Rock, Paper and Scissors.

[Valmorian]

This is going to be relatively short:

In all the PvP games I've played, there seems to be this underlying requirement for character classes to fall into some sort of Rock, Paper, Scissors pattern.

Now I'm not saying RPS is the height of excitement or anything like that, but how exciting would you find it if every time you played you had to be Rock?  Furthermore, after the first time you played anyone else, you found out they always had to be Scissors?   

Wouldn't it make more sense to have every class able to be Rock, Paper OR Scissors depending upon what skills they decide to use?

[tazelbain]

No RPS in GW.

[Typhon]

I think the RPS thinking in a game with "E" is doomed to have serious issues (at least during this period of time where the designer must give the "E" some advantage cause E isn't as smart and adaptable as the "P").  Where "E" is the environment and "P" is the player.

The game RPS works because rock/paper/scissors don't have to farm the pockets to get more fingers. Pockets are typically built to provide a challenge for one of the three (R, P or S), but it's harder to provide a challenge for all three.  This results is secondary level imbalance.  Dev's can handle this is one of several ways, possibly the least long-sighted is to say to the playerbase, "scissors are hard to level in the pocket, but just wait till you see how they perform in PvP (i.e., RPS).  This ends up screwing rock and paper in the end game... which ends up lasting only so long as rock and paper aren't screwed... which ends up resulting in scissor nerfs, which is ok, because I always hated those FOTM scissor bastards anyway, no more "I win" button for you, ya fucks.

I ate too much turkey.

[Xilren's Twin]

In all the PvP games I've played, there seems to be this underlying requirement for character classes to fall into some sort of Rock, Paper, Scissors pattern.
Now I'm not saying RPS is the height of excitement or anything like that, but how exciting would you find it if every time you played you had to be Rock?  Furthermore, after the first time you played anyone else, you found out they always had to be Scissors?   
Wouldn't it make more sense to have every class able to be Rock, Paper OR Scissors depending upon what skills they decide to use?

I'm assuming you mean PvP in a RPG setting else classes doesn't make sense, and you mean straight up battles are you pvp conflict only.  That base starting point right there is already rife with problems b/c RPG are typically about character power progression (including equipment) and PvP works best when you have an even playing field.  And balancing for a 1 on 1 fight may have no relation to group vs group fights.  And what works in PvE may not work in PvP. And persistant game worlds seem diametrically opposed to short pvp fights without consequences etc etc... but lets wave our magic wand and ignore that for now.

Rock Paper Siccors is simply the easiest method to try an "balance" pvp in a class based system.  It's easy to say Heavy Tank beats Light Tank/Hybrid beats Caster/Ranged beats Melee and then create 3 classes for each type and be done with it.  Path of least resistance.

There's no magic to making it better; you just need to add more options and choices;  The problem with that of course is the balancing becomes expotentially harder the more options you give.  In a skill based rather than class based game like AC1 you still end of with flavor of the month templates of the "best"  builds.  This is the same for games like GW or MtG, but if enough templates are viable and you aren;t locked in to using just one (the way a class system locks you in) it add a lot of variance to each game session.

I guess my question for you is; given the choice between a deep, lengthy PvE RPG and a good fantasy quake pvp game, which do you really want b/c there aren;t a lot of games that can claim to have both and do them both well...

Xilren

[Kail]

I guess my question for you is; given the choice between a deep, lengthy PvE RPG and a good fantasy quake pvp game, which do you really want b/c there aren;t a lot of games that can claim to have both and do them both well...

Hmm, well, my main complaint against "Rock, Paper, Scissors" type thinking is that it isn't deep.  It doesn't make a game more "strategic" to give character X an obvious weakness, it just means that more people are going to understand what limited strategy is in the game more easily.  If you're vulnerable to fire and I've got a fire attack, I'll use it.  That doesn't exactly require any kind of tactical genius, but it is more comprehensible to the average gamer than a more complex strategic model.  The problem is, a lot of MMORPGs actively REMOVE other strategic elements in order to allow for this RPS mechanic to function better.  World of Warcraft, for example, tries very hard to remove strategic elements like concealment or surprise or positioning except as those abilities tie directly in to their "A beats B beats C beats A" skill system (i.e. Rogue stealth abilities), because it's an "unbalancing factor."

I don't know that the best use of RPS gameplay is in making a game strategically deeper; I think it's more to enhance the multiplayer aspect by forcing grouping.  In single player games, you very rarely see this kind of thing, for obvious reasons (Rock: "Yeah, the game was extremely difficult in the middle, but the end wasn't even a challenge!").  In multiplayer games, restricting players to only be effective at one or two things encourages them to group up, which is something that devs like to push.  So, yeah, I think RPS gaming is a bit of a kick to the devoted soloers (of which I am one), but I can see why they include it.

