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 Zerg 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. Zerging 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. There are few defenses against the zerg rush, one of these few being camping. 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.
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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 enable 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 options such as 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 (or in some cases an SCV rush), a Protoss player may use a Zealot rush, and a Zerg player may use the eponymous and infamous Zergling rush. The units used are almost always cheap, easy to produce, and weak compared to other units. Occasionally, the term is applied to the different, but related tactic epitomized by the Tank rush present in the Command & Conquer series since Command & Conquer: Red Alert. The tank rush differs in the units are neither cheap nor easily produced, but in a sufficient group they can be nigh unstoppable. Similar to the Starcraft etymology, the term is often altered according to the units involved, such as the Rhino tank rush of Red Alert 2, the Flash tank rush of Total Annihilation and the Mammoth rush of Command & Conquer 3. This alternate application can also be found in many gaming communities. In another departure from the generally derogatory nature attached to the Starcraft etymology, the term can sometimes be used to describe a rapid early game assault, intending to take the opponent by surprise. Some games even go so far as to incorporate the rush into their resource collection, such as Dawn of War and Company of Heroes.
Origins
The first common appearances of the term rush in this sense came from Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (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 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. Tank Rushes are not true rush, as the units used are neither cheap, fast, nor produced quickly. Tank Rushing is to mass a large number of tanks and then charge them into the enemy base. Since the Soviet's Mammoth Tank is almost as strong as a Tesla Coil (the strongest defense tower in the game) in terms of power and as resilient as a construction yard, it's essentially a moving fortress and are often used. One extension of this for the Soviet forces in Red Alert 2 was a Flak Cap (Flak Capture) Rush. The Soviet player would quickly load two engineers (units capable of capturing enemy buildings) and a Terror Drone (a unit that rendered vehicles useless so early in the game) into a Flak Track (a transport) and rushed the enemy base. The idea was that either the engineers would capture the enemy Construction Yard - their most vital building - or the Construction Yard would turn into a vehicle in which case the Terror Drone would hop in. Either way, the enemy loses their vital means of production and is effectively doomed from that point on, unable to advance any further. Another method for Soviets is to continuously produce Conscripts, the cheapest and most basic Soviet infantry unit. This method is to swarm the enemy using numbers since Conscripts only cost $100, half the price of an Allied GI, and therefore are more inexpensive and expendable. A player also got more Conscripts (about 20 or so) in the beginning of the game, compared to the Allies 10 GIs or Yuri's 6 Initiates. A rush that has been widely used throughout the command and conquer series is the "engineer rush" where the rushing player would load up transports with engineers and storm the enemy base, capturing many buildings; this tactic was popular because engineers are usually slow and weak, but transports like APCs are usually faster and have decent armour and players could not tell what was in the transports; a swarm of engineers could capture many vital production structures.
Zerg rush
The term was further popularized by the strategy called Zerg rush from StarCraft (1998). At the time StarCraft online play began, the Zerg race could execute faster rushes than either the Terran or the Protoss races; players considered the Zerg the race most likely to and best-adapted to rushing. The first infantry units of Zergs are Zerglings. They are small and inexpensive Zerg units which can be produced relatively quickly. It is possible to produce 6 Zerlings units at the beginning of the game, while the first infantry unit of Terran and Protoss (Marine and Zealot) can be produced only one unit at a time. Although weaker and easier to counter, 6 Zerglings can beat one Marine or Zealot in an opened battle without support, which makes Zerglings relatively strong at the beginning of a one versus one match. A Zergling rush is the tactic of attacking an opponent with 6 or more Zergling units as early as permissible. This refers specifically to the strategy where a Zerg player creates a Spawning Pool very early in the game, sacrificing his or her economy to enable creation of Zerglings. Within StarCraft, the strategy is further classified by how early the player attempts to sacrifice economy to execute the rush, for example the four pool rush is the earliest possible Zergling rush. It is called "four pool rush" because the player starts to save resource with its four workers and does not build more workers until the player has enough resources to build a Spawning Pool.[1] Using this tactic, a player can overwhelm or even defeat an enemy who did not prepare for a zergling rush. Because Zerglings are quick to produce and cheap, consecutive rushes may defeat an opponent. A Zergling rush may target an enemy's command center exclusively, as destroying the main building of an enemy early in the game can cripple the opponent. The opposite of a rush tactic is to turtle. On a 2 versus 2 match, it is very hard to defend against a dual-Zergling rush. For example, if 2 Zerg players decide to rush one enemy player, they would have 12 Zerglings against that one player. This dual tactic is efficient and easy on micromanagement, resulting normally in the destruction of the enemy player. Only veteran players can survive against dual-Zergling rush. But due to instability at the beginning of games, Blizzard Entertainment later balanced this by implementing changes on patch 1.08 and de-emphasized the Zergling rush.[2] It is important to note that the overall Zerg strategy caters towards massive armies of units.
