[Suggestion] La fatigue

[grimage]

Je ne parle francais.

Je ne parle pas francais!

Je ne parle pas le français .

Both sentences are correct actually

@test:
I'm not that fan of the attack favoritism of yours, generally and concerning Mount&blade. In my opinion, berserk, attack spam, rampage behaviors are not to encourage. On the contrary, putting incentive on cooperation, clever fighting, accuracy, that is interesting, especially for this game.
Indeed, this game is of a particular type, medieval battle simulation would i say, maybe? Even if the main feature is to fight, it's very different from an arcadish street fighter, or a mmo"rpg" like wow, Age of Conan; where realism and immersion aren't that important, compared to competition and achievement.
I'm not sure if stamina could be a very valuable feature right now, however it may add to balance, realism, and intelligent approach of combat if well implemented.

 

[dstemmer]

Maybe one day M&B could integrate a 'balance' or 'momentum' meter.  This would increase by landing hits (blocked or not), and decrease for completely missing attacks.  For the defender, blocking hits would decrease meter, unless some sort of perfectly timed parry was done.  Certain ailments or attacks would be more potent depending on the meter.  Being too off-balance would make you more open to knock-downs, say from a simple kick to a powerful weapon smash, while having enough meter could give your weapons more crushing power or access to more moves - say a throw, bodycheck or pommel smash that could open your opponent up.

I like the idea of incorporating balance, but I think a 'balance meter' is too much of an abstraction. I'm going to plug this post again, where Mithras talks in detail about a "balance point" system, where the game keeps track of each character's center of balance:

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,82413.0.html

Mithras' body balance system would do most of the things you're suggesting:

-Blocking a heavy attack or moving backward would move your balance point backward, which would make you more open to attacks.
-Getting hit would move the balance point opposite in the opposite direction of the weapon's point of contact. Getting hit many times in a row would eventually shift the balance point far enough to make you fall over.
-Mass weapons like hammers/clubs and kicks would move the balance point more than other weapons, making them better at knocking you down.
-A missed attack would move your balance point forward, which would open you up to attacks or might even cause you to stumble.

The only thing his system wouldn't do would be to give your own attacks 'momentum'. I don't like the idea of 'momentum' for attacks though, it doesn't make logical sense to me that each attack should get successively stronger. It sounds too much like a C-C-COMBO BREAKER.

P.S. balance point system would also be an elegant solution to the 'spinning' problem, better than camera locks.

 

[test]

@test:
I'm not that fan of the attack favoritism of yours, generally and concerning Mount&blade. In my opinion, berserk, attack spam, rampage behaviors are not to encourage. On the contrary, putting incentive on cooperation, clever fighting, accuracy, that is interesting, especially for this game.
Indeed, this game is of a particular type, medieval battle simulation would i say, maybe? Even if the main feature is to fight, it's very different from an arcadish street fighter, or a mmo"rpg" like wow, Age of Conan; where realism and immersion aren't that important, compared to competition and achievement.
I'm not sure if stamina could be a very valuable feature right now, however it may add to balance, realism, and intelligent approach of combat if well implemented.

It has nothing to do with attack favoritism and everything to do with having a system that fundamentally flows well, that has no wasted dead-time, and rids itself of (or provides ways around) mechanics that artificially stop up the gameplay .  For every one mechanic, particularly absolute/defensive abilities like the ability to hold block and defend all attacks with one button, there are multiple ways to counter or bypass.  Those counters have their own weaknesses which can be exploited with skilled play, and so on.  This concept applies at a meta level to all great, balanced MP games.  In Starcraft, scouting early, intelligently pushing out, constantly harassing and out-expanding your opponent is usually the most effective  (designers of competitive maps put resources in risky areas that must be contested to encourage action) - not sitting in your base building turrets until you've amassed a victory armada.  It even applies to chess: pawns are rewarded for reaching the 8th row by becoming queens.  Also, the unique maneuvers of each piece provide a near-infinite realm of possibilities as to how each match plays out.  Risks are encouraged and rewarded, not punished.

People in SF4 don't spam because against a good player, they'll get punished and eat a string that takes away half their life.  Every facet is hammered out, every situation accounted for ie. simply standing there throwing out regular attacks won't help you build meter, you actually have to make contact with the opponent.  Special moves build meter, but these come with drawbacks like harsh recovery times, so you never want to be wasteful.

