Why try hard is an insult

[kongajinken]

A lot of people don't get what a try hard is, or why it could possibly be a bad thing to be called that. So hope this helps.

A try hard is someone that is trying harder than someone else wants to try. While at first this seems innocent enough after a closer inspection this creates a few huge problems for both parties.

The whole reason a try hard is a negative word is because casuals that just wanted to relax or play the game casually are getting yelled at or directed to follow things that the try hard is telling the casual to do. This creates the word ?try hard? which actually implies that the person isn?t a horribly person for trying their best, but is trying way too hard in the situation at hand. Like a pro football player playing their best against a group of 6th graders is a try hard. This stems from the situation directly.

Starting off with a few examples, when?s the last time you played chess with a few friends? For a lot of people a game of chess is only about 20 minutes. If you try and think your moves out, your friend more than likely told you to ?hurry up? (with much more profanity). While if you were to play at a pro tournament level, you might have 6 hours to play the entire game. The difference between these two games is that one is a more casual game, and one is a lot more centered on winning and testing one?s skill. While both scenarios are justifiable ways to play a game of chess. This leads to certain outcomes that creates bad situations for both parties if they were to mix.

Say you just wanted to play a casual game, you wouldn?t want to play in a tournament, screw that. ?IF? you were to play against a person playing like a tournament, you would be probably be crushed and annoyed that the person is taking forever to play. You play the game, you didn?t have fun, you leave angry and unsatisfied.

Say you wanted to play at a tournament level, you don?t want to relax, you want to test your skills. ?IF? you were to play against a casual, the opponent isn?t taking the game seriously, so you crush them horribly without much effort. You might feel good that you crushed such an easy opponent, but let?s see how this plays out in a different type of game, notably League of legends.

This situation is uniquely different in a few places, firstly, the rules for where to play a casual match are less defined, and now both parties have team mates, sometimes with each other.
The casual thinks that bots is for screwing around with friends, normal games is for screwing around with friends against real people, and ranked is for all those try hards. The try hard is taking the game more seriously, they might think that bots is for practicing one?s skills for the real game, normal games are for champions you know, but need time to test some things against real people, and ranked is where everyone is trying their best.

What has happened is both parties are set up to hate each other. The casual doesn?t really want anything to do with a competitive game, so when they run bots, the try hard is telling them to practice as if this were a real game, but they don?t give a crap, ?dude it?s just bots, chill out? (with much more profanity).

You have ranked, where the casual gamer doesn?t ever go, for they don?t really care, but the ?try hards? are trying their best against each other, and probably having some good games, minus a few bad apples.

When they play in normal games together this is where most of the problems stem from and where try hard gets its real meaning as a negative term. I?ll keep things simple and only present four different scenarios.

One is where a casual is on a team with casuals. The opponent doesn?t really matter, they aren?t really playing to win, no one followed the meta (correct set up for greatest chance at winning), and no one cares. Either they win and they celebrate or they lose and are sad.

Two is where a try hard is on a team with try hards. Once again the opponent doesn?t really matter, they all follow the meta, whether they win or lose, they are happy or sad.

Three is where problems start arising. A casual is on a team with a try hard, and they don?t follow the meta because they just wanted to play the game as Ashe, it doesn?t fit well with the team, but they just wanted to play a match as Ashe, not someone else. The try hard gets angry because they are not following the meta, this creates a problem before the game even starts. Most notably, this is where you will first hear the casual say, ?shut up you try hard?. During the game this doesn?t get better, the casual isn?t last hitting because they just want to hit a few people and wait for mid game because that?s where all the funs at. The try hard is pissed at the casual because they are not only playing a bad class, but are doing poorly, they yell at the casual to go mid because they are in trouble of losing a tower. The casual says ?it?s just a game you try hard? (with much more profanity). This continues for the rest of the game.