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 design of RTS-games usually allow a rush of some type to exist. 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 because the AI does not need to explore the map; it knows where the human players are. The AI can instantly know where to rush and is protected since the human player has usually not done much exploring. 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 more recent Age of Empires games, however, 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 a 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 turn-based games, the rush restriction could last for hours.
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 or her 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" (or "bite and flee") 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 of 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. In Starcraft, the Terran Vulture is a very fast unit that is often used for raiding enemy worker lines. 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: Reign of Chaos 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 opponent while destroying the buildings. However, because the "raider" is a tier 2 unit, it is rarely used for attacking supply lines unless the opponent has a poorly defended expansion base.
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 poorly-defended resources, workers that are not blocked off, or merely annoying enemy forces via the use of fast or stealthy units. It can refer to a harass at the start of the game or in its duration. It is very unlikely to occur during the late stages of the game. A good example of a harass is in Warcraft III, where you can equip a fast-running hero with a decent attack or spells (such as a Demon Hunter) with boots of speed. The hero then proceeds to attack the enemy's hero or base. A Blade Master is another example of a good harassing hero, and he can attack workers and/or enemy heroes before using his Wind Walk (invisibility) skill to escape. Accompanying a hero with only one or two trusty supporting units is sometimes called a "lieutenant rush". Harassing is much the same as raiding, involving a hit and run, but covers a wide variety of targets and uses more powerful units, often flying, to deal damage before escaping quickly. This strategy is often used to divert attention away from the attacker's base while they quickly ascend the tech tree in order to obtain the most powerful units early in the game. In Starcraft, a form of harassment is called "dancing" your units. This involved someone who was very experienced in micromanagement or also coined "micro-ing". The process of dancing your units involved quickly climbing up the tech tree to create units that are long-ranged and have moderately fast movement. Units such as the Terran Vulture or the Protoss Dragoon are effective at dancing. The units created as fast as possible, with little regard anything other than the necessary buildings and gatherers. The units are created in amounts ranging from 4-12 (any more usually takes too much time). When the units are sent into the base, the opponent usually does not move so fast and still has slow or close-ranged units. The player dancing attacks with his long-ranged units, and when other units come to attack back, the long ranged units run away. When they get far enough away, either by running faster or when the opponent gives up the chase, they move closer and attack again, until they are chased again. This process does not work well later in the game, and is implemented as an early game strategy. Also, it does not work well with the Zerg long-ranged units, the Zerg Hydralisk, because in early game these units are quite slow-moving and, therefore, not adept to dancing. Another good example of harassment is Harvester Harassment in the Command & Conquer series. Because of the series' use of Tiberium harvesters (heavily armoured resource collection vehicles), which are expensive and take long to produce, players have developed a type of harassment that use raid tactics to weaken and destroy Harvesters. Unlike worker harassing in other games Harvesters are usually sent out without backup, making this much easier than other types of harassment. In all cases of harassment the victim will inevitably send troops to safeguard the harassed unit. This is often used as a tactic on its own to divert the majority of the enemy troops away from a strategic point or from their base, which then the harassing player then can attack without fear of retaliation.
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. It is noteworthy that when defensive objectives are present in a FPS game, protecting the objective isn't dishonorable, however this is loosely interpreted. 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. 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 Blood Gulch, Danger Canyon, Timberland, and Sidewinder, the strategy revolves around the common practice of spending the first few moments of the game collecting the player's preferred weapons mix. This leaves 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 simultaneous 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. In Counter-Strike, players who died in previous round must spend time to repurchase weapons at the beginning of the following round, as such, a rush by the winning team (which has fewer players who needs to repurchase weapons) can lead to decisive victory. In addition, on some maps, rushing can be used to counter an enemy rush, as such, rushing by one team can lead to both teams rushing.[3] 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. This tactic is now commonly associated with the Terran Republic faction, as the weapons employed by the Terran Republic have extremely high firing rates. This gives the TR infantry a significant advantage over the other empires, so in most facilities, the Terran Republic usually 'zerg rushes' the target, swarming it with overwhelming numbers of infantry. Many games attempt to deter "Zerging" in some way, as it is often not considered "the way the game should be played". For example, the Xbox 360 game Rainbow Six: Vegas offers a difficulty mode called 'Realistic', offering the player an opponent which effectively acquires targets and combats against rushes. This causes the players to use effective cover and take well placed shots. However, the enemy can be exploited through the use of smoke grenades, as the player is rewarded Thermal Imaging goggles.
