Talk:Rush (video games)

Rewrite of "Culture" Section?
This may simply be my personal stylistic bias showing through, but it seems that the "Culture" section of this page, while interesting, needs to be cleaned up, possibly to the point of a total rewrite. For example:

In RTS-games that have been played for a long time, anti-rush strategies are usually developed, causing most rushes to become more of an attempt at early pressure rather than a direct attempt to win the game, though the latter still sometimes occurs.

''In the Age of Empires series, sometimes, certain rules are applied in which the players are forbidden to rush before reaching a certain age period. Such rules are simply a mutual understanding between players. In the latest RTS-games, the developer made rushing an almost futile strategy. This was done by strengthening the settlement by further fortifying it with projectiles and, in some other cases, with towers. Another change was to make the villagers stronger; attacking the villagers with weak units was no longer a profitable business.''

I may give it a shot later, but I just wanted to bring it up in case anyone felt like beating me to the punch. Jonny-mt 18:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Translation made
I translated this page to fr:wikipedia and added some elements. Thank you for your job :) --Meithal

Redirect from "Zerg Rush"
should not "zerg rush" be redirected to "zergling rush"?

Possible Racist Bias
In StarCraft, the rush is often accompanied by chat that includes East Asian-style Internet lingo such as "kekeke" and East Asian-style emoticons such as "^__^"; this is indicative of StarCraft's popularity in South Korea.

This sounds borderline racist ---172.185.53.67 03:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)Anon

Anything can be construed as racist if a person wants to see racism there badly enough. It's not racist. StarCraft IS immensely popular in South Korea (even today), and the "kekeke zerg rush" meme did originate from Korean players. teh TK 02:21, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

a soft cackle? Mallerd (talk) 12:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Harassment
Ive added a harassment section, since harassment is more widely excepted than rushing, and also covers lots.

The Fighting Game examples.
Perhaps this section should be reworked, at least in the examples column. It seems to be merely listing main characters, and I would disagree with some of the list, especially since many of the character recur throughout their series of games, enduring drastic changes in gameplay and reworkings of moves and tiers, making it impossible to consistently maintain a single strategy. I would especially disagree that Ryu (Street Fighter) fits the profile, and in a lot of other cases, we seem to be confusing rushdown strategy with lockdown or pressure games. Either way, I'm calling for a revamp of the entire section, and I'll work on it when I've had some sleep. -- Digital Watches 08:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Zerg Rush merging with Tank Rush
I don't think this is accurate. A zerg (or more accurately a Zergling rush) is mobbing the enemy with massive amounts of cheap units early in the game. A tank rush is a different technique altogether, involving overwhelming power in the form of large numbers of high-end, expensive units.


 * I don't mind the 2 being merged together, as long as they are strongly contrasted. Tank Rush, Carrier Rush, etc. is basically the opposite of a Zerg Rush.  They are both effective offensive strategies, but other then that they are opposite.  I'd say the spectrum goes Zerg Rush,  Rush,  Tank Rush,  Turtling,  Walling Up,  Delaying Game.  Mathiastck 15:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see any reason to merge, they are different tactics as Mathiastck said. I will 'be bold' and get rid of the template, seeing as there seems no reason to leave it there...feel free to put it back if someone has an argument for the merger.Darkcraft 12:51, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You guys are confusing "tank rush" and "mass tanks" in context of StarCraft. "Tank rush" means you build minimal marines and go straight for tanks. You can tank rush with 2 tanks. "Mass tanks" is what you were saying "involving overwhelming power". --Voidvector 22:54, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

chess gambit
how is it a good analogy with rush? how?

Rainbow Six Vegas
The article mentions Rainbow Six Vegas using the "Realistic" difficulty setting to prevent Rushing. However this only applies during single player and co-op, not multiplayer deathmatch. The "Realistic" setting only applies to NPCs, and has no bearing on other players.

The effect described is actually to counter the StormTrooper Effect.

