Do you play rubber? redux

[Phytotron]

[Title references this thread I recalled: http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... f=2&t=6251]

So, I saw this bit of a conversation a bit ago (cut out the player names):

dig-stab.png (4.44 KiB) Viewed 4231 times

What? Can someone explain this nonsense to me?

These are just a couple I've frequently seen since I've been playing a little bit again. What's with all the new, goofy terms?

[TaZ]

[Title references this thread I recalled: http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... f=2&t=6251]

So, I saw this bit of a conversation a bit ago (cut out the player names):

dig-stab.png

What? Can someone explain this nonsense to me?

No.

[gawdzilla]

Anyone else laughing at the fact that when Phytotron doesn't understand something, it's "nonsense"?

I side up with TaZmAnIa, NO!

[Mecca]

Is this a joke? You act so arrogant on these forums, like you know everything, and everyone else is a childish idiot. Now you ask what stabbing and digging is?

Just play tron, or get a life.

[Cosmic Dolphin]

A stab is when you drive straight into someone else's tail to leave a wall there that is very hard to get through. In the stupid loose debate, you can't do this. (And unless those are rules set up by the server admin, don't tell me I can't.)

A dig is where you "dig" into someone else's wall be getting a higher rubber than they did when they went into a tail. This means you can now just glide through their wall. A great survival method that can be used as an attack to people behind you. (And is again, hated by loose players. Don't knock others for doing it unless there are rules against it at the server you are on.)

[teen]

Phytotron did you quote Player 9?

[Phytotron]

Cosmic Dolphin made the point I was trying to get at (even if he didn't realise it). These are but two of a slew of new terms made up only in the last couple years where terms already existed. (Albeit, I wasn't clear which was supposed to be what, and still neither really concerns me. Anytime you ask someone in the game, however, you get responses similar to those in this thread. "LOL! STFU noob!")

Stab = pure grind
Dig = beating a grind

[Mecca]

Cosmic Dolphin made the point I was trying to get at (even if he didn't realise it). These are but two of a slew of new terms made up only in the last couple years where terms already existed. (Albeit, I wasn't clear which was supposed to be what, and still neither really concerns me. Anytime you ask someone in the game, however, you get responses similar to those in this thread. "LOL! STFU noob!")

Stab = pure grind
Dig = beating a grind

The terms are not really new. They were not really needed until high rubber and df became more popular.

Your definition of a stab is a little off as well. Stabbing is like going at the wall, running into it, and then doing a 180 off of it. Like you stabbed it with a knife, in and out.

Dig does not necessarily mean you are beating a grind. It's more like repeatedly going into the wall in attempt to beat a grind or create a stronger grind.

[Phytotron]

Those aren't my definitions; they're Cosmic Dolphin's. I don't know what the definitions are; they're meaningless blabber to me. But that leads to the second point: the lack of agreement on what these terms mean, which is amusing considering how frequently and vehemently they're thrown around. "You f'n gay noob stabber/digger! You don't even know what dig or stab are! Oh, but neither do we."

Now, the way you describe "stab" is presumably still a pure grind, it's just followed by 180ing away. That's an old, old move. One I never much used as I didn't really see the point (even during my flirtation with DB), but nowadays still get that word flung at me for simply grinding and making a good seal on someone. It also doesn't gibe with the sort of usage I quoted in my original post. How is "stab" a type of rubber?

As for your description of "dig," I've long seen that behaviour too. Used to just call it frantic, repeated 180-grinds and adjusts. Then around the time I quit playing I noticed the term "ironing" had started to come up. Whatever it's called, it's nevertheless garbage. And still, how is it a type of rubber?

I'm not alone in expressing the goofy confoundedness of all this, or in finding it amusing (if in a sort of morbid, banal, annoying way). I've been having this sort of discussion with other 'older' players as well, all of us wonder, "what the hell is with all these new words? what are they all supposed to mean? what's the point? it means what? really? isn't that just such-and-such? that's dumb."

[Mecca]

Those aren't my definitions; they're Cosmic Dolphin's. I don't know what the definitions are; they're meaningless blabber to me. But that leads to the second point: the lack of agreement on what these terms mean, which is amusing considering how frequently and vehemently they're thrown around. "You f'n gay noob stabber/digger! You don't even know what dig or stab are! Oh, but neither do we."