Online role-playing games
Rush as a combat tactics
The word "Zerging" carries a negative or derogatory connotation. Many MMORPG encounters are specifically designed with "anti-Zerg" features, such as assigning mobs to possess wide area-of-effect attacks (or to possess similarly damaging/disabling abilities), or where a creature becomes more powerful if more players engage him. 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). The game Guild Wars describes Zerging as a tactic which Necromancers use to use spawned minions to construct a vast battalion of undead, and maintaining them throughout the area, although patches have now limited the number of minions one can make. In MMORPGs, a guild or clan that recruits players en masse (to increase Zerging effectiveness) is often termed a Zerg guild. In Final Fantasy XI zerging is described as when a party or group forgoes normal defensive or supporting tactics, focusing instead on everyone doing damage as quickly as possible. The MMORPG Eve-Online has widespread use of a tacking similar to zerging called blobbing. In a game where fleet battles can range from small (100-150 total players) to incredibly large (over 1000 players fighting in one area at a time - Look up battle of JV1V), numbers and swarming tactics are very common. Usually a fleet commander will call out a primary, secondary and tertiary target, and the members of the fleet will concentrate their full firepower on very few targets, eliminating them almost instantly. As in other games, some attempts have been made to reduce blobing and zerg tactics (Notably the Titan Doomsday Weapon - capable of destroying entire fleets of ships in one shot) however, these attempts are somewhat half hearted, as large scale PVP is an essential part of the game. Any attempts by the developers to reduce blobbing are more to deal with crippling lag than any effect on gameplay. 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 high-level dungeon designed for five (such as "Blackrock Depths" or "Scholomance"), in hopes of getting better items faster. 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 highly ineffective strategy used in much of the instanced PvP in World of Warcraft, and other games. The term is also used when one PVP faction has more players than another on a server; in World of Warcraft, for instance, Horde-faction players often dismiss Alliance-faction non-instanced PVP victories as "zerging." 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. The Planetside Zerg often respawns and attacks continually, even against heavily defended bases, they will continue to attack until their spawn points are destroyed or captured. 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. This Term has also been carried over to newer MMORPGs, where "Zerging" refers to the constant respawn and attack tactic. In PvP, it means that as long as the group is big enough to keep the opponents engaged, they have the power of a much larger group because they continually return. 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.
In Urban Dead, zerging refers to the practice of using multiple accounts to overwhelm an opponent through consecutive attacks and is against the rules. Whenever there have been high-stakes battles or drawn out sieges, such as the fall of Shearbank or the four sieges of Caiger Mall, there are often accusations of zerging made by both survivor and zombie players. 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 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.
Rush as in character advancement
Rushing can also mean a type of assisted powerleveling commonly related to powergaming, such as an attempt to speed up or circumvent the established path of progress with the help of another player. 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. Other games may have other names for this process, for example it is generally called "running" in Guild Wars.[4]
Fighting Games
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 the opponent to be unable to move or attack. This can 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. More importantly, most fighting games feature some penalty for blocking too many attacks in a row, such as guard crushes in most Capcom- and SNK-made fighting games, and the increase of the guard meter in the Guilty Gear series. Characters who excel in this style are referred to as "rushdown characters". A rushdown game is inherently a game of calculated risks.
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.
Real-life analogues
The concept behind "rushing" is often used by real armies, and can be seen as an interpretation of the Clausewitzian imperative to knock out one's opponents as early as possible by massing as much force as possible at the crucial point. The German armies of the First World War attempted such a strategy with the Schlieffen Plan, and this was later implemented more successfully by the Blitzkrieg of the Second World War.
See also
References
- ^ Zerg Strategy Guide. Battle.net. Blizzard Entertainment.
- ^ Starcraft and Brood War Patch Information (2007). Retrieved on 2007-11-22. “Spawning Pool: - Increased build cost to 200 minerals”
- ^ Attacking and Defending. CS Nation Guide. CS-Nation.
- ^ Running. ArenaNet.
