Rush (video games)

In real-time strategy (RTS) and team-based first-person shooter (FPS) computer games, a rush is a fast attack at the beginning of the game. In this context, it is also known as swarming, goblin tactics or zerging, referring to the zergling rush tactic from StarCraft. It emphasizes speed in an attempt to overwhelm an unprepared opponent. It is analogous to the human wave attack in real-world ground warfare, in which overwhelming numbers of troops are sent at the enemy, disregarding tactics or casualties. In fighting games, this style of play is called rushdown. This also has a different meaning in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), where characters skip the usual progress path with the aid of others to reap benefits that are usually denied to them until a later time. A good analogy to the "rush" is a chess gambit.

Zerglings in computer games carries the connotation of being disorganized, too easy, and/or unfair, and players who employ this tactic are often considered inferior or "cheap". Proponents, especially in realtime strategy games, feel that the threat of a zerging keeps their opponents honest, forcing them to play defense from the beginning of the match.

Zerg rush

A zergling rush is the tactic of attacking an opponent with a great many inferior units. The name comes from the popular computer game StarCraft where zerglings are small and inexpensive units. In StarCraft, this refers specifically to the strategy where a Zerg player creates a Spawning Pool very early in the game, sacrificing his economy for early creation of Zerglings. Using this tactic overwhelms superior units (if any exist at this point in the game) and the ensuing chaos can provoke the opponent into making foolhardy decisions. Zerglings are cheap and quick to replace, thus consecutive rushes may defeat an opponent. A common response and/or counter to a rush, zergling or otherwise, is to turtle.

A zergling rush can also be used to give an opponent the false impression that they are facing an underdeveloped foe. For instance, a victim of a zergling rush may mistakenly launch a fruitless counter-attack, wasting resources and opening themselves to a final blow. Zergling rushes were originally a very useful tactic in StarCraft, but eventual patching toned down their overall viability.

Zerging in MMORPGs

The word "zerging" carries a negative or derogatory connotation. Many MMORPG encounters are specifically designed with "anti-zerg" features, such as wide-area attacks, that can severely damage a large uncoordinated group. Despite its specific origins, zerging is used in many games, from Warhammer (regarding horde armies) to EverQuest (describing an attack in which large numbers of participants are simply thrown at the opponent). In MMORPGs, a guild or clan that recruits players en masse (to increase zerging effectiveness) is often termed a zerg guild.

Zerging can refer to a wide range of army sizes, ranging from a ten-player group in a dungeon designed for five players, to a hundred-player raid in a PvP environment. In general, any army that is perceived as "too big" for the challenge it is undertaking can be called a zerg. Instance dungeon zerging used to be a very common tactic in World of Warcraft, wherein ten players will clear out a dungeon designed for five (such as "Blackrock Depths" or "Scholomance"). Blizzard has (in patch 1.10) made it impossible for such oversized groups to enter these instances.

Instance dungeon zerg tactics are encouraged by the fact that, in general, all the rewards (virtual goods and money) are at the end of a dungeon. Whereas a five-man group could be wiped out before it finishes the dungeon, a ten-man group can complete the dungeon and obtain the treasure very easily.

Zerging in player versus player combat also can be defined as where one team gathers together and attacks one single point, a common, but often times highly uneffective strategy used in much of the Instanced PvP in World of Warcraft, and other games.

Despite its effectiveness, zerging is generally considered unsporting, as it allows a large number of players with less skill to overcome a challenge that should require a much higher skill level. However, it remains a highly effective tactic, and is often the only way for lower level players to overcome a higher level challenge.

The term "Zerg" is also uniquely employed in the MMOFPS game PlanetSide to describe the general mass of players in combat on a map. Commanders must "herd" a vast number of largely disorganized players to a strategic target of opportunity. Without constant and compelling guidance and direction, the "PlanetSide Zerg" will break up into small, disorganized, disparate squads and individuals. Although originally a carry-over term from other games, the Zerg in PlanetSide carries a closer similarity to its roots, in that zerglings without a controlling presence (i.e. a Zerg Cerebrate or the Zerg Overmind) will become disorganized and easy to defeat.

