Have you ever "played to lose"?

[AdeptaSororitas]

So when I play a game for a long enough time I tend to get just slightly bored playing to "win", be it single or multiplayer, and I'll start setting fun little challenges for myself, or little personal rules I have to follow. This gets especially fun, at least on multiplayer games, when I set "lose" goals, such as going into a deathmatch on an FPS where I can only use one shot of my gun before reloading, or trying to get the most kills possible whilst still losing the round. Hell, one time I even INTENTIONALLY made a rule where I wouldn't kill the person with the lowest amount of points/the lowest rank.

Has anyone else set these kind of suicidal challenges for yourself, and if so what were they?

Captcha: Foregone conclusion, thats a hell of an omen.

 

[Dr Pussymagnet]

Starcraft 2 is a lot more fun online when you and your friends don't give a shit about winning and instead try to confuse the other team.

 

[MintberryCrunch]

Normally when I get bored, I'll start dicking around in multiplayer games. I have made up implicit kind of rules whilst playing games before, but I can't really remember any specifics.

 

[woodaba]

I used to troll people in Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds by wiping them out down to the last, leaving a single worker alive, building a wall around them, and keeping them there for the rest of the game.

 

[RustlessPotato]

I remember in Counter Strike source a friend and I were getting quite bored and eventually the server swapped one of us in the other team for balance. Usually we would be the only ones left alive, so we always did knife matches. But we made sure we didn't hit eachother. If all-talk was allowed we would always say things like "aaaaah, damn you seem to have missed me again, good sir. Please try again so I can taunt you a second time" and stuff like that. Or just running behind eachother in circles ^^. Every round for 1 minute people would have to watch us dick around xD.

 

[Shuguard]

i thought that was how you were supposed to play dark souls.
I only lose sometimes against my friends to either keep the game going or to make them feel better about beating me.

 

[Lieju]

I played Re4 with all kinds of handicaps, like only using the pistols or the knife.

Often I try to play games without killing anyone if they are too easy or games I've played before.

Not to mention multiplayer games with friends where we'd come up with all kinds of silly rules, especially in something like Super Smash bros melee.
-only using items to attack
-both can choose one item to use, and you're only allowed to attack with it
-only attacking with poke-balls
- 6 lives, both will pick up a poke-ball and use it, and then the one whose pokemon would lose kills themselves
-have 2 people playing the game blindfolded, with both having a team-member who will watch the screen and guide you
-etc

 

[Dahdutcher]

Sometimes.
In fighting games, against my sisters or girlfriend.

But when it comes to Fifa..... I will try and destroy any who opposes me!
Which often causes them to walk away because I tend to get a little bit too fanatic ;x

 

[Lectori Salutem]

I used to do that when playing cod4 split screen with friends (since I always ended up last anyway)
One of them way trying to make as much kills as possible by letting grenades go off while holding them. I also tried surviving as long as possible standing on a car (they explode when shot at)

 

[BlueFishie]

Probably, but I forget any specific examples.

Me and a friend bugged my brother into going "mass nukes" in Starcraft 2, though. He did, and actually won. It was very funny. Must've used more than thirty nukes all in all. Even used the things in base defense. The guy would run his skirmish force away from the nuke, but then there'd already be another nuke coming.

 

[Skoldpadda]

That's how I live my life.

 

[GiglameshSoulEater]

Dwarf fortress: because you can't win and a perfect fortress is boring.
Which is why we players are all pyhcopathic monsters, putting children in rooms with repeating traps (to toughen them up), farming mermaids (to sell the bones), and many, many atrocities.

The tagline of the game is:
Losing is fun.

 

[Bertylicious]

The only person I ever saw play to lose was a friend who didn't want to play monopoly but was outvoted. He played as the bank and then exchanged his starting £1500 for all the small change in the bank. After a few circuits we would land on Old Kent Road and be all "have you got change for a 50? No? And the rent is £2? Daaaaang..."