Article should be split
This article is trying to describe two different tactics/strategies in gaming. One is act of "being the first". The other is the act of "massing units". Those two are distinct concepts in most video games. While they do play hand in hand in most games, distinction needs to be drawn. --Voidvector 13:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * How about it gets sourced so it won't be deleted, then we talk about a split? David Fuchs ( talk  ) 13:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree, unless circumstances change. Massing units, and massing units first, are not all that different in concept. I don't think you could create two articles without overlapping the content. Moreover, the word "rush" is, in fact, used interchangeably in practice. Unless you can demonstrate convincingly that we need 2 articles, I really doubt it is going to happen. So I'm removing the tag, as it's been a few months and no one has offered a basis for the split. Ham Pastrami (talk) 15:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Goblin Tactics
Can anyone support the term Goblin Tactics? It is only mentioned at the top of the article and I personally have never heard this used. I can see where the connection between some lore sets goblins and zerg may be logical but unless anyone can confirm the use of the term it probably shouldn't be mentioned in a culture article like this one. ASA-IRULE 22:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Sections
I have merged most of the content on this page to 3 sections based on 3 main genres of games: RTS, FPS, and Online RPG. I used Online RPG because "rush" can apply to both MMO and non-MMO RPGs. In addition, I have ordered the sections as RTS, FPS, and then Online RPG because I believe that reflects the "rush" history development best. --Voidvector 00:02, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The Dark Templar in StarCraft
Shouldn't the Dark Templar be added to the Harrassing or Raiding section? Its cloaking ability is similar to the "Wind Walk" ability, and it has a pretty good damage meaning it can effectively destroy enemy production units (i.e. the Probe, the Drone, the SCV...) .PRhyu 12:54, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Article name
The disambiguation for this article is not correct. A rush is not a "computer or video game". The disambig tag should be something like "(tactic)" or similar. Also the usage of the word seems more heavily weighted toward a verb, which means we should be using the -ing form, i.e. Rushing (tactic), since we are describing mainly the act of rushing and not so much the word rush itself. I will leave it to you folks to decide what to do, but I think some change is needed. Ham Pastrami (talk) 06:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Mammoth tank rush?
I'm quite sure that in Command and Conquer 3, GDI players generally rush Pitbulls, not Mammoths— because by the time you had the time and technology to build Mammoths, the time for rushing (see definition) has passed, and it would be called "steamrolling".-- KelvinHO Wiknerd ( talk ) 03:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC) KelvinHO Wiknerd ( talk )
 * I agree. Massing the unit on the other end of the technology tree can be overwhelming, but not due to its speed. --Kiz o r  10:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Rushing and spammming
Strictly speaking rushing is a special case (early game, low tech) of spammimg, which is the use of a large number of similar units - e.g. Vampire Lords in Heroes of Might and Magic III (a TBS!), Amazon Knights in Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, Slashers / Samsons in Total Annihilation. IMO it would be useful to make Rush (computer and video games) and Spam (video gaming term) support each other as much as possible, to mimimise duplication and make room in each article for more content that is specific to each article. Philcha (talk) 10:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That's true, the use of a Death Knight and Ghouls in Warcraft 3 was what I was thinking off. By the way, I don't understand how you can see Vampire lords early game and low tech. Perhaps the vampire estate can be purchased early, but to make vampire lords (spam)effective you need a lot of them. That is hard to do, in early stages of the game. Mallerd (talk) 12:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Merge "Tank rush" into "Rush (computer and video games)"
I've proposed that Tank rush should be merged into Rush (computer and video games). Please comment at Talk:Tank rush. Philcha (talk) 10:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

?
"The alternatives to rushing are turtling and economic boom. These have a rock-paper-scissors relationship: a rush beats a boom, a boom beats a turtle, and a turtle beats a rush"