Variations include:

• Zergling - A derogatory term used to describe a PlanetSide player who always follows the Zerg without thinking for themselves.
• Zerg Herder - A PlanetSide player of Command Rank 5 who concentrates on trying to control the zerg in his/her current battle rather than looking at the global situation.

Real-time strategy (RTS)

In RTS games, to perform a rush, the attacking player focuses on quickly building a large number of units adept at attacking. In the majority of cases, these units are fast and cheap to facilitate larger numbers and opportunistic attack strategies, but they may sometimes be chosen to exploit a particular weakness of the enemy. The player who rushes may sacrifice such options as greater long-term resource gathering or immediate research up the tech tree to opt instead for a quick strike.

A successful rush usually attempts to disrupt the resource gathering of the defending player. The rush is a risky tactic. If the rush is successful, then the player may have won the game or significantly set his or her opponent back; if the rush fails, then the rushing player may have wasted valuable time and resources that would have been better spent on research or building types of units not as well adapted toward the rush. A rush can also be considered a mass attack with primarily only one type of unit used, and depends on overwhelming numbers and force to succeed. The rush is often a suicidal attack (for the units involved); rushing units are often expected to die, but to nevertheless benefit the player initiating the rush by disrupting the opponent's operations.

The term "rush" is often preceded by a word describing the type of unit used in the rush. For example, in the game StarCraft, a Terran player may use a Marine rush, a Protoss player may use a Zealot rush, and a Zerg player may use the infamous Zergling rush. The units used are almost always cheap, easy to produce, and weak compared to other units.

Origins

The first common appearances of the term rush in this sense came from Warcraft II (1995) Warcraft II players used the term grunt rush, the "grunts" being the basic Orcish military unit.

There was a variation of the grunt rush that involved building a barracks (the primary military structure) before building a town hall (the primary structure for collecting resources and developing the tech tree.) The "barracks first rush" was effective because the in the 1.0 release of Warcraft II, the players' starting locations were bound to the players' colors. It was possible to know where a player was located on the map if you knew the starting location for each color. The color/location problem was fixed in the first patch and barracks first rushing became a losing proposition on most larger maps. Since the barracks first rush was a do-or-die tactic, it was banned in most leagues and strongly discouraged by most serious players. Players would start games saying "thf", short for "town hall first". The much later release, Warcraft II Battle.net Edition, forced players to build a town hall first.

In Command and Conquer: Red Alert (1996) so-called tank rushes were a dominant strategy for players using the Soviet forces.

The term was further popularized by the strategy of Zerg rush (typically with the zergling unit, so the term was also known as zergling rush or in a more abbreviated form as ling rush ), from StarCraft (1998). At the time StarCraft online play began, the Zerg could execute faster rushes than either the Terran or the Protoss; players considered the Zerg the race most likely to and best-adapted to rushing. Later balance changes implemented through patching and the release of an expansion pack improved the rushing abilities of the other races and de-emphasized Zerg rushing.

Culture

When the first RTS-games were released in the early to mid 1990s, and rushes were first discovered, rushes were considered to be an unskilled tactic in many RTS gaming circles. However, the very design of RTS-games basically allow a rush of some type to exist in any game. Furthermore, a rush that failed was likely to result in the loss of the rushing player, so a rush involved taking an inherent risk. Consequently, soon the opposite became true: players who could rush well became respected. By the late 1990s, in most RTS-games, virtually all good players practiced the rush, which is still considered a standard and completely acceptable strategy. In some games, such as Galactic Civilizations, some players consider it unfair for the rush to be applied by artificial intelligence players. In early versions of StarCraft, players were able to quit the game within 5 minutes without having a loss filed in the official Battle.net statistics. This led to extremely early rushes where the rusher quit just before 5 minutes if the rush did not seem successful enough. The time limit was lowered in later versions.

