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Then, would they be adversaries in any meaningful way? I mean, fighting against someone means both must be competing for the... same objective, resources, whatever. If they aren't they aren't competing.
In chess there is a fairly common situation where you are in first place in the last round of a tournament, 1/2 of a point ahead of your opponent (you get 1 point for winning a game and 1/2 point for a draw). So if you win or draw the game, you win the tournament and get a lot of money. If you lose the game, your opponent wins the tournament and gets the money. You get 2nd place, i.e. less money possibly split with other competitors.
That means you can choose a safe playing strategy that likely leads to a draw, while your opponent has to choose a risky strategy with higher chances of winning.
(Some chess context: high level games are usually drawn. They are only won by someone making a mistake. Also, the first move (white pieces) confers an advantage, so it's usual to seek winning opportunities if you have white, while just trying to hold the draw if you have black. To attempt winning with black requires seriously risky play. Bobby Fischer basically conquered chess in the 1960's by constantly trying to do that, which required playing with maniacal intensity all the time).
Definitely the most interesting comment here. Thanks.
I get that but, no matter their strategy, aren't they still competing against one another for the same resources: a (better) ranking in the leaderboard?
Maybe I have to go to the bathroom and I see a janitor making their way towards the same bathroom. We both start an all out sprint for the bathroom door. In this moment we are both adversaries, but his goal is to clean and my goal is to evacuate my bowels. Sure we are competing for the same resource, the bathroom, but our objectives with the bathroom are different. You could also say we are almost playing a different game, he's trying to not spill his mop bucket and I'm clenching my cheeks.
But those are just different debuffs!
Replying to myself, in the hope of being read by the people downvoting my first comment: you realize silently downvoting doesn't help me understand the slightest why you disagree with what I wrote and where I may be mistaken, right?
I didn't downvote you, I think you offered a thoughtful critique of the question.
Even if parties have wildly different objectives or winning conditions, if they didn't have to compete for the same resources then they could cooperate or at least ignore each other. That wouldn't be true if it were a race to finish first, but in that case they've started competing for the resource of time.
Maybe some folks thought it was a cop out answer, since I was seeking new perspectives rather than a reason to not ask for them? But, I think your response can help guide responses to even more extreme examples than some potentially topical ones by taking you up on your challenge.
I think that ignoring each other is probably the most common thing happening. One can look at wild animals sharing the same living space without fighting (or not, depending if they're prey/predator to one another). Competition and fight happen when there is something disputed between them, bet it one serving as food to the other or some common resources. At least, as far as I understand it. It's not that different for us, human animals ;)
I did not designated anyone in particular, I was just trying to encourage whoever downvoted to also express their motivation/reasoning. I'm more than willing to learn from my mistakes, but I can't learn shit without at the very least some form of an argument beside 'Nah, don't like u/what u said' (which is perfectly fine by me, just not very... interesting).
Thx, I did not know that expression and had to check its meaning. I can confirm it wasn't a cop out, just the question that crossed my mind when I started reflecting on the OP question (a question I may have poorly understood, though, as English is not my first language).