A great example of "terrible people in pro gaming" is this right here. Where a League of Legends pro player was banned from the game because of his toxic behavior.

We had to ban ladders because they were speeding up games too much which lead to too much variance and not enough time for skill to emerge.

true, ladders OP

in my chess club, we rebalanced queens to have a movement range of only 3 on workdays, 5 on weekends.

Nintendo actually has banned pokemon from their official tournamenets too. Here is the current banned list from the upcoming 2012 Winter Battle.

Some of these are either not release Pokemon or unbalance the tournament game too much.

As to what Flare said, I have to laugh at it seeing as there was A) Stat Experience in teh Gen 1 games and B) I am old enough to remember Gen 1 and still love it.

Good to see us having a discussion on this subject. I like what is being said so far.

I am alright with competitive gaming if the game itself lends to good, enjoyable to watch comp play.

Good examples would be Starcraft, MOBAs, fighting games, and people speed running against each other is always good for a laugh

Bad examples would be games ether boring to watch or just does not lend itself all to well to comp play. Like Pokemon, I have no bloody idea why that has a big comp scene besides it being so damn popular. Most of the fights to me are determined on what roids you give your pet and what kinds of pets you bring to the fight and what current top tier meta strat you use. They also exist as factors somewhat in the other games, but there is also high skill involved and they are at least enjoyable to watch even if you are not into the games (I bought Starcraft 2 just from watching it for example.) and I do not see how that works with Pokemon and the whole turn based, not very flashy nature of it.

Terrible pro communties also do not help, especially when games must be only played ONE CERTAIN WAY for pro games, and they panic otherwise (see also "Professional" Smash Bros) and of course how a lot of players are just downright unprofessional toxic jerks in most pro scenes.

Soccer - you know soccer, right? Soccer has been solved. The most effective way to score goals is: Spread your team thin lengthwise across the field, and play long shots. This gets the ball closer to the goal with less effort from the players, so they can conserve their stamina for the tight spots. It's very scientific.

So why don't we see nothing but long balls in every professional game? Because relying on this strategy is considered unsporting. I'm not sure there's any actual rules about it. They just know it'll bore the audience, and a bored audience ultimately costs you money. Nintendo may understand this better than the average pro Pokemon player does.

With this in mind, I understand some things the pro leagues do but not others. Like why can't you play Random Race in Starcraft? This would make parts of the audience literally shit their pants from tension. It would be the mark of a superbly confident player, who not only masters the three races but leaves themselves without a solid preprepared strategy, all just to give their opponent a moment's uncertainty. But I guess everyone would then play random and those who can't would become second rate and obviously that boring, samey pre-game screen is a thing that must be avoided even if it means the resulting game will be boring and samey compared to the any-one-of-nine-different games that could have happened instead.

Everybody on Red Dead Redemption Multiplayer is too good because they've been playing it longer than me.

It is really annoying and hard.

Multiplayer sucks therefore!

Well.

I like Max Payne 3's multiplayer because it's only been out for 8 months or whatever so I can still win sometimes.

Pretty sure you can play random in Pro StarCraft, but nobody does it because it's not viable in the pro circuit. Pro players specialize in a single race because they know the build orders, the timings, the strengths, the weaknesses, and how that race performs in all three matchups (against itself, and against the other two races). For a pro player to be successful at Random, they would have to be successful with every single race, which is absurd (because even the best pro players lose games with their best race). And it won't even give you that much of an edge. It would cause an early scout from your opponent, and then you lose your "advantage" of surprise in 30-60 seconds.

It wouldn't be "play random or be second-rate" it's "play random and become second-rate and boring."

Even the high-ranking ladder players that go random just know the early game rushes of all 3 races. Any time I've played against a random race, they ling rush, ling/roach, cannon rush, 4 gate, rine/marauder rush, or MMM ball. You survive that early assault and you win the game, because they aren't as good with whatever race they end up with as someone who specializes with a single race.

There is a current uproar among the community over the necessity of the dice. I obviously believe only rolls of 6 should be allowed. There are, however, some foolish people who are arguing you should also be allowed 5s- in some token shamanastic worship of the outdated believes of the past.

I thought the whole point of playing C&C online was to be an asshole. They all were set on banning certain factions cause the were "op." Yuri is not that hard to take down.