Wasting attacks and spamming should be discouraged because it's dangerous, likewise, standing there and holding block, waiting to absorb hits before countering, and turtling should be just as dangerous.  In combat arts, the greatest minds all agree that waiting is bad.  If anyone's studied works from authors like Musashi, they'd realize real combat has a universe of possibilities to open up, break a defense, and throw off the rhythm of an opponent.

Maybe one day M&B could integrate a 'balance' or 'momentum' meter.  This would increase by landing hits (blocked or not), and decrease for completely missing attacks.  For the defender, blocking hits would decrease meter, unless some sort of perfectly timed parry was done.  Certain ailments or attacks would be more potent depending on the meter.  Being too off-balance would make you more open to knock-downs, say from a simple kick to a powerful weapon smash, while having enough meter could give your weapons more crushing power or access to more moves - say a throw, bodycheck or pommel smash that could open your opponent up.

I like the idea of incorporating balance, but I think a 'balance meter' is too much of an abstraction. I'm going to plug this post again, where Mithras talks in detail about a "balance point" system, where the game keeps track of each character's center of balance:

Depends on how it's simulated.  Jedi Outcast basically had an invisible balance meter coded underneath that adjusted and reset very quickly/instantly, depending on the action.  Blocking a heavy attack and having your weapon batted away momentarily would make you more vulnerable to knockdowns for a split second.  Moving deducted from your balance moderately, missing swings deducted it greatly.  Being off-balance would negatively impact your auto-blocking chances, but not manual/perfect parries.  Not sure how Bushido Blade was coded, but its mechanics played out similarly and is the most in-depth, realistic melee combat sim to date.

 

[Welcome_To_Hell]

Now now don't rant about AOC. It is free and fun, stamina was put in because fans wanted it if you go on those forums and say stuff like "OMG RemoV stamina NAO" you will not be agreed with. Same if you start ranting about how great stamina is here.

It is really what players want devs have to cater.

Fatigue or stamina or getting tired or mele ammo or whatever one wants too call it could add to the game more than it could take away.

It really depends what approach is taken. If it is analogue to "Overheating Minigun with unlimited ammo" i am all for it. Where player can swing away for a really long time before he gets tired.

 

[test]

Most players have no idea what makes a deep, balanced, and ultimately fun game.  The designers of Chess or Starcraft or Street Fighter didn't trust the input of any idiot that came along for good reason.

AOC is really a head-scratcher for me, as it has potential, with some aspects done amazingly well (out-of-combat hp regen rate, unique ballistics and projectile usage, siege weapons, damage bleed-through, and dismemberment), yet other features are so fundamentally broken and unbalanced that any moron can immediately see from a few hours of playing, yet people on the boards are so caught up in their ideas of 'realism' that they're afraid to admit how clunky it makes the game and destroys basic balance and pacing.  Most just uninstall and never play again.

It suffers from the problems M&B had in earlier versions multipled tenfold.  People sprint around doing 180's like WW1 dogfighters, ignoring strafe and backpedal because it's the best (and only) way to control distance and bypass turtling where you can actually *attack* without it meaning an automatic free hit against you, yet the devs fail to understand WHY successful players play the way they do, and WHY this behavior is encouraged.  The one-button blocking is so ridiculously easy and overpowered in the hands of a skilled player, it's like shield players in M&B waiting to absorb hits and facehugging people, except they're guaranteed free hits every time.  So people just wait for the other to attack first, or end up staring at each other until a third party comes along.  Stamina is the worst feature and does nothing to encourage actual gameplay/combat, it just covers up the lack of melee depth with lots of standing around out-of-action and wasted dead-time.  Having sprint AND attacking tied to the same bar is just mind-boggling.  Playing a faster class like Man-at-Arms on an objective map, you can just freely sprint around buildings and lead people around like lemmings chasing the Road Runner.  People can't sprint to catch you, and when they do, they don't have to stamina to do anything.

Unless you want to master complex throwing weapon usage, the game is not worth sticking with as there's nothing behind the melee to make it competitive/sustainable.  The game's been out for over 2 years and supported/updated by Steam and its active community is still <100 players (50 players in North America atm, spread over 3 servers).

