easier to prove. Removing the resource glitch is clearly a huge step forward against cheating, and these same people usually invalidate their this argument by saying that if there were no bad consequences to stopping the resource glitch it should be done. Wait a second... Isn't their entire argument that because other forms of cheating exist, there's no point at all in stopping the resource glitch? Oh right, it is.
Argument: You need to be able to ally and tribute in scenarios, so removing the tribute screen is bad.
Response: It's been said over, and over, and over, and over again, but I'll say it yet again. It's not hard to add triggers to allow you to still ally and tribute in scenarios.
Argument: It kills CB and nothing can be done about it except removing the patch!
Response: Sure it kills CB if you define killing CB as removing the ability to ally and tribute, unless you make it into a scenario, in which case there's really no issue. If you don't define CB that way, it really doesn't kill CB does it? And of course, there's no reason to actually define citybuilder that way other than you can do them in CBs now and its common for people to do so in CBs now, but you can still build cities, have battles in the center, and have fun without tributes and alliances, or you can just make it into a scenario where you can still tribute and ally.
Argument: Everyone can tell if someone is glitching, so there's no point in fixing glitching.
Response: This isn't true. Many players have no idea how to check, and this is evidenced by all the people who send admins and mods saved games so we can check FOR THEM. More importantly, even the most competent of cheater-catchers can't always prove cheating, because proving glitching is only possible under certain circumstances. In cases where it's past ~30 f11 in the game, it's virtually impossible to prove cheating unless the cheater is dumber than retarded, and in many cases minor (but still advantage-giving) glitching is fairly difficult to detect (and obviously gets harder quick, until you hit impossible to detect). Also, basically all glitchers know about how their glitching is detected, and when it's very hard or impossible to detect. That's when they cheat.
Argument: If you really cared about glitching you would check the statistics after every game. You don't, so you don't really care about glitching. (Therefore, removing the tribute screen is bad)
Response: This is retarded, and almost always made after the above argument gets shot down as also being retarded. First of all, this argument ignores the fact that (when its usually used) has already been pointed out, which is that it's not always possible to prove cheating, which makes it invalid because there's no point in checking the stats of a 2 hour island game when you know that you can't prove anything--hell, you can't even check the stats without making a TON of assumptions. The argument also ignores the benefit of the time spent checking per game, versus the likelihood of proving a cheater, and then factoring in how much you hate cheating versus how much you'd rather be playing EE as opposed to crunching numbers. To actually do this, you'd have to be someone who loves doing stupid computations as much as you like playing EE, and you'd have to hate glitching, and anyone who likes stupid computations that much isn't going to be playing EE at all because they could be adding random numbers they pulled out of their ass, with the occasional multiplying, dividing, and subtracting just for variety.
Argument: You can't see civilizations! This is the end of the world.
Response: Yes you can, go away and use your brain. Just click on a building or unit of theirs. This argument is actually valid in liga, where you can't do that right away. Then again, you can always scout them, and are going to do that anyway, and can see their stuff then. Additionally, when they scout you you can click on their dog and see their civilization then, too. All players are equally disadvantaged, and in the few ages/player counts where you don't instantly have a good idea (or fairly decent idea) of what your opponent will be doing, playing a conservative strategy that allows you to rapidly adapt isn't really that difficult. Heck, it's even good, and you should probably be doing it anyway.
Argument: You can't tribute in X. This is the end of the world.
Response: Nope, you can't, but it's not the end of the world. Can't tribute 80 iron or gold at the start of a middle SH? Your opponent's cant either, and there's essentially zero change to game play based on this. Can't tribute rush? Your opponents can't either, so the game has lost a very uncommon strategy to fix the most common and hardest to detect cheat, which is a trade off I for one am fine with. Can't tribute your ally to make wonders? Well, your opponents can do it either.
Yeah, but they'll give a specific example, like, "when the other team makes a coli you need to be able to tribute so you can make a coli to counteract it". Except, you don't need to do that. In fact, the fact no one could build a coli and they could shows your team was loosing the game already. The fact that you weren't even thinking about building a coli also shows you deserve to loose.