Four is the same problem, except now a try hard is on a team with a casual. The try hard picks a class that is well suited to fit the team, they go tank jungle because no one else picked that class, and it creates the best situation to win. Followed thereafter by the casual picking Ashe, to which the try hard is now furious because that pick alone is horrible, and proceeds to let the casual know that. The casual tells the try hard, ?shut up I don?t care?, and now the try hard is angry to start. The game starts, the try hard lets the casual go where ever, and just kind of hopes that they can make up for the casual being a bad choice by making plans to help attack the casual?s lane and carrying them. The casual has never played Ashe before, so is making fundamentally basic Ashe play mistakes. The try hard is furious and yells at the casual to stop making those, the casual responds with ?it?s my first time bro lay off?, the try hard responds with ?than you should be playing against bots for practice?. And thus once again the situation is toxic for both parties involved.

In short, the reason that a try hard is meant to be taken as a negative term is because the person in a given situation is not supposed to be trying so hard. If you have a back yard football game with your family, and your uncle is trying his best against you and your grandpa, like ripping the ball outta your grandpa?s hands or not passing to your 6 year old niece because she can?t catch, your uncle is a try hard. It?s not an insult for trying too hard, it?s an insult for someone that is trying so hard to the detriment of their fellow players.

 

[Reiper]

When I played league of legends I often encountered the typical "try hard", someone telling me what character to pick, what lane to go in and what to build.
It was funny because they would try to tell me what to do like they could actually make me do it, and then they would flip out like children when I didn't. It is one of the things that made doing things like AP Yi / AP xin or AD kennen / AD malzahar so fun

 

[DementedSheep]

Yep. How I understood the insult is it's when someone is taking something very seriously and overly is competitive in situation when that's not really appropriate or others are just having fun (though you get people who just call anyone who beats them that). So like your example, the people who yell or flame (not just casually give the odd tip or make themselves as good possible) those not having optimal builds or not playing "correctly" in random team matches in a game. If you want a serous game randomised team matches is not place to go for it. You're just going to annoy people and get annoyed because a lot of people there are new, just messing around with whatever is fun or trying things out (note: Someone who doesn't try at all also bad. It's people on the extreme ends that are the problem here. You don't have to be optimal but should be contributing in a team match even with low stakes). Structured team matches with you recruiting and organising your team before hand or tournament/ranked is where you go if you want a serious match with people min maxing and using proven tactics. There is a reason many multi-player games have these as separate modes.
Another slightly different version of is when someone is trying to be "cool" and ends up being a buzz kill. Like gong to themed party and then remarking on how silly and lame everything is all the time and making a show of not getting involved.

 

[Windcaler]

So basicly what youre saying is there needs to be a space for competitive players and for casual players? Thats something Ive been saying for years. In the case of LoL and some other moba style games its called competitive mode. Yet they still need a place to practice and rival competitive teams arent always available for a practice match.

Then we get into a situation with FPS and private servers. First lets make something clear Private servers are essentially private clubs. A sever owner or their moderators have every right to remove you if you dont play by their rules. If you are playing by the server rules and you get kicked then their badmins, thats all there is to it. That said, when I ran my battlefield 3 server we were a team based objective focused server. You PTFO'd (play the fucking objective) the whole time or you werent going to be there very long. This created tense knockout drag out games where every small victory felt like a massive win and that was exactly what I wanted on my server. I encouraged other players with like minded goals to join us and have a great time. There were, for lack of a better word, casual gamers that would come in and goof off and usually we would be nice and tell them what we expected but if they didnt start playing the objectives we kicked them and logged it. The few returning players that continued their "casual" style were banned after several kicks. Ultimately we created a server that was all about hard fought close games and where tactical gameplay was king. We were called try hards for that on occassion but that a compliment. I was trying hard to build the kind of server that was a dying breed (it still is in a way) and I was always trying to win every match and make every game nail bitingly close. To this day I encourage all players to do the same

If someone wants to make a goof off server, tournament, or what have you theyre free to do that stuff and Ill choose not to play there. I would even go so far as to say there should be "win focused" and "casual focused" game modes or other multiplayer games but how would you even regulate that?.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

Hmmm... if terminology was going to be used like that, couldn't someone have attempted to popularize a better grammatically sounding title?