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 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.

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.

In such games, a rush can still be applied, but mostly to weaken your opponent's expansion plans.

Another way to avoid rush is to enforce a non-rush rule for a particular period of time. It could be anything from 10-minutes, to 1-hour; in TB-games, the rush restriction could last for hours. Players that want to avoid rush do it to make sure that all players have a fair chance to execute their own strategy, and, in turn enjoy a longer game.

Raiding

Raiding is a currently more common variant of the rush. A rush usually implies a strategy that relies heavily on build order, has a very narrow window of time, and aims to either win the game as early as possible or permanently cripple your opponent, often by destroying his important buildings that are too expensive to repair or rebuild and remain competitive in the game.

Raiding, by contrast, implies a focus on "hit and run" attacks on an enemy's resource gathering units and apparatus — while usually cheaper and somewhat less effective than destroying command centers or expensive military training buildings, it requires relatively little early military presence. A successful raid will usually destroy a couple economic gathering units and disrupt the enemy's concentration. It will rarely cripple an opponent, but will put them at a noticeable disadvantage in the early and midgame.

Some games have units dedicated to the practice of raiding, such as the cavalry archers in Rise of Nations and light cavalry units in Age of Empires III. Additionally, in Empire at War, any rebel landing party of four or less units constitutes a raid party and can bypass space defenses. The Rebel Infiltrator unit, also from Empire at War, can attach a detonation device to buildings and destroy or cripple them. Another effective raiding unit is the "raider" unit in Warcraft III is a quick melee unit with an attack that is highly effective against buildings, and can be upgraded to "pillage" or steal resources from an opponet while destroying the buildings.

Harassing

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 resources not well defended, workers that are not blocked off, or merely annoying Enemy forces via the use of fast or stealthly units. It can refer to a harass at the start of the game or in its duration. It is very unlikely it occurs during the late stages of the game. A good example of a harass is in Warcraft 3, where you can equip a fast running hero with a deceed attack or spells(like a Demon Hunter) with boots of speed. The hero then proceeds to attack the enemies hero, or the enemies base. A Blade Master is another example, and he can attack workers and/or enemy heros before using his skill, wind walk, to escape. It is much the same as raiding, involving a hit and run, but covers a wide varity of targets and uses more powerful units, often flying, to deal damage before escaping quickly.

First-person shooter (FPS)

Rushing in team-based first-person shooters has the same meaning as in real-time strategy games, and the term probably originates from RTS games. The opposite of rushing in this sense is camping. In FPS games, rushing is often considered to be an honorable tactic, in contrast to camping which is often looked down upon as a dishonorable tactic.

A team will rush towards an objective or certain area of the map hoping to overwhelm the players there before backup can arrive. In a bodycount or Team Deathmatch game such as True Combat: Elite, players will often rush at the enemy in a close quarters location to effectively remove the opponent's chance to react. (The clan [82nd]Airborne is notorious for rushing in TC:E.) In a round-based game like Counter-Strike, players rush typically in an all-or-nothing attempt at the beginning of the round. In most other first-person shooters players spawn continuously, so they might wait and plan for a group of players to form a rush. For example in Unreal Tournament 2004's "Onslaught" mode (territorial control), players might prepare an organized rush to capture the last control point and win the game. Another interesting example is the Warthog or Ghost rush common in Halo and Halo 2's capture the flag matches. Typically used in the maps known as Template:Halomap, Template:Halomap, Timberland, and Template:Halomap, the strategy revolves around the common practice of spending the first few moments of the game collecting the player's preferred weapons mix. This leave a team uncoordinated, distributed and ill prepared for a pounce by two or three high speed vehicles into their base. A carefully orchestrated rush, thanks mainly to the powerful weapons fitted to the vehicles, can usually eliminate any remaining defenders and allow an easy capture of the flag. There is a certain amount of humour to be observed in the execution of a simultanious rush of two players, especially if they choose differing paths to their opponent's base as the teams can end up retrieving the required flag, only to return to base to find their own (a prerequisite for scoring a point) missing.