[Margalis]

I suggest you visit sirlin.net and read his stuff there about Yomi Layer 3. Actually read everything in his "Multiplayer Games" section. Sirlin is an MIT grad and Street Fighter player who is now a game designer of some sort. His stuff is pretty good overall - solid ideas plus unlike many pundits he doesn't have an aversion to details and the real world.

I do agree that having a fixed weakness that you can never change is silly. You are right, it's like in fantasy games where Zombies are weak against fire - gee I'll use fire, how exciting! That adds nothing. On the fly weaknesses are another story.

If you look at an RTS game, every unit has individual weaknesses and strengths but you can choose how you form your army and what you make out of it. Zerglings have no anti-air attack but nobody forces you to make an army out of all zerglings.

In addition, (as Sirlin points out), an RTS rush will beat someone who purely techs up, someone who purely techs up will beat someone who builds base defenses, and someone who builds base defense will beat an all-out rush. But again you can mix and match those strats as you see fit.

Anyway read his site, it's good.

[Valmorian]

I do agree that having a fixed weakness that you can never change is silly. You are right, it's like in fantasy games where Zombies are weak against fire - gee I'll use fire, how exciting! That adds nothing. On the fly weaknesses are another story.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was getting at.  If my character is ALWAYS going to be weak against a certain class, then what tactics are involved other than "avoid them"?

[Typhon]

I think the fixed weakness is there for a couple of reasons: 1) easier to code/balance, 2) real life seems to work this way (archers have range, but weak defenses, knights have strong defenses but no range, folks that go to archer/knight school spend alot of time in archer/knight school so they don't learn both) so designers probably think this way.

3) A weakness isn't really a weakness if no one knows about it.  If, on any given battle I never know what a particular enemy is going to do, I'll probably just ignore what his weakness is and go with my strongest/more sucessful attacks.  As a game designer, if I went to all the trouble of creating a system of weaknesses that rarely, if ever, are actually exploited then I've wasted my time.

Extrapolating on 3) further, what if the developer put abilities in game that let a player determine what an opponents weaknesses were?  Well, I'd have to tone down the pace of combat to allow for those abilities to come into play, and then I'd have to balance using those abilities versus not using them.  I'd want to reward those players that used intuition/rapid decision making and avoided using the intel gathering abilities, but I'd want to reward the intel-gatherer over someone who guessed wrong.

I'd like to try a game where the pace was toned down a bit, but I'd also rather see strengths/weaknesses play out on a squad level.

Example: Make a give where all classes had a set of (class-dependent) offensive and defensive auras.  When in a squad, have aura's stack, with different combinations of aura stack differently.  While traveling, a squad might have a travel configuration, but once they moved into combat they'd switch to a different configuration.  Taking the time to gather intel on the other squad's config would tell where the weaknesses where, and thus how to attack.  As the enemy attacks, they will shift to an optimal aura/attack pattern as well, so you'd have to consider shifting your patterns.

This seems like it would be an interesting but complicated game to play, which would likely not net you WoW-type numbers.  Which seems to be reason number 4) folks don't seem to want deep gameplay... if they did, everyone would be playing chess.

[Xilren's Twin]

I'd like to try a game where the pace was toned down a bit, but I'd also rather see strengths/weaknesses play out on a squad level.
..
This seems like it would be an interesting but complicated game to play, which would likely not net you WoW-type numbers.  Which seems to be reason number 4) folks don't seem to want deep gameplay... if they did, everyone would be playing chess.

I think the pacing is one of the keys to making progress in this area.  Turn based games can allow for much greater complexity simply due to their natures.  Most pvp however, is strictly real time or twitch based games, which tends to reduce stategy and tactics down to good recognition skills and of course, hand eye coordination.  No mmorpg that I know of is headed towards a slower paced, more complex form of combat; in fact they all seem headed in the opposite direction (more twitch based)....

Xilren

[Merusk]

There was that TBS one that was posted here what.. 5 months ago? (Not DOFUS, it was a US company.) That's headed towards slower more thought-provoking gameplay.

You're right, though, things are getting more and more about faster, twitchier, simpler.  A bad move, IMO, since as Planetside showed, people will be interested only for so long, and even then not many.  I'm not going to pay $15+ a month for something I can do for free in any other game. (Particularly now that FPSs are offering the same persistance a-la BF2.)

[Pococurante]

Twitch will return to niche as the gaming population's median continues to add non-gamers who occasionally game and the inevitable trend of gamers maturing into casuals.

Typically in RPS one uses items to compensate/adjust intrinsic abilities.  Pots, enchants, Sword of +1 uberness, etc.  And of course that tactic works just as well in non-RPS games like the original UO.  When I played it was a rare adventure when I didn't make sure my potion kegs were topped off, my scroll cache topped off, and a few extra weps in the bag in case I needed to switch strategies.