Well, that definitely clarifies what you're thinking.
SwiftSpear wrote:If you don't get that you don't get what happens when good players play a game. Without the ability to counter your opponent's moves when you know what he is doing the game is over the moment your opponent gets the slightest upper hand on you. Rock paper scissors is a mind game where you anticipate or understand what move your opponent is making next, and you counter their move with the appropriate counter in order to win.
What have described here is how RPS causes a slippery slope, not how it prevents it. If an rts really consists of anticipating your opponent and selecting the correct counter, you lose as soon as you select the wrong counter. You might as well just play RPS and save yourself the expense of your graphics processor.
Ignorant gamers see rock paper scissors as a game of chance, but if I was using a term to refer to a game of chance I would refer to dice or flipping a coin. The fundamental game play element of RPS is anticipation and counter,
This is simply incorrect. The ideal strategy in RPS is to be completely random. This is not a debatable point - game theory is math. The ideal strategy in rock paper scissors is given by optimizing the system of equations that defines the payoffs of RPS. You can do this yourself using only algebra I think. The equation for rock is Vr = Pr x 0 +Ps x 1 + Pp x -1 where V is the expected value, r is rock, s is scissors, p is paper and P is probability, just switch the letters around to get the other two equations. Or visit a site where someone has done this for you.
and this game mechanic is necessary for any game, especially RTS games, to prevent the game from immediately decaying to the point where the player who gets the first slight victory wins the whole game.
This is odd, as you described the opposite result earlier in this post - the game being won by the person who guesses the correct counter strategy. You were right the first time. RPS game play makes any game more like a long version of RPS.
Frankly, it's the weakest of game design styles to rely on differences of skill to prevent a game from slippery sloping, because by definition your game is only balanced if it is balanced between players with equal skill.
This doesn't quite parse. I can't tell what you are trying to say, perhaps you'll clarify.
Hunter0000 wrote:I'd agree whole-heartadly that RPS is a very, very nessisary thing. I'd just say personaly I HATE how most games impliment it. I find the whole "Arches do 2x to spearman and 50% to swordsman" thing stupid. I don't want my spearman to pwn horseman just because they do extra damage, I want them to pwn horseman because the horses can't get into the spears. This is really one of the main reasons I really like TA and its mods ect.. Few of them rely on RPS via bonuses more than RPS via unit design.
Please don't kill me if he said this or w/e, I didn't read the articles I was just throwing this out there.
I think what you're in favor of is simulation, not RPS. That is, your pikemen beat knights because their pikes are longer than the knight's lances, not because of an arbitrary bamage bonus.
Lances don't work against infantry because infantry will just knock them aside and get too close to the wielder for the lance to be effective. Lances do work against cavalry because those have a large horse that can't just maneuver between the lances and because charging at men with lances just makes it easier for them to impale you. Cavalry is good for surprise attacks or taking out long-range units like archers or siege/artillery weapons because they can close in very quickly, they are also strong against short-weaponed melee units because of their heavier weapons, armor and their mount. Archers are too inaccurate to take out the entire cavalry troop in one salvo (never mind the pre-longbow armor and the fact that bows are indirect fire weapons for these armies, necessitating crossbows for hitting enemies that move quickly) so the speed of the cavalry allows them to strike the archers after a few salvos and without large losses.
In modern combat you've got effects like anti-armor weapons being crap against infantry since they hit only a small number of them and reload slowly, never mind the small amount of AT ammo a unit can carry (for infantry probably in the single digits, for vehicles it's still not enough to deal with an entire infantry troop) and artillery being ineffective against armored targets as they are too inaccurate to fire AT weapons and go for HE and shrapnel munitions instead.
Balance requires a mixed strategy equilibrium. RPS does have a mixed strategy euilibrium, but each strategy is dominated by exactly one strategy this is what causes "slippery slope". This makes game play boring. This is why you play spring more than you play RPS.
So a mixed strategy equilibrium is not enough for balance. Instead of thinking of spring as a normal form game, think of it as being represented in extensive form, and say you have RPS - style equilibria at each node. Boring. You need different mixed strategy equilibria at each node fairly deep into the tree.
This way you don't have to depend on picking the right unit to build, rather your success will depend on how well you execute your strategy.
If I'm using terms that are unfamiliar to you, visit these sites:
Foe OfTheBee wrote:Well, that definitely clarifies what you're thinking.
