![]() | This redirect does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
Min/Maxing is a specific term related to role playing games. While min/maxing is of huge significance in most RPGs, I have never come across the term in relation to strategy games. The term certainly originated in an RPG context where it is in wide and current use, I am unsure as to whether anyone bar user 203.79.93.231 uses it in a strategy gaming context. It would be possible to tack all sorts of similar addenda to this article, but I believe the effect would be negative, consider the example:
A similar phenomenon exists in supermarket shopping, where the Min-Maxer, during shopping selection (the analogue of character creation) spends the absolute minimum on the basic, commodity items, e.g. by buying value milk (the Min) in order to gain the highest possible proportion of expensive, powerful cheeses (the Max). This technique often leads to extremely unbalanced refrigerator contents, so practicers are rather unpopular dinner party hosts.
I propose that the paragraph "A similar phenomenon exists in strategy games, where the Min-Maxer, during army selection (the analogue of character creation) takes the absolute minimum of the basic, compulsary forces (the Min) in order to gain the highest possible proportion of specialized, powerful troops (the Max). This technique often leads to extremely unbalanced and thus boring forces, so practicers are rather unpopular foes." be struck from the article since it has no relevance to role-playing game terms.
Actually, The term has significant usage in Warhammer:40k, Though it usually said when a player build an army specifically targetted to defeating a single opponent army. (lots of rapidfire vs an unarmored horde, etc) -- 130.89.187.192 ( talk) 14:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
The term Min-Max has been around and used in common gamer parlance for a lot, lot longer than this article seems to think. It was not 'made popular' by the mentioned Webcomic, because it has been in use for much longer. In fact, I would say that the character was instead based off the term itself, not the other way around.
Theroguex
19:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
This article is not encyclopedic. It reads like a fan boy talking about his favorite gaming strategies. For example: the City of Heroes paragraph is almost completely off-topic. Naming specific abilities is inapropriate for the scope of Wikipedia. I suggest it should be re-written assuming a 45 year old mother of four is reading it (of which I am not one- I'm a fan boy, but that's irrelevant). ILikeFish ( talk) 18:46, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
The term from the writer and the source is incorrect. The term I posted from the TV tropes site is more accurate. Being published in a magazine does not make one correct, and you can go to any Roleplaying forum for tabletop games to get the information. The correct definition is someone who maximizes one particular character aspect such as strength, while ignoring a weakness. Concerro ( talk) 15:05, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
I would define these actions more properly as "stacking" For whatever purpose a players disregards one or more stats or units in favor of another stat/unit you would simply say for example that the player was "stacking strength" or "stacking Unit X". When one or more base stats feed into a desired outcome a player may allocate points based on what base stat produces the most of the desired outcome. As points are added the player can evaluate the relative value gained by adding a unit from each base stat. The player will always add whichever base stat will improve the desired outcome by the greatest amount. And furthermore the player would only add points as long as that particular outcome was the most desirable. So there's a constant process of evaluation to ensure that the the minimum amount of resources are spent to achieve the maximum result as expressed by the desired outcome. This is only relevant when stacking just doesn't work due to game mechanics designed to prevent just such a tactic. Shrekducks ( talk) 20:27, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Three times now, users have tried to redirect this article to Glossary of video game terms. While this article does address video games in part, from the lead sentence alone, this topic is clearly about more than just video games. In fact, the term (like many concepts in video gaming) originated in tabletop RPGs. The first paragraph discusses games in general terms, and only the second, much smaller, paragraph discusses VGs in specific. If you really feel this one needs to be merged and redirected somewhere, I do not think it is appropriate to limit the redirect to a VG article per what I have said above. 2601:D:B480:ED2:5C41:6248:6078:2A31 ( talk) 15:51, 24 May 2015 (UTC)