Similar to and spiritually derived from the "zerg rush" is a phenomenon known in the MMOFPS Planetside as "the zerg". Organized and teamwork-focused Outfits assign this description to the masses of hundreds of players in any faction that travel from base to base in a massive, unorganized squabble - rather than cooperating with fellow Outfits or coordinating with other players, and typically winning by gross numerical superiority rather than any amount of skill or tactical expertise, much like an inexperienced Zerg player in StarCraft would.

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG)

As in FPS games, the rush tactic is strategically sound in massively multiplayer online games. Unlike FPS games, however, more often than not any occasion where a rush tactics is employed it is backed up by an overwhelming strength in numbers (the rushing side outnumbering the opponents). This particular tactic is usually called Zerging and is considered dishonorable. Many players in Blizzard's World of Warcraft have adopted the term "zerg rush kekekekekekekeke..." and so on.

Many MMOG companies attempt to inhibit the Zerging by their player base while still encouraging fair use of a rush. Some companies do this by enforcing that the same number of opponents will be on both sides of a battle (instanced arenas or dungeons), some by granting defenders abilities that are especially effective against uncoordinated large scale attacks, and others by providing defensive structures where an outnumbered defensive force can hold off attacking hordes.

Fighting game

In the world of fighting games, especially those of the 2-D variety, rushdown is a play style utilizing aggressive, unrelenting attacks designed to cause mental intimidation in the other player (due to the visually impressive string of attacks), and force them, due to the increased game pace, to make defensive errors, leading to punishable mistakes. Characters who excel in this style are referred to as "rushdown characters". A rushdown game is inherently a game of calculated risks.

Notable rushdown characters: Ken Masters, Ryu, Magneto, Balrog, Vega.

Multiplayer RPG Games

Rushing can also mean an attempt to circumvent the established path of progress, related to powergaming. In multiplayer RPG games, like Diablo II, low level characters can allow high level characters to complete tasks in such a way that the low level character is awarded the progress. This type of action usually is followed by the low level characters leeching off other characters and gaining rewards they ordinarily would not have access to. This enables rapid progression with characters gain rewards much faster than ordinarily possible. Diablo II, in particular, was patched by its makers to attempt to inhibit this action. Player have since found ways around the new measures introduced. Rushing, in the 1.10 patch of Diablo II, has passed into a form of currency since rushing became more complicated.

The technique gatecrasher refers to a player's character which is created to assist in rushing (getting another character 'promoted' to a later stage of the game than it could attain without assistance) by means of the gatecrasher questing through act one and two, up until the point where Duriel's lair in The True Tomb of Tal Rasha is opened by inserting the Horadric Staff into The Orifice.

The gatecrasher character then kills Duriel but exits the game without 'exploring' Tal Rasha's Chamber . At this point, any game created by the gatecrasher will have an open tomb, and a dead Duriel. This allows the "rushee" character to pass through Act Two quickly, by merely kicking the Claw Viper Altar, entering a town portal to the Arcane Sanctuary, exiting the portal, then entering a portal to the Summoner's Platform and going through the Red Portal to the Canyon of the Magi, exiting and then entering a portal to the Orifice, and walking through to the end of the Final Act Two Quest. After that the character must talk to the non-player characters (NPCs): Drognan the sage, Jerryn the harem master, and Meshif the sailor. Though it takes some time to describe this process, a fast rusher can get a character from Act One through to Act Four in a very few minutes, using a gatecrasher and another powerful character which has completed the game.

Other uses

Although the term is most commonly used in MMO games, it can be applied to many other games as well. For example, a player of a Collectible Card Game can employ a strategy of flooding the enemy with small, cheap targets rather than strong, well-coordinated units.

See also

• Camping
• Turtle
• Human wave attack