Re:


In your description, you were talking about the case where the players are either too defensive, too aggressive, or too ambitious. But what about the normal case where the players are not playing the game at these mental extremes when a player simply out-think the other player?


In a game like Go, a move often satisfies all three motives: it secures, it expands, and it is also attacking. Each move can be part of a larger course of action: this stone I place looks like an attack, but it is to secure my future expansion. It is often not easy to tell the intention of the opponent even though you could see all the stones on the board.

If Go is like RPS, it would be like a game where you cannot tell what sign the opponent played (thus not knowing who is winning or who has just won in the last encounter), and a sign that your opponent made 15 moves ago, that you thought was a stone was really a scissors, that beats your paper this turn.


Describing dynamics like this in terms of RPS seems misfitting. Will you consider a different set of terminology to describe them?

Quote:

Original post by Edtharan Quote: Original post by Tangireon Any game that uses balanced unit designs will have Rock-Paper-Scissors play emerge from it. No. You can have balanced games that do not employ Scissors/Paper/Rock systems. SPR is just one way of easily creating a balance.

What if I had presented the SPR in the particular game you have described (all same units) in this manner:

Unit > Unit > Unit > ... - Would this not be a form of unit specialization within your game? Since there are no other units available to counter the Unit in this particular game world, Unit then takes on the role of countering (specializing) its own kind. Lets call this the Identity Specialization? Very interesting!

It could also be as though the Unit here is composed of all three of the classical "Rock", "Paper", and "Scissors" hand signs, so that one end of the unit specializes in taking another of its own kind, much in the manner of a puzzle piece. What do you think?

Quote:

Original post by Thatotherguy My personal design philosophy when it comes to balance is to design tactically. That is, no unit should have artificial restrictions; and every unit should have varying levels of the same sorts of statistics. Balance comes through the physical capabilities of units (ie. artillery can shoot far, but can't take out air units simply because it can't aim very fast), that are run through a physical simulation of the game world. For instance, infantry shouldn't be able to take out stone structures, simply because bullets don't have enough mass to do significant damage to stone (this should be reflected in the game engine as a literal interpretation). This way, the player has to make tactical decisions to affect gameplay which have much more to do with orientation and numbers than actual unit types. This is much more similar to the real world, and is much more intuitive.

That still sounds a bit like Rock Paper Scissors to me - you have your limitations and capabilities to which are moderated by cost, "points", or technology, though it may be more intuitive to those players who have some prior knowledge in real-world warfare (but might not be so intuitive to those who have no knowledge of real-world warfare).

[Edited by - Tangireon on May 4, 2009 10:37:25 PM]

Quote:

Original post by Wai Re: In your description, you were talking about the case where the players are either too defensive, too aggressive, or too ambitious. But what about the normal case where the players are not playing the game at these mental extremes when a player simply out-think the other player? In a game like Go, a move often satisfies all three motives: it secures, it expands, and it is also attacking. Each move can be part of a larger course of action: this stone I place looks like an attack, but it is to secure my future expansion. It is often not easy to tell the intention of the opponent even though you could see all the stones on the board. If Go is like RPS, it would be like a game where you cannot tell what sign the opponent played (thus not knowing who is winning or who has just won in the last encounter), and a sign that your opponent made 15 moves ago, that you thought was a stone was really a scissors, that beats your paper this turn. Describing dynamics like this in terms of RPS seems misfitting. Will you consider a different set of terminology to describe them?

The RPS here is not happening on the level of the individual stone, but the overall strategy of the player. And yes, it is to be expected that not only do you not play at the extremes, but that your tactics will shift over the course of a game. This is a good thing, and is a direct result of not having an equilibrium inherent in the game design.

In game theory terms, RPS really refers to this kind of cyclical relationship between strategies. So, it's actually the correct term. That doesn't mean that each move has to be absolute in terms of having a 'counter' or that strategies can't shift.

In fact, a good RPS design will end up with players attempting to out-think each other, in terms of predicting their opponent's next move. That's actually the crux of the RPS pattern - shifting your strategy to match and predict what your opponent does. The fact that an RPS game contains no pure strategy equilbriumm is what makes this "out-thinking" possible in the first place, and RPS in this case really describes the relationship of strategies to one another.

I think you're looking at it mostly from the "x has a hard counter in y" viewpoint, at a micro- rather than macro- level.

Re:

In the example, micro or macro, the decision does not form a cyclical dynamic.

Micro: The player plays a stone. The stone defends, attacks, and expands. All three actions are done as once. This move is not part of a cyclical interaction. It could happen that the move has no counter. Once it is placed, it forms an indestrutible structure.