The upcoming changes like flinching and less stamina-reliance, that make it more M&B-like are definitely a step in the right direction (PVKII is introducing the same feinting/committed attacks as M&B, Taleworlds is really the trendsetter for melee combat right now). If they really want to make it the best melee combat game ever like they claim, they should be taking the design lessons of classic multiplayer games.  This site in particular: http://www.sirlin.net/articles/rock-paper-scissors-in-strategy-games.html has an archive of highly enlightening articles.  He's also one of the designers/balancers of Street Fighter, Kongai, and various card games.

 

[Phallas]

Test you are grossly underestimating the devs if you think that a stamina system will end up the same as in other games

 

[Papa Lazarou]

You can't just list a bunch of terrible implementations, and then say that every implementation will be terrible.

Also I have to say that I think rock paper scissors is a terrible oversimplification. There should be measures and counter-measures, but if it resembles rock paper scissors, something is badly wrong. Real combat does not tend to resemble rock paper scissors. And fortunately, nor does Warband.

If anyone's studied works from authors like Musashi, they'd realize real combat has a universe of possibilities to open up, break a defense, and throw off the rhythm of an opponent.

Very few of them are "special attacks" though. And I don't think they involve a long process of building up some "rage bar" or whatever.

 

[AHPO]

Hahaha je parle mal le rosbif aussi donc je suis ravi de te répondre en français!

C'est une bonne suggestion, déjà émise, mais bonne!

 

[Bloid]

No fatigue, for the reasons already mentioned. Non.

 

[test]

You can't just list a bunch of terrible implementations, and then say that every implementation will be terrible.

Sure I can.  Name one respected game with melee (has a community) where a stamina system has improved gameplay.  All the played FPS games have it tied only to sprint.  The only example I can think of is Left 4 dead.  They added a split second delay for subsequent melee attacks after 4 swings for Survivors to cover up the insane power and lack of depth behind melee.  Melee weapons can one-shot 30 zombies in one button press, have fully active weapon traces in a 180 degree arc from start to finish, and can be chained so there's no gap/vulnerability between your attacks.  In L4D2 the chainsaw attacks every 0.1 seconds.  When someone proposes a stamina system that hasn't been done by bad games in the past, that pushes gameplay, it'll be supported accordingly.

Also I have to say that I think rock paper scissors is a terrible oversimplification. There should be measures and counter-measures, but if it resembles rock paper scissors, something is badly wrong.

This argument is a disservice to the every competitive multiplayer game in existence, and the Art of War.  You should actually read through the bare basics before delving further into the topic: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/7-yomi-spies-of-the-mind.html, http://www.sirlin.net/articles/designing-yomi.html and http://www.sirlin.net/articles/rock-paper-scissors-in-strategy-games.html.  There are books on why RPS is the basis of all fundamentally sound games.  All the greats, including Starcraft and Chess boil down to an RPS system with added layers and varying payoffs.

Real combat does not tend to resemble rock paper scissors.

If anyone's studied works from authors like Musashi, they'd realize real combat has a universe of possibilities to open up, break a defense, and throw off the rhythm of an opponent.

Very few of them are "special attacks" though. And I don't think they involve a long process of building up some "rage bar" or whatever.

And here you're trivializing real combat.  You're too caught up in scemantics and the idea of "gaminess" to realize how the infinite ways a fighter can express himself and use of every part of his body in real combat would benefit gameplay.  Musashi has two books devoted to attacks, varying in timing, forestallment, rhythm, strength, and psychology - there are techniques for beating down an opponent's sword opening him up or causing his weapon to drop, ways of bodychecking opponents and killing him with non-weapon strikes.  The idea is to translate the infinitely flowing realm of variations real combat provides into gameplay.

It'd be impossible to mimic every variation of movement such as:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPx5eoz_wHg (2:30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz-07Dtp
What good games do is simulate the skill, timing, counters, and counters to counters, psychology and openness involved in real combat.

 

[Archonsod]

There are books on why RPS is the basis of all fundamentally sound games.  All the greats, including Starcraft and Chess boil down to an RPS system with added layers and varying payoffs.

No, all the mediocre games such as Starcraft boil down to an RPS system. The great games tend not to, which in part is why they're great games in the first place. Also note that RPS works in an RTS because otherwise the combat is essentially watching two units shoot each other until one explodes. If an FPS ends up the same something has went horribly wrong with your design somewhere.

