Apr 16th 2014, 15:51:13
Originally posted by LATC:
Isn't complaining about topfeeding like complaining about the 76ers shooting only 3 pointers and doing hard intentional fouls to try to get back into the game? High risk high reward when you're already down.. Should a team eliminated from the playoffs just roll over and let the top seed beat them to clinch the conference title?
The analogy is bad. Really bad.
1. You're talking about a spectator sport. A sport with a high number of viewers, generates revenue, and players receives sponsorships from various companies. Even if you want to roll over and let the top seed win, you can't, because you are obligated to give your fans and viewers who paid for tickets a good show. If you don't, sponsorships might cease, and a player's livelihood might disappear.
In contrast, EE is not a spectator sport, someone can't watch from the sidelines and comment on how every single turn is spent wisely or unwisely. Not only that, nobody makes any money out of playing EE, let alone make a living solely from playing EE.
People roll over all the time. Try taking part in any online (or offline) Swiss tournament in any game, lots of people pull out midway when they realize they cannot finish in the top 4 or top 8. It happens with any non-spectator sport. Nobody wants to waste their own time. There is no spectators, there is no sponsoring company or contract to satisfy, and there are no prizes outside of the top few. Might as well go home and practice more or do something else.
But to deliberately sabotage someone else because you cannot finish well (by topfeeding), that's bad sportsmanship. I'm not saying all topfeeding is deliberate sabotage - some are, some are not, but it can be bad sportsmanship when it is deliberate. Some players have this "If can't do it, I will ensure nobody else can either" attitude.
2. In those sports, it is possible for an underdog that is behind to clinch several wins in a row and make a comeback. In EE, if you are behind, lets say you are 20k land right now, and there are 46 countries bigger than you (> 20k land), there is no way you can still finish t5 or t10. None. No matter how you topfeed, there is no reasonable chance you can make a comeback and win the server by topfeeding.
As explained before, topfeeding is a way to get ahead when you are severely behind. But it only gets you so far. Maybe to top 20 at best, you have to bottomfeed from that point onwards. From a netting standpoint, it is not ideal nor a good move to ever topfeed if a player's goal is to finish as high as possible, even from a "severely behind" position. (Retals are fine.) If you are behind, you bottomfeed even harder to get ahead. You'll get better results every time from bottomfeeding from a mathematical standpoint, because eating retals (from topfeeding) is _extremely_ costly.