Macro: The player chooses a strategy that defends, attacks, and expands. Within a group of choices that all satisfy the three intentions simultaneous, the player chooses the course of action that can secure the most territory. The player is not switching between defending, attacking, and expanding. The player is always doing all three at once. The dynamic does not fall into a sequence of counters.


In both cases the interaction is not cyclical. A move that does all three is prefered over those that does two, which is better than a move that does only one.


How do you frame Tic-Tac-Toe in terms of RPS? What about Reversi/Othello?

Quote:

Original post by Tangireon Quote: Original post by Edtharan Quote: Original post by Tangireon Any game that uses balanced unit designs will have Rock-Paper-Scissors play emerge from it. No. You can have balanced games that do not employ Scissors/Paper/Rock systems. SPR is just one way of easily creating a balance. What if I had presented the SPR in the particular game you have described (all same units) in this manner: Unit > Unit > Unit > ... - Would this not be a form of unit specialization within your game? Since there are no other units available to counter the Unit in this particular game world, Unit then takes on the role of countering (specializing) its own kind. Lets call this the Identity Specialization? Very interesting! It could also be as though the Unit here is composed of all three of the classical "Rock", "Paper", and "Scissors" hand signs, so that one end of the unit specializes in taking another of its own kind, much in the manner of a puzzle piece. What do you think?

You are falling into the problem of thinking that Scissors Paper Rock relates to a specific unit. SPR relates to the choices a player makes, not just units (it is just that using units as examples makes it easier to understand the consequences).

So, in the case where you have a unit with 3 parts (in your example), this is still SPR because you have to make a choice of one or the others. It is still just 1 unit, but how you use that unit is the subject of SPR.

Quote:

Original post by Edtharan You are falling into the problem of thinking that Scissors Paper Rock relates to a specific unit. SPR relates to the choices a player makes, not just units (it is just that using units as examples makes it easier to understand the consequences).

What about considering that the types of Tactics that you choose are ultimately derived from the types of Units that are available to you? That when you design a unit, how it can be Used and the types of Tactics you may use it with (and its effectiveness in that maneuver) can ultimately be derived from the types of statistics it has? If Tactics are derived from Units, then SPR is thus derived ultimately from the types of Units that are available to you?

For example, if your current army consists of extremely slow defensive units, the option of using them to rush the enemy would be out of the question (unless, of course, those are the only units that are available in the game). Of course you can still use them to rush the enemy, but its statistics (slow mobility) prevents it from being used effectively as such - and thus, won't be utilized by players so much in that role. Another example would be sending in Jeeps to attack Tanks in an aggressive offensive maneuver - sure you can do that, but because Jeep machine guns aren't so effective against Tank armor, you won't see that tactic favored by players. Depending on what unit the Jeep is up against (and the statistics of the Jeep units themselves), that will determine what types of strategies would be most effective, and thus, more commonly seen.

The Environment could also be another factor, but if you are going to factor in Environment in your game, your Units will also have to be designed to handle various Environment with various effectiveness - the types of tactics players will choose will still thusly depend on the units' statistics.

[Edited by - Tangireon on May 5, 2009 10:56:22 AM]

Re: Tangireon

Primitive Conditions that Enable Tactics

The exact execution of a tactic depends on the actual abilities of the agents. The abilities could include the stats, or in a game like Chess or Go, the rules (which can be described as stats). But to say tactic type depends on unit's abilities is not very representative:

Tactic Type: Plain-old Attack
Any unit that can attack can use this tactic.

Tactic Type: Ambush
Any unit that can hide or be hidden and to exert a force to the enemy can use this.

Tactic Type: Bait
Any unit that the enemy wants to destroy/capture can use this.

Tactic Type: Dare
(Does not require any actual unit, the units you use are in the enemy's imagination.)

Tactic Type: Intercept
Any unit that can exert a force to the enemy, move, or be moved between the enemy and the primary target of the enemy.

Tactic Type: Lookout
Any unit that can sense and be positioned.

Tactic Type: Rush
Any unit that can exert a force and move, be moved, or be positioned can use this.

Tactic Type: Scatter
Any unit that can move, be positioned, or be moved.

Tactic Type: Scout
Any unit that can move or be moved and provide the player information about the environment or the enemy.

Tactic Type: Surround
Any sufficient number of units to engage the enemy at any escaping route of an area.

Tactic Type: Sweep
Any sufficient number of units that can move, be positioned, or be moved.