SwiftSpear wrote:If you don't get that you don't get what happens when good players play a game. Without the ability to counter your opponent's moves when you know what he is doing the game is over the moment your opponent gets the slightest upper hand on you. Rock paper scissors is a mind game where you anticipate or understand what move your opponent is making next, and you counter their move with the appropriate counter in order to win.
What have described here is how RPS causes a slippery slope, not how it prevents it. If an rts really consists of anticipating your opponent and selecting the correct counter, you lose as soon as you select the wrong counter. You might as well just play RPS and save yourself the expense of your graphics processor.
Ignorant gamers see rock paper scissors as a game of chance, but if I was using a term to refer to a game of chance I would refer to dice or flipping a coin. The fundamental game play element of RPS is anticipation and counter,
This is simply incorrect. The ideal strategy in RPS is to be completely random. This is not a debatable point - game theory is math. The ideal strategy in rock paper scissors is given by optimizing the system of equations that defines the payoffs of RPS. You can do this yourself using only algebra I think. The equation for rock is Vr = Pr x 0 +Ps x 1 + Pp x -1 where V is the expected value, r is rock, s is scissors, p is paper and P is probability, just switch the letters around to get the other two equations. Or visit a site where someone has done this for you.
and this game mechanic is necessary for any game, especially RTS games, to prevent the game from immediately decaying to the point where the player who gets the first slight victory wins the whole game.
This is odd, as you described the opposite result earlier in this post - the game being won by the person who guesses the correct counter strategy. You were right the first time. RPS game play makes any game more like a long version of RPS.
Frankly, it's the weakest of game design styles to rely on differences of skill to prevent a game from slippery sloping, because by definition your game is only balanced if it is balanced between players with equal skill.
This doesn't quite parse. I can't tell what you are trying to say, perhaps you'll clarify.
I never described a situation where RPS causes slippery slope. As soon as you run into a situation in a game where you know what your opponent is going to do but cannot prevent it you have slippery sloped, with out a counter to your opponents move the game is over, you have already lost, therefore you need a counter to every possible move in order to prevent slippery slope, well, that is unless you intend to rely on pure luck to prevent slippery slope, in which case your game will be about as fun as dice.
[edit] you seem to be arguing impossibilities, which leads me to conclude that we are using different definitions of the terms "RPS" and "Slippery slope". By definition Slippery slope cannot be prevented without either RPS or random power changes as I am describing it here. Slippery slope means the result of the game is determined by forces beyond the player's control at some point significantly before the match has finished playing through. Any game without RPS counters has an ideal path to go every single time, the result of the game therefore will always be that the player who follows the ideal path the most closely wins. The earlier in the game you deviate from the ideal the farther behind you are statistically and the more damage it does to you. Therefore, assuming your opponent has not made a mistake yet, as soon as you make a mistake your game has slippery sloped significantly, there is nothing you can do to win aside from hoping your opponent makes a mistake. If a game has no RPS and I am a good player who knows the game I know exactly what my opponent is going to do at all times, because he is trying to follow the ideal as closely as possible, if at any point during the game I know what my opponent is going to do but I cannot stop it then the game has slippery sloped and I may as well have quit because it is purely a matter of chance weather or not he fails at his action, I can do nothing to stop it, therefore I am not a player in the game, I am just an entity my opponent is preparing for inevitable destruction. Any player who has played any game at a competitive level would know this intuitively, it's not an issue for question, it's basic common sense.
If I knew I could command respect by posting my research and opinions on games and game design, I might have done it myself. That said, his opinions seem generally sound - some could benefit.
Was that the one they had on newgrounds for a while where there was 25 possible selections? Ya, I played that, it was cute but not incredibly playable.
neddiedrow wrote:If I knew I could command respect by posting my research and opinions on games and game design, I might have done it myself. That said, his opinions seem generally sound - some could benefit.
Speaking of RPS strategy? Play RPS-25.
The guy isn't dumb, and he has a good intuitive understanding of games, but he's doing alchemy, when game theory is actually math.
neddiedrow wrote:If I knew I could command respect by posting my research and opinions on games and game design, I might have done it myself. That said, his opinions seem generally sound - some could benefit.
Speaking of RPS strategy? Play RPS-25.
The guy isn't dumb, and he has a good intuitive understanding of games, but he's doing alchemy, when game theory is actually math.
He's writing articles for public reading, Reading through the wiki articles I can see how the theories work, but they still would be extremely boring to be written into articles that non designers are going to read. Would you be able to give me an example of some of these theories applied to an RTS to date? Do you think you could actually improve RTS gameplay through use of them?