Why.. not... " Stop being an E-Jock! " or " WTF is the matter with you --- you Funpire "

" You Try Hard!". I donno. It would leave me more or less going... " Wha?"


Fun Cop?

Competahoe? ( If you want to get snarky about it..)

Scoregor?

I think we can all do better than Try Hard.

 

[Albino Boo]

I don't thinks it unreasonable to expect that if you play a team game that you play as part of a team. There and plenty of single player games available were your fun doesn't come at the expense of other peoples enjoyment. If you signed up to play a double tennis match, the other player would expect you to play tennis. Just because something is online is not different.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

Well I for one know when I got into Halo Reach multiplayer way late in the game that if you didn't know what you were doing, you were just going to get either kicked out or harrassed ( I cut off the mic et al).

I mean you do see it all the time. You have a newbie team and then you have this one guy that's been playing for years, screaming and yelling then rage-quitting, hoping to get on the opposing team. Or there is like that clump of 4 players whom you can hear bashing the entire place.

I often wondered. Well damn if you are all so freaken super experts...why aren't you in the " I am a God of FPS Matches" forum, idolizing each others e-muscles and smacking each other's e-butts in a utopia of FPS narcissism where every shot never misses and your kill rate is one death to 20,000 kills.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The problem with this perspective is that it's really no fun for a "try hard" to be playing with more casual players either. If you've chosen to play a competitive game where the goal of the game is to win then the "try hard" is really, in essence, the one who's actually playing the game "right." Of course, you can certainly have fun with a more casual approach and that's perfectly fine, but it's not wrong for a player to play a competitive game with a more competitive mindset regardless of who they are playing with/against.

 

[kongajinken]

snip

I actually always like this sort of system. Back in the day I would definitely have certain servers I would prefer playing on, and it was a really good set up. Heck even if sometimes if I wanted to play to win, or play for the heck of it, I could just change servers. Works out really well for all involved.

 

[Doom972]

I've been called a try-hard when playing TF2. I used to be called cheater whenever I dominated a server, but since it wasn't actually an insult (just a false accusation), I guess they had to make "you're playing better than me" sound like an insult.

Personally, I think that it's people who don't try who make games boring and repetitive. If people want to play with other people who don't want to "try hard", then all I can suggest is making private games with friends who want the same.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

Well there is where the problem is. Everyone basically is staking a claim that their version of play belongs in the said servers and that if one isn't in any of those stated groups, one should find a closed/private session to play.

Casualites vs Competities. Sounds like a knock-off of Tribes.

I do believe that's a cop out. Simply crying that someone is better than you is just sad. If anyone dominates the field, simply falling back on blatant accusations of cheating is probably the worst kind of behavior that warrants to be upon the 10 Commandment Tablet of Game Sportsmanship.

And maybe that is what is at the end of the day, sportsmanship. We can't just say... Well such and so played better and therefore that is why were dying anytime we attempted to attack. We got to say " Oh well he probably hacked himself an edge. He or She is a cheater! Ban! Kick them out!"

That's called being a whiny @#$@#$@#$.

 

[PonceyMcTosserFaic]

Well I for one know when I got into Halo Reach multiplayer way late in the game that if you didn't know what you were doing, you were just going to get either kicked out or harrassed ( I cut off the mic et al).

I mean you do see it all the time. You have a newbie team and then you have this one guy that's been playing for years, screaming and yelling then rage-quitting, hoping to get on the opposing team. Or there is like that clump of 4 players whom you can hear bashing the entire place.

I often wondered. Well damn if you are all so freaken super experts...why aren't you in the " I am a God of FPS Matches" forum, idolizing each others e-muscles and smacking each other's e-butts in a utopia of FPS narcissism where every shot never misses and your kill rate is one death to 20,000 kills.

and you'd know they would throw every bad excuse under the sun to try to discount the one death XD

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

Poncey --- Yep! You got it.

" Oh --- the controller snagged and I couldn't defend my self"

" My hot girlfriend just stepped out of the steaming shower and I wasn't paying attention!"