Now, the way you describe "stab" is presumably still a pure grind, it's just followed by 180ing away. That's an old, old move. One I never much used as I didn't really see the point (even during my flirtation with DB), but nowadays still get that word flung at me for simply grinding and making a good seal on someone. It also doesn't gibe with the sort of usage I quoted in my original post. How is "stab" a type of rubber?

As for your description of "dig," I've long seen that behaviour too. Used to just call it frantic, repeated 180-grinds and adjusts. Then around the time I quit playing I noticed the term "ironing" had started to come up. Whatever it's called, it's nevertheless garbage. And still, how is it a type of rubber?

I have no idea what you mean by 'How is a stab a type of rubber?'

In HR the term 'dig' was not used as a complaint or anything, it was just the term for the repeated 180s or repeated 90s into a wall (you get what I mean), since digging is used so often in HR.

I also have no idea what version of tron was out when HR started to pick up, but wasn't it around 2004-5ish??? Which means df followed shortly after??? (I may be wrong)

Anyways, I think the addition of df to tron (the worst addition besides racing) really morphed the definition of stabbing.

[F0RC3]

from what i understand is that stabbing is basically hitting a wall and staying on it in order to get a deeper grind and digging is hitting a wall a wall and double binding back and forth in order to get a deep grind. atleast thats the best i can explain it.

[compguygene]

Let me explain a little better the way that the very small HR community views these things nowadays. No existing HR server that is actually used has "arbitrary rules" on how to play.

Digs are a very tight double bind to seal in another player that will not be able to "dig" into a wall of a trap that you have made to not die. Stabs are very quick single binds where the cycle goes back and forth so quickly that you appear to be "stabbing" the lightcycle into a wall with the goal that a person following will be trapped by the "stab". To accommodate a balance of people being able to dig and stab, you have to make adjustments to cycle_rubber_mind_distance to make it possible. Stabbing and Digging are to skills that HR players teach each other.
Another good example of a dig would be this. One night Zurd and I went into a server that he runs and set BUG_WALL_RIP 1 and played with the CYCLE_RUBBER_MINDISTANCE, CYCLE_RUBBER, and CYCLE_SPEED, to optimize the ability of the 4 HR players in the server to rip the wall and travel outside of the arena. Surprisingly, the server only crashed once, but automatically reset itself! Of course, the server did need to be reset when were done playing!

[Phytotron]

[Typed this up after Mecca's last reply, and before Gene and forc3.]

Look at the first post. The guy asks how the rubber works, "is it dig or stab?" That and other usages I've seen indicate that some people categorise rubber "type" by those terms.

Yeah, I know not all players use "dig" as a complaint, but like I said, I avoid high rubber servers where that sort of behaviour is accepted and celebrated. In other servers where "open" gangsters run around, it is a complaint (one of many), as Cosmic noted.

As for timing, I know 'HR' had already gained popularity by 0.2.7.1, and was further facilitated by the messed up rubber functionality in that version. (As you'll recall, in that version the "pure grind" basically disappeared. One could use up all his rubber on a single hard grind, but some fool could come along and easily beat it with a few half-assed 180s or adjusts, so that took off as a tactic. Fortunately, that got mostly corrected with 0.2.8.x, but unfortunately the associated gameplay remained.) But I don't recall ever seeing these terms until after 0.2.8.x had been around a little while, and shortly before or maybe even a bit after I quit playing, around mid-2006. Yes, around the same time "open" and all these other gameplay types/rules/whatever started coming about, which also coincided with a major shift in the player community/culture, I think every bit as related.

[Phytotron]

Cosmic Dolphin
Stab: pure grind
Dig: beating a grind

Mecca
Stab: pure grind with a 180 away
Dig: repetitive 180-grinds and/or adjusts

forc3
Stab: pure grind
Dig: repetitive 180-grinds

Gene
Dig: repetitive 180-grinds
Stab: repetitive adjusts (if I'm understanding his description)

Amusing.

You can still rip a server?

[Mecca]

Stabbing and Digging are to skills that HR players teach each other.

I am not an animal.


@ Phytotron: Now I see what you mean. I have been in some servers where just a pure grind or stab seems to work better than digging.