Zeno Clash and Dark Messiah had well done stamina systems. The key thing to look at is why though; both of those games were designed primarily as single player and the stamina mechanic was used to force the player to go aggressive rather than constantly blocking. You don't need that in M&B. It also served to constrict how long and how many attacks the player could chain against an opponent, again a non-issue for M&B.

If you wanted a decent counter system it would make more sense to adjust the attack speeds, not as the weapons as a whole but the individual attacks so that (for example) a quick thrust would counter a swing, although it's harder to hit with, or a quick punch with the hilt of a two hander deals sod all damage but would disrupt an opponent's attack if you triggered it quickly enough.

 

[test]

First you knock Chess and Starcraft, a globally covered national sport that's good enough to to support careers, then you go ahead and mention Dark Messiah the next paragraph.  Are you posting from an alternate dimension?

Dark Messiah MP was god-awful, and died three months after retail.  Basic features like parrying and proper weapon traces didn't exist.  My team won every tournament without a round lost, by not employing melee-centric classes since they had to burn sprint just getting close to us, and never had any stamina left to actually do anything once in range.  Think I died 4 times across all the matches in the final tournament.  New computers sure were nice.

The SP was far more fun, since it had amazing kicks that could knock down, send people off cliffs, into spikes and could be used to punt objects into people's faces.  There were charged power-attacks to defeat blocks, and insta-killing adrenaline moves that were built from attacking. 

Zeno clash was a four hour bot-smashing diversion.  It was fun because it had a solid RPS counter system underneath.  You could wait and dodge/counter, or you could defeat that by grappling or using power attacks.  The grappling was fun and vicious looking, nothing like kneeing someone three times in the face, grabbing his head and launching him into his friend.  Although they managed to implement very basic fighting game mechanics, implementing target lock-on for a 3d-game with multiple opponents would have made for an unplayable MP game, just like how 1.011 M&B mechanics were completely unsuited for MP.  Stamina would ruin MP to no end, since players won't line up taking turns to fight you like the bots in SP, they'll out-kite you with ranged weapons that don't rely on stamina, and won't give you room to move.  The game is obscure and isn't MP for a reason. 

 

[grimage]

Hello, I'd like to suggest a stamina system: the less you have, the less stuff you can do. Here's how stamina would decrease

•   By running. You'd gradually slow down
•   By trading blows: the heavier the weapon, the more stamina drained, the slowlier you start to strike
•   By raising yor shield : the more you raise it, the more difficult it is to maintain it raised
•   For horses: the longer a horse stays at a gallop, the more his own stamina drains, and the slowlier the gallop. Stamina being drained all the faster according to the rider's own weight
•   With Xbows: loading would take longer when stamina be low
•   With bows: drawing would take longer (he suggest shooting would take longer too, but I don't really understand what he means by that)

You'd recover stamina when not doing that stuff (litterally, "stamina wouldn't drop further when not moving", but it makes more sense that way  )

I'm not all for stamina, however, i'd like to remind you the OP's suggestion. He didn't exclude ranged weapons from being affected by stamina.
A ranged fighter won't be able to spam his shots for too long, nor will he able to flee all over the map, because his stamina will drop faster than the melee fighter's chasing him.

All in all, a stamina system could be useful for limiting abusive techniques like spamming (ranged, melee), infinite fleeing, or rampaging, and valuate teamwork, tactics, and immersion. I think it's enviable to me.

By the way, i don't like starcraft, chess nor street fighter, is it bad doctor test?

 

[test]

I enjoy watching UFC, but don't want to spend months in surgery every year.  You don't have to be active in something to appreciate the art behind it.  These games are played by millions worldwide across decades/centuries, and all share the same fundamental concepts.  Games that learn from these concepts go on to succeed, games that don't are doomed to obscurity.

 

[Archonsod]

First you knock Chess and Starcraft, a globally covered national sport that's good enough to to support careers

Yeah. In South Korea. Any nation which identifies Kimchi as a food stuff really can't be relied upon for any kind of decision making process.

Dark Messiah MP was god-awful, and died three months after retail. 

Funny, I was playing it last week.

Zeno clash was a four hour bot-smashing diversion.  It was fun because it had a solid RPS counter system underneath.  You could wait and dodge/counter, or you could defeat that by grappling or using power attacks.