Or perhaps "in an island game, if your coli dies the game is over!". Except, you can kill their coli, build multiple colis, et cetera. Or just defend your own coli better. I mean, there are a LOT of other options other than instantly tributing the guy who lost the coli to re-build it.
Subtype of above argument: Without tributes, people won't be able to rebuild and many games will be lost because of it!
Reponse: They can't do it either. So, why not actually prevent your allies from getting pwned to the point they need to rebuild? Yeah the "teamwork" of feeding them resources and forgetting about them is gone, and it has to be replaced with the actual teamwork of defending your allies. More importantly, when someone on your team dies to the point of needing to rebuild this means the other team is winning. You're loosing. Why not play better in the first place?
Subtype of above subtype: No tributes = no teamwork!
Response: Because obviously, the ability to work together as a team is dependent on tributing your allies vast sums of stuff because you can't plan who will make a coli, or can't properly defend your bases as a team, removes teamwork. Oh wait, no it encourages more real teamwork. Tributing and working as a team clearly are not mutually exclusive. It's blatantly obvious and utterly retarded anyone would suggest they are--just one example is attacking with your ally. Hey, that's teamwork. It also is not dependent on tributes at all. You can do it without tribute screen, or with tribute screen, and sending tributes to your ally during said attack doesn't change how successful the attack is.
I'm sure I'll be adding even more later, but seriously, can some people think first, instead of last? It'd be helpful, especially when you can make legitimate arguments, because removing the tribute screen certainly DOES have real consequences. You can argue it makes CB inconvenient or less fun, adds a bit of randomness/unpredictability to liga and prevents seeing civilizations very early on for 1v1, and so on. However, making arguments that are completely wrong, or close to an argument that's true and then overstating it horribly is just stupid, and is the best way not to be listened to.
Argument: You can still cheat on the patch! Because you can still cheat in some way, there is no reason to stop resource glitching.
Response: This argument is obviously bad. It's claiming that stopping the most widely used, hardest to prove glitch entirely, leaving only forms of cheating that are much easier to prove, shouldn't be done because there are still forms of cheating left that are much easier to prove. Removing the resource glitch is clearly a huge step forward against cheating, and these same people usually invalidate their this argument by saying that if there were no bad consequences to stopping the resource glitch it should be done. Wait a second... Isn't their entire argument that because other forms of cheating exist, there's no point at all in stopping the resource glitch? Oh right, it is.
Argument: You need to be able to ally and tribute in scenarios, so removing the tribute screen is bad.
Response: It's been said over, and over, and over, and over again, but I'll say it yet again. It's not hard to add triggers to allow you to still ally and tribute in scenarios.
Argument: It kills CB and nothing can be done about it except removing the patch!
Response: Sure it kills CB if you define killing CB as removing the ability to ally and tribute, unless you make it into a scenario, in which case there's really no issue. If you don't define CB that way, it really doesn't kill CB does it? And of course, there's no reason to actually define citybuilder that way other than you can do them in CBs now and its common for people to do so in CBs now, but you can still build cities, have battles in the center, and have fun without tributes and alliances, or you can just make it into a scenario where you can still tribute and ally.
Argument: Everyone can tell if someone is glitching, so there's no point in fixing glitching.
Response: This isn't true. Many players have no idea how to check, and this is evidenced by all the people who send admins and mods saved games so we can check FOR THEM. More importantly, even the most competent of cheater-catchers can't always prove cheating, because proving glitching is only possible under certain circumstances. In cases where it's past ~30 f11 in the game, it's virtually impossible to prove cheating unless the cheater is dumber than retarded, and in many cases minor (but still advantage-giving) glitching is fairly difficult to detect (and obviously gets harder quick, until you hit impossible to detect). Also, basically all glitchers know about how their glitching is detected, and when it's very hard or impossible to detect. That's when they cheat.
