Quote Originally Posted by VeloZer0 View Post
That was my point. Anticipation skill required is reduced, speed and strength required is increased. The technique of throwing and hitting fastballs would also be further refined just by virtue of the fact they are thrown 3 times as often (total guess on the x3, I don't know anything about baseball)
But there's my point. When you remove strategic lairs you make a game less competitive, and far less interesting. You could be the fastest and strongest hitter in the world, but if you can't predict what pitch is coming, recognize it early, and react in time to make contact then you'll never make it as a professional player. If every pitch is a fastball then there is no strategy. And no, refining technique is not strategy. Skill is important, but if that's all their is then a game isn't a good competitive game.

Once again, I say that is a personal choice.
Personal choice in that it's up to you if you want to dumb a game down, but removing viable choices arbitrarily always makes a game less strategic, competitive, and less rich in the experience.

Sure some strategy is eliminated, but I can guarantee that if you knew that every opponent had a battle rifle you would play differently in different situations. When you are adapting your behavior I call that adapting your strategy. I will agree with you that on the whole it probably involves less thinking, but I also put forward that it introduces thinking in a new direction. Also consider that maybe these people aren't playing these FPS games for strategic thinking elements.
Like I said earlier, removing other options will make those you keep more effective in situations that they weren't before. That doesn't mean they weren't viable before, it just means they're moreso now. But that doesn't make the experience any richer. If you were to limit a game to one weapon then every situation becomes one of who can react faster. The only strategy involved would be in predicting where your opponent is and will attack from, and how you'll move in a firefight but those were always part of the game. Again, physical ability isn't the same as strategy, and any time a game is reduced to one or two best strategic options (which will always happen if you reduce the viable options to one or two weapons) makes a game less competitive. In other words, the game is less about skill and more about luck in being the first one to pull the trigger. When said situation exists in a professional gaming situation (which is what I've been talking about) it is undesireable. As far as professional gaming is concerned, there is no reason to reduce the skill involved except to make it easier to win for those who can't cut it when playing the game at a high level.

If a game creator came to me and told me I was playing their game wrong I would tell them to f*** off. To me they are just like a architect who designs a playground (architect seems overly professional for something like that. Or do they just give it to the architectural interns that hey don't like?). Just because you intended for it to be fun a certain way doesn't mean you can claim some self righteous monopoly on how is the best way to enjoy it.
Again, I'm talking about playing a game (whether it's a video game or a sport) in a proessional setting. If all you're doing is changing rules to make the game more fun for you and your friends then go right ahead because no one, not even the creator of the game, is going to give a crap. But if you're playing it in a professional competitive situation, then the best way is the way it was designed, if not because the game offers more strategic layers, then because enforcing arbitrary rules can get messy and needlessly complicate things.