It didn't. Grappling was only possible once you'd stunned them with regular attacks. Power attacks would sometimes break a block (as would a kick), but not for all opponents or all situations (not to mention it burned through stamina). Some opponents you couldn't dodge, some you couldn't even hurt without a weapon. In some cases you could figure out their attack pattern and vulnerabilities and come up with a counter, but the devs had a habit of switching them half way through.

just like how 1.011 M&B mechanics were completely unsuited for MP. 

I disagree. I preferred Warband when the mechanics were close to 1.011. Since around .618 it's felt more and more like a train wreck.

I enjoy watching UFC, but don't want to spend months in surgery every year.  You don't have to be active in something to appreciate the art behind it.  These games are played by millions worldwide across decades/centuries, and all share the same fundamental concepts.  Games that learn from these concepts go on to succeed, games that don't are doomed to obscurity.

On the contrary, it's the games which divert or even subvert those concepts which stand out. No art ever becomes famous by copying what came before.

 

[grimage]

I enjoy watching UFC, but don't want to spend months in surgery every year.  You don't have to be active in something to appreciate the art behind it.  These games are played by millions worldwide across decades/centuries, and all share the same fundamental concepts.  Games that learn from these concepts go on to succeed, games that don't are doomed to obscurity.

Shame on me for going on with this digression, but i want to clarify something
I play or did play those games, but i don't like their mechanics. In fact, i don't think the popularity of a game has to make its quality. Each game has his qualities, and each people has his tastes.
I don't agree with you with those "fundamental concepts" neither. Of course, if you make something people is used to and addicted to, it will probably sell, but will it be good? I'm not so sure. It all depends on the point of view, of course.

But the point here is to discuss wether stamina would be a pertinent feature or not for this game. As i said:

All in all, a stamina system could be useful for limiting abusive techniques like spamming (ranged, melee), infinite fleeing, or rampaging, and valuate teamwork, tactics, and immersion. I think it's enviable to me.

It has sense for the balance of a multiplayer game, to me.

Now, do we need it? My answer would be: It's not essential, but could be useful.

 

[test]

Dark Messiah MP was god-awful, and died three months after retail. 

Funny, I was playing it last week.

I know you'd enjoy a game with 4 half-empty servers and no competition - everyone else quit years ago.

Zeno clash was a four hour bot-smashing diversion.  It was fun because it had a solid RPS counter system underneath.  You could wait and dodge/counter, or you could defeat that by grappling or using power attacks.

It didn't. Grappling was only possible once you'd stunned them with regular attacks. Power attacks would sometimes break a block (as would a kick), but not for all opponents or all situations (not to mention it burned through stamina). Some opponents you couldn't dodge, some you couldn't even hurt without a weapon. In some cases you could figure out their attack pattern and vulnerabilities and come up with a counter, but the devs had a habit of switching them half way through.

Maybe I'm confusing grappling with the running elbow barge, charged right hand smash, or charged weapon attacks, it's been a while since I've loaded it up.  There were a bunch of ways to defeat every defense, even throwing your weapon to stun them.

I enjoy watching UFC, but don't want to spend months in surgery every year.  You don't have to be active in something to appreciate the art behind it.  These games are played by millions worldwide across decades/centuries, and all share the same fundamental concepts.  Games that learn from these concepts go on to succeed, games that don't are doomed to obscurity.

On the contrary, it's the games which divert or even subvert those concepts which stand out. No art ever becomes famous by copying what came before.

Stand out briefly for superficial qualities, then forgotten.  It doesn't help that you keep bringing up dead, obscure games as your examples.  It's like arguing math is 'out' because we rely on Pi too much.  In fact, the concept of an RPS basis with added layers and uncertain rewards can be broken down into math: http://www.sirlin.net/articles/rock-paper-scissors-in-strategy-games.html

Since we have a lot of ADD kids that are too lazy to click on links, I'll just plagiarize:

隐藏

Rock, Paper, Scissors in Strategy Games

A simple rock, paper, scissors (RPS) system of direct counters is a perfectly solid and legitimate basis for a strategy game provided that the rock, paper, and scissors offer unequal risk/rewards. Better still is if those rewards are unclear, meaning that players cannot easily determine the exact values of the rewards. The following video is not an example of that, but it's pretty exciting looking.