Argument: If you really cared about glitching you would check the statistics after every game. You don't, so you don't really care about glitching. (Therefore, removing the tribute screen is bad)
Response: This is retarded, and almost always made after the above argument gets shot down as also being retarded. First of all, this argument ignores the fact that (when its usually used) has already been pointed out, which is that it's not always possible to prove cheating, which makes it invalid because there's no point in checking the stats of a 2 hour island game when you know that you can't prove anything--hell, you can't even check the stats without making a TON of assumptions. The argument also ignores the benefit of the time spent checking per game, versus the likelihood of proving a cheater, and then factoring in how much you hate cheating versus how much you'd rather be playing EE as opposed to crunching numbers. To actually do this, you'd have to be someone who loves doing stupid computations as much as you like playing EE, and you'd have to hate glitching, and anyone who likes stupid computations that much isn't going to be playing EE at all because they could be adding random numbers they pulled out of their ass, with the occasional multiplying, dividing, and subtracting just for variety.
Argument: You can't see civilizations! This is the end of the world.
Response: Yes you can, go away and use your brain. Just click on a building or unit of theirs. This argument is actually valid in liga, where you can't do that right away. Then again, you can always scout them, and are going to do that anyway, and can see their stuff then. Additionally, when they scout you you can click on their dog and see their civilization then, too. All players are equally disadvantaged, and in the few ages/player counts where you don't instantly have a good idea (or fairly decent idea) of what your opponent will be doing, playing a conservative strategy that allows you to rapidly adapt isn't really that difficult. Heck, it's even good, and you should probably be doing it anyway.
Argument: You can't tribute in X. This is the end of the world.
Response: Nope, you can't, but it's not the end of the world. Can't tribute 80 iron or gold at the start of a middle SH? Your opponent's cant either, and there's essentially zero change to game play based on this. Can't tribute rush? Your opponents can't either, so the game has lost a very uncommon strategy to fix the most common and hardest to detect cheat, which is a trade off I for one am fine with. Can't tribute your ally to make wonders? Well, your opponents can do it either.
Yeah, but they'll give a specific example, like, "when the other team makes a coli you need to be able to tribute so you can make a coli to counteract it". Except, you don't need to do that. In fact, the fact no one could build a coli and they could shows your team was loosing the game already. The fact that you weren't even thinking about building a coli also shows you deserve to loose.
Or perhaps "in an island game, if your coli dies the game is over!". Except, you can kill their coli, build multiple colis, et cetera. Or just defend your own coli better. I mean, there are a LOT of other options other than instantly tributing the guy who lost the coli to re-build it.
Subtype of above argument: Without tributes, people won't be able to rebuild and many games will be lost because of it!
Reponse: They can't do it either. So, why not actually prevent your allies from getting pwned to the point they need to rebuild? Yeah the "teamwork" of feeding them resources and forgetting about them is gone, and it has to be replaced with the actual teamwork of defending your allies. More importantly, when someone on your team dies to the point of needing to rebuild this means the other team is winning. You're loosing. Why not play better in the first place?
Subtype of above subtype: No tributes = no teamwork!
Response: Because obviously, the ability to work together as a team is dependent on tributing your allies vast sums of stuff because you can't plan who will make a coli, or can't properly defend your bases as a team, removes teamwork. Oh wait, no it encourages more real teamwork. Tributing and working as a team clearly are not mutually exclusive. It's blatantly obvious and utterly retarded anyone would suggest they are--just one example is attacking with your ally. Hey, that's teamwork. It also is not dependent on tributes at all. You can do it without tribute screen, or with tribute screen, and sending tributes to your ally during said attack doesn't change how successful the attack is.
I'm sure I'll be adding even more later, but seriously, can some people think first, instead of last? It'd be helpful, especially when you can make legitimate arguments, because removing the tribute screen certainly DOES have real consequences. You can argue it makes CB inconvenient or less fun, adds a bit of randomness/unpredictability to liga and prevents seeing civilizations very early on for 1v1, and so on. However, making arguments that are completely wrong, or close to an argument that's true and then overstating it horribly is just stupid, and is the best way not to be listened to.