Competitive Easy Mode

I have a lot of friends who play games on hard mode. By that same token, I also have a lot of friends who give me grief for playing most games on easy. I'll spare you the specific insults, but suffice to say that I'm apparently not doing it right.

I've probably said it before, but there are times when I just want to see what a game has. I don't feel better about myself because I beat a boss on hard mode. I'm a gamer playing a game, I'm not some TLC story about a man starting with nothing but a dream and fighting his way to the top of a company. I get 0 pride because I beat a game on hard, nor is my ego so damaged that I need to think myself better than others because they took the easy route when I didn't.

When it comes to difficulty settings in video games, that's an easy discussion. It's cool that there are people who can master a game and beat it on an impossible difficulty. However, there's nothing wrong with someone wanting to play the game just to experience the story or gameplay without having to worry about being penalized for smaller mistakes. But what happens when we apply that theory elsewhere in gaming?

When I played World of Warcraft, the Hunter class got a lot of flak for being the "easy mode" class, even earning the offensive name Huntard. There was still a difference between good and bad hunters, but the more casual players could still do a decent job playing the class compared to someone like a warlock who could barely do damage or stay alive if they didn't know what they were doing. I always found the vitriol thrown at hunters to be silly because everyone was still playing the same game, and the people who enjoyed the hunter class, whether for its flavor, mechanics, or simplicity, were no less gamers than anyone else.

There was no denying that newer players gravitated to the class, and that the class itself removed some risk and frustration involved in other classes. But if players wanted to just experience leveling, raiding, and PvP without a huge time investment... so what? It's great if people want to play another class, but that in no way makes one player better than another simply because they aren't playing on easy mode.

In competitive games the conversation is a bit more difficult. Players are no longer playing cooperatively with "easy mode" players - they are playing against them, and possibly losing. Every game has its own flavor of easy mode, but it always involves a decision that is more mindless or more powerful than all the other options. Even in a game where rules are completely balanced, if there are several classes/decks/factions to choose from, one will inevitably be better than the others due to any number of factors.

The question, then, is whether those players should be scorned for their decision [fun note: you know you pay too much attention to Warmachine when you write that at "skorned"] I mean it's their game decision, isn't it? If they want to play something that's easier, whether because they like the flavor or just don't want to invest as much time in to learning, how much does it really matter?

Now I realize that many people use "easy mode" as a scapegoat because they're frustrated and need to blame something. Entire communities jump on the hate train and mutter complaints about a specific way of playing that takes "no skill" to win with in a casual setting. It's understandable, but that certainly doesn't make it right.

Here are a few examples of easy modes from a few popular games:

• Call of Duty: any gun that balances control and damage output, making it easier to shoot without hindering your aim too much. 
• Magic: Burn decks or green decks. These decks typically require fewer crucial decisions for the player, and a normal player can easily make good decisions or recover from bad ones.
• 40k: typically, any army with the most recent release is the most powerful. They are the most up-to-date, and therefor tend to have the most powerful choices. See any tournament result and you can easily see which army is the most powerful at any given time.
• Warmachine: Khador and Cryx are historically the easiest factions. Khador seems to be the most straightforward faction for players to get in to, but at a competitive level they don't always perform as well. Conversely Cryx can be hard to get in to, but are easier for skilled players to win with due to their many powerful options.

I should probably take a minute to clarify who I'm talking about here. I'm not talking about those people who stroke their egos by beating people with the most powerful options and acting like it's because they're just that good. No one likes those people, and they give a bad name to everyone else who plays the easier option for different reasons.


I see this whole debate as no different from playing a game on easy mode. Sometimes people want to play Magic, 40k, or Warmachine and at least break even on their win and losses. There are people who can't dedicate themselves to learning the intricacies of the harder choices, and playing once a week (at best) isn't a good way to improve. Rather than always losing and struggling to have fun because they simply don't understand their class or deck, why do we ostracize them for seeking an easier option?

This is a topic that's always driven me nuts. "Yeah he beat me, but at least I wasn't using an OP deck like he was!" "Yeah, well let's see you kill me with a gun that isn't for *******" "Stop being a coward and use an army that isn't broken." It's so infuriating to hear this talk wherever I go, and people get upset about it like they're debating politics or religion!

I'll concede that there are situations where something is incredibly powerful, and even those who use it innocently may not realize how frustrating it is to play against. We have a local Menoth player who acknowledges that the Harbinger of Menoth is rarely fun to play against, so he hardly ever fields her. Our Troll player has picked up a second faction simply because people hate seeing them on the table. I don't think either of them picked them up because they wanted to dominate people, but they were respectful enough of their friends to try to make things fun for everyone.

At the same time, I don't think anyone should be made to feel bad about liking what they like. When I first started Warmachine I was heavily debating between Khador and Cryx (and Menoth, but the Racks scared me). Cryx and Legion are the two factions that get a very bad reputation because of their gameplay mechanics, and as a result a loss to one of those factions seems to be infinitely more infuriating because, according to the angry mob, they're easy and broken. So now all Cryx/Legion players become stereotyped as dirtbags who want to use an unfair faction to win games. It's completely baseless (with the exception of the dirtbags I mentioned in a previous paragraph), and it fractures the community.

That's a long-winded way of me saying that people should be allowed to play games how they want to. If they're playing by the rules, then all they're doing is playing the game. Like I said in my WAAC series, players can't put arbitrary restrictions on the game. If a deck is allowed, then people are allowed to play it. If a faction is built the way it is, then people should play it if that's what they want to play. They shouldn't be a jerk about it and should be willing to tone it down if necessary, but I hate that someone says "I play Cryx" or "I like Grey Knights" and they are immediately branded as one of "those guys."

What do you guys think? Do you have a stereotype of players who play a specific faction/class/deck/etc? Have you had to deal with people stereotyping you, even though your choice wasn't made based on brokenness? You've heard my opinion, now let's hear yours!

See you tomorrow!

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