 

[MetalMagpie]

Not in a video game, but when I was on the university fencing team - if we were winning by miles or just didn't care any more - we'd start playing "Parry Bingo" in the sabre bouts.

The rules are very simple: Before you are allowed to hit your opponent, you have to successfully make all three basic sabre parries (without repeating). Once you've done that, you get one attempt to hit your opponent. Then you start again.

This becomes hilarious if the only parry you have left to get is the top parry, but your opponent refuses to attack to head. One guy on our team (who takes Parry Bingo very seriously) once ended up holding his sword behind him and leaning as far forward as he could in order to tempt his opponent into going for his head (and giving him the final parry).

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Lose on purpose? No, at least, not in any multiplayer game. I think that's insulting towards the opponent. I won't rub it in your face if I do, but I will try to win.

But when playing with friends, we accept handicaps to keep things fun and fair in any case where anyones skill level is noticably higher than the others. Something like 'basic pistol only' or 'melee weapons only' in shooters.

 

[Hazy992]

Does it count if you're griefing?

 

[-Adracko-]

Dwarf fortress: because you can't win and a perfect fortress is boring.
Which is why we players are all pyhcopathic monsters, putting children in rooms with repeating traps (to toughen them up), farming mermaids (to sell the bones), and many, many atrocities.

The tagline of the game is:
Losing is fun.

Ninjas! At least when it comes to Dwarf Fortress I'm glad to have ninjas. Bring on the rampaging Elephants.

 

[GonzoGamer]

In San Andreas, after getting near 100%, I would always come up with weird side missions of my own that usually involved getting a full wanted rating than driving from one point to another on the complete other side of the map. But I played that to death.

I've also played a couple of games of 40K where I'm not really interested in winning but just want it to be a cool and more narrative driven battle. It's easier when you're Orks, Lost and Damned, or some other monster-like army. We even came up with a 3p mode where the 3rd player just plays a bunch of individual characters being hunted down by the other two armies.

 

[DazZ.]

I'm in a ranked League of Legends team that just random locks in champions and goes forth with whatever we're given.

Stupid item builds are also common, our win ratio is 1:1.

 

[Vivi22]

I've certainly placed restrictions on myself before which usually led to me becoming a better player.

In TFC I became really good at sniping from a distance and started getting bored so I stopped using the zoom. Eventually I had become better than I was before because I was still getting headshots, but now I had a much better field of vision. In fact, I'd regularly take out other snipers in little sniper duels without zooming which was kind of funny. When that got old I started attacking as a sniper instead, which also worked quite well since I didn't need to zoom. When TF2 came out I actually couldn't adjust to playing sniper because I was so used to playing without zooming and running into the thick of battle. Not surprisingly, when the Huntsman was released I took to it quite quickly.

And in most other multiplayer FPS I tend to play like I have a death wish because I get bored easily. I rarely stop moving and often charge straight at enemy players. It's lead to developing some pretty impressive shooting skills over time, as well as developing a strong ability to read the way the battle is going and change direction quickly so I can get around opponents or mess with their ability to aim at me (one of the interesting things about playing sniper a lot in TFC and TF2 is that you get really good at predicting other peoples movements making it easier to survive things you shouldn't simply by moving unpredictably. I've actually dodged sniper and other bullets quite successfully in a lot of games by changing direction at the last possible second).

There's also Turok 2. Back in the day I was quite a bit better than everyone I played against so I gradually restricted myself on weapons. First I only used the assault rifle and crossbow, then later just the crossbow. It was interesting because I had to go for headshots to kill someone since they were using rockets, cerebral bores, etc. Unfortunately this backfired because I got very good at headshotting anyone with the crossbow as soon as they entered the screen, and I can't remember ever missing twice in a row. Not long after that people stopped playing with me.

In other games I may often just dick around, but not usually as seriously as those times. Like in CS, I'll often use a scout and try not zooming quite a bit. It's actually not as bad as it sounds once you get a feel for it.