" MY cat/dog leaped onto the console and put its paw on the power button "

" Power outage. Storm!" ( During a 10 day dry spell)

" The pizza delivery came but it turned out to be a Rhianna look-a-like and I lost track of time"

 

[Little Gray]

The problem with this perspective is that it's really no fun for a "try hard" to be playing with more casual players either. If you've chosen to play a competitive game where the goal of the game is to win then the "try hard" is really, in essence, the one who's actually playing the game "right." Of course, you can certainly have fun with a more casual approach and that's perfectly fine, but it's not wrong for a player to play a competitive game with a more competitive mindset regardless of who they are playing with/against.

But it is wrong, especially when they start telling others how to play the game. There is a time and a place for a crazy competitive mindset and its not in a public CoD match or silver league of LoL.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The problem with this perspective is that it's really no fun for a "try hard" to be playing with more casual players either. If you've chosen to play a competitive game where the goal of the game is to win then the "try hard" is really, in essence, the one who's actually playing the game "right." Of course, you can certainly have fun with a more casual approach and that's perfectly fine, but it's not wrong for a player to play a competitive game with a more competitive mindset regardless of who they are playing with/against.

But it is wrong, especially when they start telling others how to play the game. There is a time and a place for a crazy competitive mindset and its not in a public CoD match or silver league of LoL.

Eh, it's still possible that they are wanting to learn how to play themselves and find themselves wanting to get better in a less punishing environment. Expecting and trying to help your team play as a team and complete objectives in an objective based team game is not wrong. The way they communicate is important, though, and that's often where the fault lies. If you go into a team based objective focused game and just have the objective of screwing around or not really trying then maybe should find a way to play the game in a way that guarantees you'll be playing with other players who have the same goal. Or, of course, maybe you're playing the wrong game altogether.

 

[happyninja42]

Eh, it's still possible that they are wanting to learn how to play themselves and find themselves wanting to get better in a less punishing environment.

Well I guess if they want to be good enough to play in the more punishing environment, which lets be honest, that's what they want, then they should Try Harder and actually play on that level. That's what the ladder/ranked settings are for, they're for the people who want to devote a lot of time/energy/effort/emotion into playing the game. Random public games, to assume, and expect that level of interest is just unrealistic. And quite frankly, it's sort of insulting on the part of the Try Hard. Nobody gave the Try Hard the "I'm in charge" hat, yet they frequently act like they are, and then get mad when the other players rightfully tell him to piss off, chill out, or shut up and just play his lane/role/whatever, and to stop telling them how to have fun.

Expecting and trying to help your team play as a team and complete objectives in an objective based team game is not wrong.

This is not exclusive to Try Hards at all, not by a long shot. A desire to have teamwork is pretty universal. Having a level of investment at the level of a Try Hard is something else entirely, and the level of emotional toxicity as well.

The way they communicate is important, though, and that's often where the fault lies. If you go into a team based objective focused game and just have the objective of screwing around or not really trying then maybe should find a way to play the game in a way that guarantees you'll be playing with other players who have the same goal. Or, of course, maybe you're playing the wrong game altogether.

No, no no no. Sorry you don't get to tell me to stop playing a game I like, because I don't obesess over it at the level of a Try Hard. You don't get to mandate how/when/where I play my games. I paid for my game just like you, or I'm playing it free just like you. I'll play the game how I like, and to hell with you (the plural you) for trying to dictate my game time. You speak like it's the priviledge of the Try Hard that everyone should play at his level. Fuck that. You mention how I should play in a way that guarantees I only play with other casuals...you mean like random public matches? Why would a Try Hard even expect anything other than a random level of investment into the game in a random public venue? Is he expecting everyone to play like its Ranked/Ladder mode? Yes? Why? Because we're not playing ranked/ladder mode, it's a public/general/casual room. You want your Try Hard level of dedication, then go play in the areas more guaranteed to provide your level of investment, namely Ranked/Ladder matches. You don't get to declare that random pug's must play at your level, or we should just stop playing the game. That's just nuts.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I think we can all do better than Try Hard.

I was going to say the same thing. It just sounds off and kinda... well, shit really. How about endeavouringEgos? WileyWankers? Naz...er...nymphoid choad nibblers?