An Example of $10/$3/$1

Consider a strictly equal game of RPS with clear payoffs. We'll play 10 rounds of the game, with a $1 bet on each round. Which move should you choose? It makes absolutely no difference whether you choose rock, paper, or scissors. You'll be playing a pure guess. Since your move will be a pure guess, I can't incorporate your expected move into my strategy, partly because I have no basis to expect you to play one move or another, and partly because I really can't have any strategy to begin with.

Now consider the same game of RPS with unequal (but clearly defined) payoffs. If you win with rock, you win $10. If you win with scissors, you win $3. If you win with paper, you win $1. Which move do you play? You clearly want to play rock, since it has the highest payoff. I know you want to play rock. You know I know you know, and so on. Playing rock is such an obvious thing to do, you must realize I'll counter it ever time. But I can't counter it (with paper) EVERY time, since then you could play scissors at will for a free $3. In fact, playing scissors is pretty darn sneaky. It counters paper--the weakest move. Why would you expect me to do the weakest move? Are you expecting me to play paper just to counter your powerful rock? Why wouldn't I just play rock myself and risk the tie? You're expecting me to be sneaky by playing paper, and you're being doubly sneaky by countering with scissors. What you don't realize is that I was triply sneaky and I played the original obvious move of rock to beat you.

That may have all sounded like double-talk, but it's Yomi Layer 3 in action. And it had quite a curious property: playing rock was both the naive, obvious choice AND the triply sneaky choice.

Math Says There is a Solution

I'd like to meet Ms. Glasscock to find out how she does it.

You might say that even with unequal payoffs, there's still an optimal way to play. The optimal solution is called a mixed strategy, meaning that it involves randomly choosing your moves, but obeying certain percentages.

You should play rock 10/14ths of the time, scissors 3/14ths, and paper 1/14th. If you play against another player who is playing suboptimally (for example, he plays paper 100% of the time), you can change your strategy to exploit him (by playing scissors 100%). But the optimal mixed strategy above means that no one can exploit you to do better.


While that is the math answer, three related factors creep into the real-world application of that strategy:


    1) People are very bad at actually playing randomly, especially at specific percentages such as 3/14ths.
    2) When people fail to play randomly, they are probably falling back on tendencies they do not know they have, but that you can detect and exploit.
    3) People cannot help but let their personalities spill over into decisions about how conservative (playing paper) or risky (playing rock) they are.

Fighting Games

Fighting games rely heavily on RPS. They have both overall games of RPS going on as well as many rapid fire situations of RPS. Virtua Fighter games can even have 5 sets of RPS take place in a period of 2 seconds! Really!

Virtua Fighter's overall system of RPS is as follows: attacking beats throwing, throwing beats blocking or reversing, and blocking and reversing beats attacking. To be clear, let's define terms.

An attack is a move that deals damage. An attack has an initial startup phase where it can't yet do damage (a punch extending), a short phase where it actually can do damage (the sweet spot of the punch), and a recovery phase (the arm retracts). If the defender is blocking correctly, an attack will not damage him, but he can be thrown.

A throw is a special type of move that instantly grabs an opponent whether he's blocking or not and does damage. The catch is, a throw will not grab an opponent who attacking (specifically, a throw will fail if the opponent's move is in startup or hitting phase).

A reversal is a special type of move that grabs an incoming attack. Reversals usually look like throws, but they work at the exact opposite times. A reversal only works when the opponent's move is in startup or hitting phase, which are, incidentally, the only times a throw would fail.

Even these explanations are simplified, but the RPS system is basically there. Attack the opponent. If they tried to throw you, you'll hit them. If they block or reverse your attack, they nullified your attack. If you expect them to block, you can throw. If they expect you to throw, they can attack.

The fighting game Dead or Alive basically uses this same system, except that the risk/reward for doing a reversal is much different. Reversals are difficult and relatively rare in Virtua Fighter, but they're incredibly easy and do a ridiculous amount of damage in DOA. Reversals are so effective, in fact, that they can paralyze the enemy into not attacking for fear of being reversed. Of course, that's when you throw them....


Unclear Payoffs

While psychology makes it difficult for people to deal with unequal payoffs, it can be even more difficult to deal with unclear payoffs. Imagine that you are making an RPS decision in the fighting game above, and you must consider "how bad" it would be if you guessed wrong and got hit by an attack (as opposed to guessing wrong and getting thrown or reversed). How much damage will you take?