A turtle can't beat a rush, especially a rush that is early in the game. There are often weak defenses against formidable units. Mallerd (talk) 00:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the truth is that it's dangerous to generalise. Games vary, for example many reviews said that Total Annihilation: Kingdoms makes early game rushes harder than in most RTS games. And maps vary - rushing (or preparing as if to rush, just in order to defend against a rush) is often almost mandatory on small maps, but may be economic suicide on large maps as the intended victim has time to get in a little economic development first then build units and / or structures to hold off the rush. And chokepoints can enable a small defensive force to hold off a more numerous rushing force.
 * "Boom" is also not the term I'd have chosen, but "economic development and expansion", although perhaps more accurate, is less concise. Philcha (talk) 01:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That's true. I have played warcraft 3 and frozen throne, company of heroes, age of mythology, praetorians, warzone 2100 and all the C&C games except C&C3 and newer. In the games I played, at least a human player never "booms" in particular. Everyone wants to get money, but units are necessary, even to expand economically. I've never seen anyone just create economic buildings and no units. Or does economic boom mean something entirely different in the context of videogame tactics? Mallerd (talk) 11:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have to admit this is the 1st time I've seen "boom" used in this way. But as I said, it all depends on the game and the map. For example in Starcraft island maps (at least one is included on the game's CD) there's no point in military spending until one has the means to build air transports and / or fighters, and the prerequisites for these are expensive by early-game standards, so you crank up your economy first. Much the same is true for Red Alert 2 and its offshoots, although the choices are more complex.
 * However your initial point remains valid: "a rush beats a boom, a boom beats a turtle, and a turtle beats a rush" is a ridiculous generalisation that's false in probably the majority of cases. Philcha (talk) 11:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The times that I've seen a good turtle in action, in C&C Generals Zero Hour that was, it was actually a turtle only because it had boomed economically. The guy just always had money. Most games start with limited recources which makes it difficult to build formidable defences within say, 5 minutes. I think it is safer to generalise with this statement. Do you think otherwise? Please comment. Mallerd (talk) 12:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It depends on the relative costs and effectiveness of defences versus rushers. For example in Master of Orion II (a TBS) a couple of battleships (total about 1800 production points' worth) will generally avoid taking on a Missile Base (150 production points, IIRC) early in the game - although Master of Orion II’s blockade mechanism provides an economic discouragement to turtling. Based on the range of games I've seen, I'd say any generalisation about this is dangerous. Philcha (talk) 12:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I am all with you now, since this example clearly shows that not only unit statistics make it dangerous to generalise, but also individual players. I would almost say, delete the sentence with the rock-paper-scissors comparison. Mallerd (talk) 12:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Taking your previous comment in consideration, I was thinking about Warcraft III some more. In that game it is possible to train a Blademaster Hero which is able to windwalk, that means he turns invisible and has increased movement speed. This way, the hero is capable to destroy the resource gatherers of the enemy on its own. So, rushing is not strictly speaking spamming of low-tech units. It is just attacking real soon. Besides, the Blademaster rush also negates the statement that the rush cannot defeat a "turtle". Mallerd (talk) 21:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * A tricky point. Some authors distinguish between rushing and raiding, although IIRC it aplies more to Total Annihilation’s economic model (important static resource collectors outside the initial base) than to the Warcraft / Starcraft / Age of Empires / etc. model (where your resource-gathering workers are close to your start-point in the early game). Philcha (talk) 21:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, there's a difference between rushing and raiding. Raiding is generally a feint/probing maneuver, not the attack in and of itself. A harassing move where you send a few fast units in to take out economic units is an example of a raid. A zerg where you send in several hundred of said units is an example of a rush. It's tricky to explain given how similar the tactics are and how they both use the same units, but there is a difference. Kind of like the difference between "their" and "they're". Chrissd21 (talk) 16:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)


 * In all RTS games I've ever played or seen, there's no such thing as economic boom beating anything unless the rules are drastically changed, such as setting a certain amount of time before you can attack. An option which precludes rushing altogether. You can't go economic only, you have to build up some military defenses to defend from a zerg, which means you're turtling.

In C&C Generals for example, I'd go Chinese and produce a second truck for gathering at the start with a second bulldozer. Buildings would go gathering facility, powerplant, barracks, bunker, bunker, that place where you put hackers. The barracks would produce rocket, rocket, rocket, soldier, rocket, rocket, rocket. 3 rocket, 1 soldier for each bunker. The hackers would instantly start hacking to get money, then go into the building when it was up, that gave me an economic advantage, at which point I built AA defences, tanks, more power plants and eventually nukes. End game was enough nukes to waste everything, or those really big tanks.