BTW, I'll be the first to admit that pure RPS gameplay in a game is boring, I'm an advocate of unbalanced and large RPS matrix's.
Swift: I believe you've just described a game with one dominant strategy vs. a game with no dominant strategy i.e., a game with a mixed strategy euilibrium. I'm not sure though, because you aren't using commonly understood terms.
It would be great if you had time to read up a little on game theory. Then we could use the same terms.
Intense game stragetry discussion here. After reading all these points, the system Pokemon games uses sounds pretty good, where a pokemon can be one of many elements but can use attacks of the same or entirely different type, and an adequately mixed up system of elemental weaknesses strengths, and "nuetrals," where two elements are not effective against each other. I think the stats (attack, defense, speed, special defense etc.) system is crappage though. There are plenty of other stuff but I'll keep this post short (and I'm no game theory expert)
Pokemon is based on an essential expansion of the RPS system, if I recall, where one type trumps many others and is trumped by many others. I can't remember very well, having not played it for years.
Don't forget Lindir's ideas here on our own very neglected wiki!
And no, I never said he was dumb. I said that his articles might be useful for some, and actually a few of his articles are quite good.
Alchemy is much better when working for humans than pure mathematics, because humans are a variable, and as a quite complex variable commonly cannot accept the existence of a returned function which defines them in any context. That is to say, we would much rather have free-will and luck over stolid mathematical probability and fate.
I'm describing playoff matrix's compared to RPS the rock paper scissor playoff matrix. In RPS you get one point if you choose the counter to your opponent and get no points if you do not choose the counter. In unbalanced RPS you might get 3 points for winning with rock 1 points for winning with paper and 2 point for winning with scissors, this means your most advantageous strategy would be to go rock constantly, but it would be quickly predicted and countered, the unbalanced RPS forces more deliberation and breaks the advantage of the player who just plays a random hand each time. A complicated RPS has more options then just 3, see RPS 25 for an example. Combine the two and you get incredibly diverse and unpredictable playoff matrix's that satisfy the appetites of even very advanced players.
I'm having trouble visualizing the difference between a mixed strategy game compared to a pure strategy game, the wiki description is rather poor, do you have examples?[/code]
Um... I also found Sirlin's articles a little less than completely awesome. He made me think occasionally, but in the end, I very rarely end up agreeing with him beyond his occasional statements of the obvious (whoa! Elements of strategic/tactical surprise (his RPS example) is and important element for any game design? Whodathunkit? Whoa! Slipperly Slope that is overly obvious to players isn't good game design, because players hate finishing a losing hand and give up? Wow... that's like... deep... not).
And his article on playing to win pissed me off, frankly. Sirlin totally missed the boat, and by the end of his article, it was obvious that he'd set up a straw man. I'd say he was just being silly, but I actually think he was exaggerating his case because he thought his points weren't well-founded.
I mean... for goodness sakes, folks... using the left-hand joystick in a given fighting game, because you can do a certain combo of moves that doesn't work with the other one due to hardware problems... is a "strat"?
No. That's an exploit of a buggy hardware interface. BAD game designer, no cookie for you! Ok, so it probably wasn't even their fault- the hardware people probably had zero interaction with the game designers. But it's still not a fricking "strat". Strats are things that were built into the game design on purpose, not just accidental weaknesses or fundamental flaws. According to Sirlin's analysis, these flaws make things "deeper".
I find his particular fascination with fighting games, which he seems to think are loci of particularily clean design mechanics (which, personally, I find completely unconvincing, because their possible plays are actually quite huge) which are almost always console (hmm, no bugfixes) or arcade (hmm) is very interesting, given the scope and supposed profundity of his arguments. Where are his illustrious analyses of games like Quake, Pax Imperia, Twisted Metal II? Hmm... these are all real-time, MP games of various kinds, all three were best-sellers in their day (Pax is very old, and was for Macs) ... and they either don't have these flaws, or had very different ones?
In short, I thought that argument was completely without any merit, based on weak examples, and followed up by even worse philosophy (more on that below). Bugs do not "deeper gameplay" make. They simply allow the few griefers with no honor to abuse a game design in the sole pursuit of victory.
His second, and even weaker argument, that victory is the whole point of play, and that not playing your "best" is an insult to your opponant, is also a bunch of total crapola that only nerds who've never done sports in the Real World would buy into.
Games played competitively cross the line between "game" and "sport" pretty easily, in my opinion. The main difference between "game" and "sport" is how organized and social the setting is, really- a very blurry line. That "organized" and "social" are two important clues, though, that we've passed from "anything goes" to a more human set of standards.