It depends on which character you are figthing, and which character you are. It depends on the distance between you and the opponent, and on the timings involved: maybe it's likely he'll do a launcher into a juggle combo or maybe that's not reasonable but you fear he might do a stagger into a ground combo. Is your character's back toward the wall, meaning that your opponent could get extra damage from a wall combo? Is your back near the edge of the ring, meaning you might lose the entire round to a ring out? How good is your opponent at doing combos? Is he likely to really maximize his damage, or just get one hit?

It's extremely unclear what the payoffs of this situation are. A half-second later when you are in another guessing game, the payoffs will be different (maybe the distance between you changed) and it will still be very unclear. Cutting through all that and making a reasonable guess requires knowledge of the game, of the opponent, and the presence of mind to put it all together. It is a real skill (I call it valuation) and a very valid skill to test. If you can make payoffs unequal AND unclear, then you've already gone a long way toward making a good strategy game.
RPS in RTS

Real-time strategy games such as StarCraft also use the RPS system. Like fighting games there's the concept of RPS on large scale and a small scale. On the small scale, particular units are designed to counter each other in a RPS way. A marine dies to a guardian. A guardian dies to a corsair. A corsair dies to a marine. Abstractly, there are 6 categories of unit. Ground units can either attack 1) other ground units, 2) air units, or 3) both. Air units can attack 4) other air units, 5) ground units, or 6) both. Pure ground-to-ground units usually beat both other types of ground units, yet lose to both types of air units that can attack ground. Similarly, pure air-to-air units usually beat both other types of air units, but loose to both types of ground units than can attack air.

RPS is not limited purely to units countering each other though. Real-time strategy games also have the concept of trading off powerful units now for a strong economy now, which leads to even more powerful units later. So on one extreme, a Zerg player in StarCraft might sacrifice his entire economy to get a quick attack force ("6 pool" is the term). This will likely beat a player who chose the other extreme of playing for pure economy and no immediate attack force (by building double oven triple hatcheries). A moderate build (pool on 9th peon, one sunken colony) will likely defend against the early attacker's rush, though. Surviving the rush, the moderate build will have a much superior economy and win in the end. However, this moderate build will produce an inferior economy to the player who built 2 or 3 hatcheries and went for pure economy.

In Starcraft, the early rush is a very, very risky strategy. It's all or nothing. You'll either win right away off it, or your rush will fail and you'll almost surely lose. Because of this, the early rush isn't all that common (depending on the map), but the very threat that the opponent might play the early rush is enough to stop you from playing for pure economy every time.

Finally, notice how hard it is to determine the actual payoffs in StarCraft. If your correct guess results in a battle between a few enemy Zealots and several of your Marines, what is the payoff? How many Marines will you lose? It depends on the micromanagement skill of both players, the terrain, and whether each player even focuses on the battle at all (maybe there's a more pressing battle somewhere else on the map). A lot of the goodness of StarCraft's design is that it's full of RPS with unequal and unclear payoffs.



Anyway, if you found that interesting, the author has a series of articles on multiplayer game balance, playing to win http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html, and individual articles for each character he balanced in SF2 as well as his other games.

 

[Archonsod]

I know you'd enjoy a game with 4 half-empty servers and no competition - everyone else quit years ago.

There were eight players on the server during the day.

Maybe I'm confusing grappling with the running elbow barge, charged right hand smash, or charged weapon attacks, it's been a while since I've loaded it up.  There were a bunch of ways to defeat every defense, even throwing your weapon to stun them.

Yeah, that would be non-RPS. RPS means a specific counter to everything; non-specific counters on the other hand are what you call a game.

Stand out briefly for superficial qualities, then forgotten.  It doesn't help that you keep bringing up dead, obscure games as your examples.

Starcraft is no more active than any other multiplayer game of it's age. It's solely the fact that the player base reached 9.5 million players that keeps it going; on comparative terms it's solely the Korean market that makes it anomalous.

  It's like arguing math is 'out' because we rely on Pi too much.  In fact, the concept of an RPS basis with added layers and uncertain rewards can be broken down into math

Probably explains why those games are so dull

 

[Reapy]

Yey to jump in here. As I was catching up I was going to link sirlin but I see test beat me to that. Classic reading

Archisond, yeah that paragraph calling starcraft, of all games, poorly designed, followed up by praising dark messiah, really says to me that you reaaaaaaly need to focus on single player testing for warband.