That's an example of turtling, however, it's also an example of booming. You don't _just_ build economic units or you die from a base unit. You build defenses to hold off the other players until you have a large economy at which point you attack with a vastly superior army. Turtling = Booming So the paragraph: "The alternatives to rushing are turtling (building strong defences and sending out an advanced army later in the game), and rapid expansion (creating a booming economy and using it to purchase better units and technologies than the enemy) which is referred to as a, "boom" or "Steamrolling"." is completely wrong. There is only one other strategy, not two as they're the same thing. Source: 10 years gaming, common sense Chrissd21 (talk) 16:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Sources / notes
May come in handy:
 * Rushing and Raiding - copy from defunct Cavedog site. Philcha (talk) 20:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

4 pool rush
I've never heard the term "four pool rush" before, even though I spent most of my life playing broodwar for 18 months. I've always heard it called "6 rush" (6 zerglings), and it has a "4 rush" variant (4 zerglings).Codik (talk) 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Well then you obviously never read up on any real strategy about the game, because the supply notation such as 4pool, 8rax, 14nexus are completely standard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.125.53.182 (talk) 17:32, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Difference between 'raiding' and 'harrassing' is unclear.
Raiding: "Raiding, by contrast, implies a focus on "hit and run" (or "bite and flee") attacks on an enemy's resource gathering units and apparatus".

Harrassing: "Harassing is almost the same as the process of rushing, but being extremely cautious so as not to lose the 'harassing' units. It involves hitting valuable but unprotected targets, such as poorly-defended resources, workers that are not blocked off, or merely annoying enemy forces via the use of fast or stealthy units."

So what's the difference? --203.33.167.161 (talk) 09:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Rushing and how it labels players as "newbies"
Let's forget StarCraft for a moment.

Rushing is a perfectly legitimate technique employed in many RTS games nowadays, even blizzard's own Warcraft 3. Now, I will honestly say that I wasn't an avid SC player, but I *am* a regular ladder player in wc3 and it's not "unfair". Rushing and harassing, as well as countering said tactics, is all part of the current meta. Besides, people rarely win games solely based on a successful early rush. Additionally, successfully countering rushes can be as destructive if not more so than attempting to do it at all.

Speaking as someone who plays Warcraft and Dawn of War(the latter being sadly horribly unbalanced), I think this article is too hung up on what the terminology meant back when SC was all the rage. --217.129.10.40 (talk) 18:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The only people who hate rushes are the noobs, b/c they don't know what to do until they have all their money and a full army of uber units. No one takes no rush people seriously anymore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.17.97.27 (talk) 15:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with the top poster, rushing is still an accepted strategy, and regarded as an almost mystical talent when observing someone who does it well as it requires a speed and efficiency beyond the norm. Yes, back when RTS games first came out, it was considered unsportsmanlike to rush. People preferred to build up an attack, then charge, repeat until you ran out of resources. Nowadays is a lot different.

"Rushes that are guaranteed to lose you the game if failed, also known as "cheese", are still seen as cheap way of winning however." The above sentence is based on very old views and should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrissd21 (talk • contribs) 16:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The entire link and definition is wrong!
A Zerg is when one force greatly outnumbers another and wins by sheers numbers.

A Rush is when one force attacks the other so quickly that it catches them unprepared.

I suggest separating the two, as they are two distinct tactics.

A "Zerg Rush" simply suggests a rush using a far larger force than the opposing force. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.97.76.22 (talk) 21:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Blitzkrieg Usage
"It is analogous to the blitzkrieg in real-world ground warfare, in which speed and surprise are used to overwhelm an enemy before they build a sizable defense."

Not really.. Surprise has nothing to do with it, speed kind of.. It's more of a mass numbers thing. Zerging in Age of Empires 1 was an axemen rush, no surprise, a lot of speed, more of a "I have 50 axe men, you have 5".