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

I like that Xsjad... " E-Wankers" That might work

 

[Fishyash]

Before I start I'll say that I always thought "try hards" were not of people with a competitive mindset, but rather people with an ego, or players who focus on the wrong things and mistakenly think they're good while losing to "worse players". You know - the CoD kids who focus on quickscoping rather than map awareness and teamwork, or the Street Fighter scrubs who learn convoluted combos and setups yet still try to initiate the neutral game by jumping in. Obviously I was wrong.

Anyway, here's my take on it. It goes both ways. Purposely playing casually against a more competitive player can deny that player of enjoyment too.

In a 1v1 situation, when a clearly better player is playing against a weaker player, he is under no obligation whatsoever to hold back, just like the weaker player is under no obligation to try their hardest. The goal of the game is to win, so if either player isn't trying to win they are not playing the game. Obviously, only trolls would flat out NOT play to win (that is to say, not play the game), so the issue is that some people put more effort in winning than others. In no way whatsoever is either player obligated to rein back or bolster their efforts to win the game.

The better player could be benevolent and purposely play worse, but for me personally case, unless I am doing it to taunt my opponent I am actually sacrificing my enjoyment of the game for the sake of my opponent. I will only do this for friends, and this is only because discouraging friends from playing with me is even less enjoyable. Ideally I would love to go all-out, and give my opponent the satisfaction of improving and eventually getting to play at my level. I know a friend where I have to hold back, and a friend where I can go all-out, and I generally prefer playing with the latter. I don't like feeling obligated to hold back just because I'm better at a game than someone, just like you don't like feeling obligated to play more seriously just because you're not as good at a game than someone.

Now onto team-based games. What most people don't realise is that team morale is a very important thing. Insulting your teammates because they did something wrong (especially if you don't know them) will generally lower morale, and will make them play worse. In that case, insulting your teammates because you're better than them isn't a winning tactic. You're just trying to show off some weird superiority to your teammates, essentially whining. Essentially you're not trying to win, you're being an asshole. Good players will take an active role in communication, and one form of active communication is some good ol' DST. I mean, that on top of calling MIA, planning moves, timing dragon etc..

Of course some people say that competitive players "play to win", and casual players "play for fun". As I said, unless you're a troll, you are playing to win, and the reason you play a game is for pleasure, or fun. This may sound controversial, but maybe the "try hards" are having more fun in that game than you are? I'm not saying you have to be good at the game to have fun, but surely they spend more time in the game than you do, put more effort into understanding the game than you do, and end up ultimately being better at the game than you do, precisely [/i]because[/i] they enjoy the game more?

I mean, at least I will admit that. My skill level at a game, in the long-run that is, is directly related to how much I enjoy it. In Street Fighter IV I got my butt whooped online like 500 times before I felt like I really understood the game. I do like the game a lot, so I wouldn't have it any other way. On the other hand, in Warcraft III, I found the game fun so I tried the online play. I got steamrolled in that too but I simply didn't like the game enough to get better at the game, so I stuck to single player and eventually stopped. Neither way of playing is less valid than each-other, but I certainly liked SF4 more.

By the way, any analogies to sports is (IMO) flawed because there isn't a single game anywhere near as complex as a sport is, let alone skill-gap. Generally no matter how big the skill gap between two players are in a videogame, as long as both players are civil and have a healthy mindset both players can play the way they want to.

TLR; There may be flaws to "try hard" play, but there are also flaws to casual play. OP, I like the idea behind your post, so I decided to contribute my take on the issue.

 

[sanquin]

In the case of league of legends, the 'try hard' is kind of right, imo. I'm a casual gamer myself, but at the very least if you go into a normal game, you should know some basics. The game is about winning against the other team. Sure, bots are for practice. But normal, to me, is for intermediate players that have gotten the basics down. Now, not playing the meta or not going with the right items still shouldn't be a problem here imo. As a normal game is unranked for a reason. But at the very least you should know which skills to use, the general idea of the item types you need, and what you're supposed to do. No need for strict tactics-based gameplay, but know the basics!