Jesus, starcraft, this is probably the LONGEST RUNNING MULTIPLAYER GAME IN HISTORY! Do you know that yes, in south korea they have 3  or more channels that broadcast starcraft matches all day, TV. People make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year competing in this game. It has become as popular as chess over there, and yes, in the US thousands of players STILL PLAY to this day. I can't believe you would also dismiss an entire nation of people with some blanket stereotype that is downright insulting to koreans.

My god man, you realize that a game that is over 10 years old still remains competitively interesting for people to watch? Just because you have such a horribly limited understanding of the game (its just boils down to standing around watching units shoot, hahahaha) does not mean the game has no depth. God, any game designer should look at blizzard's stuff and look at the disgustingly well balanced stuff they put out, especially starcraft.  If you ask any game designer or person in the industry, I have no doubt they would tell you that they could only dream to design a game as successful as starcraft.

Dark messiah was a horrible failure IMHO, I didn't give it any longer then the free multiplayer beta. Classes were poorly balanced and more over, the game was just not fun. The community is dead and non functional. Copying anything from it would probably be a mistake.

In regards to some of the ideas... in general what you want are OPTIONS in a game. You want gameplay to always move forward, be dynamic, and have things happening. You do not want your controls overwhelming, but you want the things that can happen to be numerous.

So the first thing to do is eliminate stalemates. For example the other day I had a 2 hander out in a thrust block. I faced a guy with a spear and shield. I was in his face, he couldnt swap weapons because I would hit him, he could not attack me because I would block. If I attacked he would block and counter, probably hitting me. What to do? Kick. Bam, look a stalemate break. Gameplay got interesting again.

One thing I think that would add very nicely to a melee game is the concept of breaking open your opponent. I have always liked from the weapon fighting genera the concept that a weapon impact to you will kill you within roughly 3 hits. M&B's health levels are great imho. But what I would like to see is a way to drive your opponents off 'balance' to open them up for a hit.

It would be like a momentum meter, but represented with animations in game so you could 'see' it. Think for example that experience of watching a running back in (american for you EU's) football juke left, right left and watching a defender fall down trying to keep up as he 'breaks his ankles'.  How great would it be to be able to somehow abstract this into m&b where you could really come up on a person and with a series of moves render them next to defenseless then finish them with a solid blow? Sort of like how you finished a person for the first time with a kick and then swing. Feels good to trick them in close and then follow up with a hit.

Trying to think of how this will go. Going to start a new thread maybe for some brainstorming. But anyway I stand by here and I know I tend to agree with test a lot but I strongly agree with a lot of what he is saying. Stam is good for one thing only, to limit how frequently you can do something. Is there really any power moves in m&b that need scaling back? Really? Don't answer swing spam   Standard bread and butter moves like swinging should NEVER be limited in a game. Swing spam should be punishable, and it currently is, though it could probably use MORE punishment.

Still there isn't enough in m&b for stam, and stam right now would wreck the game. Game should be balanced for the moves you can select, not for keeping track and waiting for a mechanic that artificially slows the game down.

 

[test]

Maybe I'm confusing grappling with the running elbow barge, charged right hand smash, or charged weapon attacks, it's been a while since I've loaded it up.  There were a bunch of ways to defeat every defense, even throwing your weapon to stun them.

Yeah, that would be non-RPS. RPS means a specific counter to everything; non-specific counters on the other hand are what you call a game.

Fundamentally it is RPS with added layers and unclear risk/rewards.  Barges, smashes and charges break blocking, but you can be hit with quick attacks while doing so.  Being defensive and dodge/countering defeats quick attacks, but leaves you at a bad range and open to heavy attacks.  People need to read the damn article and stop confining their picture of RPS as a simple three-element system.  Good games build off of it as a base, resulting in deep, layered systems where stalemates can always be broken.

Starcraft is no more active than any other multiplayer game of it's age. It's solely the fact that the player base reached 9.5 million players that keeps it going; on comparative terms it's solely the Korean market that makes it anomalous.

Please, just stop.  Starcraft and SF have global followings that are growing with age, to deny their success just makes you an Iraqi Information Minister.  SF has frequent regional tournaments in every major city, and WC3/SC is the cornerstone for every respected international tournament http://www.wcg.com/6th/fun/news/news_view.asp?keyno=C09111510093&page=1.  Hell, people move to Korea to build careers out of those games.