Surprise is a main factor of a blitzkrieg. As such, I vote removing the reference as while it does give an example to a non-gamer, it does it in such a way that the viewer starts with a wrong idea. Chrissd21 (talk) 16:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but nobody corrected this for over a year, so I editted a correction. Blitzkrieg is about punching a hole through enemy lines and rushing deep to create an encirclement. So really much different than what this article describes. A better analogy would be to the human wave attack. Warthog32 (talk) 17:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Rush (video games)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Rush (video games)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ywwr": From Experience point:  From Mob (computer gaming):  

Reference named "shahromine": From DikuMUD:  From Mob (computer gaming):  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 20:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Death by Proxy references
Dont know how to reference. 96.240.34.47 (talk) 06:01, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Dancing Section Removed
Removed the section on "dancing." First, dancing has nothing to do with rushing or harassing; it's a micro technique and can be used in any type of battle, late game or early, offense or defense. Second, the definition is wrong--the point of dancing is to counteract focused fire by "dancing" the targeted unit backward, forcing the enemy to chase it while your other units fire at them. Finally, dancing works quite well with hydralisks. 99.181.230.148 (talk) 20:07, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Who Calls it "Flooding" in TCGs?
I'm perplexed by the TCG section that says trading card games "such as Magic: The Gathering" call this tactic "flooding." While I can't speak for other games, I've played Magic for 15 years, attended tournaments regularly for 6, encountered hundreds of other playes, and read countless strategy articles and I have *never* heard this tactic referred to as flooding. Most Magic players would call it a "weenie" or "aggro" strategy (and might call it a "swarm" or "rush" when you attack with a bunch of cheap, expendable guys), but if you said you got "flooded," they would understand that as you drawing lands (resources) for several turns when they are no longer needed. If this actually is a term used in a TCG, the example should change to whatever game that term is used in. 64.119.55.158 (talk) 03:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Merge Alpha strike into Rush
Alpha strike (gaming) is a three-sentence stub that has two references, one about where the term "alpha strike" comes from and one seeing it defined for Magic the Gathering. The definition is "competitive gaming term, denoting an all-out attack launched in hopes of achieving a decisive advantage."

Seeing as an alpha strike is practically the same behavior as a rush, I would suggest merging it into here. Well, someone else proposed this a couple of months ago, but it's about time to discuss it. "Alpha strike" seems to be a synonym to "rush", thus it could be used in the intro of the article. I'm not sure where to put the etymology, though; possible in the "Definition"-section. Thoughts?


 * Support
 * 1) Support as nominator Maplestrip (talk) 13:32, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Support. One book on how to become a winner in video games does not merit its own article. The second sentence is guessing, by saying where it might've come from. --Soetermans. T / C 09:52, 11 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose

To the best of my knowledge: Rushing revolves around speed and surprise with the purpose of catching your opponent unprepared.
 * Discuss

Alpha Strike on the hand -is a concentrated attack utilizing all the offensive capability available to you which is contrasted with attacking while still having a reserve force or units defending your base. While there is a lot of overlap, there are also several areas of distinction.

Based on my understanding: I'm tentatively opposed to an outright merge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.98.144.159 (talk) 07:11, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, otherwise, I think the article on Alpha Strike would probably need to be deleted, as it isn't notable enough on its own. I was hoping it could be quickly mentioned on this article, but if they don't have enough in common, then I guess there's just no place for alpha strike on Wikipedia.
 * I mean, unless if someone manages to find some more sources and beef up a the article, making it more than a dictionary definition. ~ Mable ( chat ) 08:28, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Better late than never I suppose, but I agree with you, . It's unnecessary to have this one kind of tactic in a standalone article. It can easily be part of rush (video gaming). --Soetermans. T / C 09:52, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I have a hard time remembering starting this discussion, haha. I'll move it here now :) ~ Mable ( chat ) 09:56, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Is this an encyclopedia article?
This is all very interesting commentary on how people play video games, but Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia. Would someone like to try to convince me why this should not be sent to AFD? AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 04:39, 9 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Gaming tactics do not merit deletion simply because they are gaming tactics (see the numerous tactics listed in Template:Chess, for instance), but seeing as this article does not cite any reliable sources, it doesn't seem like it meets WP:GNG, meaning that it should probably be sent to AFD regardless. ~ Mable ( chat ) 07:10, 9 December 2015 (UTC)