Counter-Strike in the clan leagues is definately a sport. And... hmm... they have a bunch of rules that aren't built directly into the game design! Things like, "don't abuse the netcode", "you cannot engage in certain known buggy practices", etc., etc., etc. Hmm... it would seem to me that basically Sirlin is arguing that every game should be played without any concept of sportsmanship, good conduct, and fair play. That the values that we cherish as non-nerds in the real world, where you cannot simply be a dick all the time and get away with it.
Even CHESS, the ultimate "anything goes, so long as it's according to the rules"... is NOT PLAYED THAT WAY IN TOURNAMENT PLAY. Nope... in real chess tourneys, you have timers and other devices added to play over the years, because the core rules... just don't adequately address the real needs of serious play.
In the final analysis... Sirlin's completely wrong. If any of his fighting game exemplars were really worth holding up and preserving as game designs for the ages, then we'd be patching them up and removing all of the stupid bugs and quirks that he is referring to, until the designs functioned as designed... and not in ways that weren't intentional. That's the difference between design... and an exploit... which even Sirlin can't defend completely (see his mea culpa about "certain things" near the end of his main essay).
The satirical value of Sirlin's "true winnah" of Survivor being later indibted and sent to jail for tax evasion for the money he won is most illuminating, isn't it?
In the real world, which apparantly Sirlin doesn't live in very often, people have feelings, and have values that are, in many contexts, more important than "winning". Some games aren't worth playing no matter what. You gain no honor from shooting the most fish in a barrel, clubbing the most seals, or incinerating the most children with napalm. Even if millions in cash and prizes are on offer.
I have a feeling that playing a game with Sirlin, if he takes himself at all seriously, probably makes one want to slug him quickly for being such a complete pompous ass. And I also strongly suspect that he's a crappy loser, because I've never met a dude with a "screw 'em, it's just a game" attitude like that who could take it like they dish it out.
Basically, I found both his logical and his philosophical arguments both weak and childish. Sirlin acts like it's somehow amazing that being a complete dick is sometimes a valid strategy for winning in a game scenario involving other people, or that the other form of being a complete dick- taking advantage of bugs in a game's hardware or software design that will never be addressed and are poorly known... is some amazingly "deep gameplay"... what a load of rubbish...
Pax Imperia (the original, not the bad sequel) was and is the single best game for any platform in any genre I have ever played, period.
Shame it was bug ridden to all hell, and shame it came out before net play was big.
A modernized Pax Imperia, with netplay, a 3d interface, some modernization to the expansion and military models (do NOT touch the tech model!) is one of the Holy Grail games for me.
Deliberatre double post, since I am re-railing the topic (Sorry!!):
I agree with Argh on the Playing to Win- it's the worst series of articles on the site. But like I said, some of the other stuff is pretty good... especially when you consider the writing he does elsewere. The article he did about World of Warcraft on Gamasutra was a good bit of writing, IMO.
Playing to win.. Meh, I don't like half of his articles.. Like I said though, game balance was probably the most important thing he said.. And everyone knows that listening to the players is the easiest way to find imbalances and problems.. Game balance was important, but everyone knows it already...
Ahh, crappy examples are more like it.. Lets, ah, I know, use transports to mobile bomb since it moves much faster.. (Wait, but thats not the way a transport is used, its used to transport stuff!)
Whoopdee fricken doo! Apparently it can be more versatile then that.. It wasn't a bad game design, it was just how it worked out..
One thing that makes good games is choices. It's interesting to play if you can affect the game outcome via genuine choices. Civilization games become a chore of obvious tasks very quickly when your empire grows, and very few actual choices are done along the way.
What makes things real choices versus obvious decisions? I don't know, probably that the inputs or outcomes are so numerous and divergent that it's impossible (at least for a human) to calculate all of them beforehand. There have to be multiple at least seemingly somehwat good alternatives.
Another game-improving thing is somewhat complicated skills, like aim and movement in first person shooters. The skill limit is endless, nobody gets over even 50% of accuracy with some weapons etc etc... I think the idea here is that the aiming too is actually involving quite many variables and an interesting field in itself. Both you and the target are moving and doing countermoves, the projectile takes time to travel, there can be obstacles etc... Even the purest of aim skill requires a lot of prediction and parsing of clues. But here the actions have to be done extremely quickly.
The server I go to must have gotten better, cuz they are killing my KD ratio... I checked another server and was fine, for some reason my server is just really badass..