Tactic Type: Trojan
Any unit that can be perceived as unarmed with intent and plan to exert force on the enemy


Suppose a game has only one unit type: Caveman with club. A Caveman can attack, move, pick up or drop its club, hide in a bush, and cannot be seen when it is out of the sight range of another caveman. Then, with these abilities, all tactic types above can be used. You don't need a design where a caveman has Rock-type stats versus caveman that has Paper or Scissors type stats to enable these tactic types. Specialization could make the tactic more potent when it is used with some units, but you don't need specialization to enable the tactic types.

So while it is true that a tactic depends on what the units can do (a unit that can't attack cannot Plain-old-attack the enemy) but it requires far less than differentiating abilities to enable of tactic types.

Quote:

Original post by Tangireon Quote: Original post by Edtharan You are falling into the problem of thinking that Scissors Paper Rock relates to a specific unit. SPR relates to the choices a player makes, not just units (it is just that using units as examples makes it easier to understand the consequences). What about considering that the types of Tactics that you choose are ultimately derived from the types of Units that are available to you? That when you design a unit, how it can be Used and the types of Tactics you may use it with (and its effectiveness in that maneuver) can ultimately be derived from the types of statistics it has? If Tactics are derived from Units, then SPR is thus derived ultimately from the types of Units that are available to you?

If you are making your choices with the units, then obviously any SPR relationship from those choices will be based from those units. That's just circular reasoning.

However, not all decisions you make in a game (even RTS games) are based on units. IF you have multiple types of resource that you ahve to claim, then deciding which resources (or even to go after a resource) can form an SPR relationship. RTS games just typically focus the gamepaly on your selection and use of units, so this is where the focus of any RPS systemw ill be, it just does not have to be that way.

Quote:

Original post by Tangireon For example, if your current army consists of extremely slow defensive units, the option of using them to rush the enemy would be out of the question (unless, of course, those are the only units that are available in the game). Of course you can still use them to rush the enemy, but its statistics (slow mobility) prevents it from being used effectively as such - and thus, won't be utilized by players so much in that role. Another example would be sending in Jeeps to attack Tanks in an aggressive offensive maneuver - sure you can do that, but because Jeep machine guns aren't so effective against Tank armor, you won't see that tactic favored by players. Depending on what unit the Jeep is up against (and the statistics of the Jeep units themselves), that will determine what types of strategies would be most effective, and thus, more commonly seen.

Yes, different unit statistics do direct what tactics are more effective for certain units. This is what can elevate a simple RPS system from being trivial to one that encourages deep gameplay.

Actually your arguments here are a good argument against criticisms of RPS, that it leads to trivial gameplay. What you ahve done is shown how different unit abilities, beyond their use in countering other units, allows them to be more or less effective at different tactics which makes gameplay more interesting. Use of units is no longer just about who beats who, but how you can achieve that.

If a unit is slow, then rush tactics are not all that effective against it. So you can use this to your advantage and guess that your opponent will try to use a fast unit in a rush, so you build the counter to the fast unit. But they can anticipate that and instead go for the counter to the fast counter-unit and make a slower advance and beat you (so you would likely have the counter for the fast counter unit in your initial setup).

But then, they might not even go for a initial assault on your base and might try completely different tactics, even using the fast units in hit and run attacks rather than a rush.

So how you use the units influences the different strengths and weaknesses. Even thogh a unit might ahve a hard counter, if you can come up with a strategy that plays to a tactical weakness (maybe they take a few seconds to set up, or need to pause to reload occasionally) of the enemy and plays to a strength of your unit, these tactics can be used to win, even if the enemy has hard counters to all your units.

As an example: In a game of Starcraft (the board game - which uses the same RPS relationship between units as the computer game). I had a bunch of Lurkers (cant hit air) and the enemy had Mutalisks (can hit ground). This might have been a bad thing for me, but I used them to lure his units away from his planet and then hit with a surprise attack of Lurkers on the base destroying it. He was able to eliminate all of my bate force, but could not stop me from attacking his base.

But using the strengths of my position, even though they had a hard counter to me (they could destroy me without fear of any reprisals from those attacked) I was able to out manoeuvre my opponent and defeat him. Of course, all he would ahve had to do was to leave one of his Mutalisks at his base and I would have been stopped, but as I was using them to harass his outer bases he could not have left them alone.

So even with a hard counter RPS, you can still use other aspects of the system to turn those hard counter into victory, even against the grain of the counter, if you use the correct strategies and tactics.

Quote:

Original post by Tangireon The Environment could also be another factor, but if you are going to factor in Environment in your game, your Units will also have to be designed to handle various Environment with various effectiveness - the types of tactics players will choose will still thusly depend on the units' statistics.

Yes. If all you used for your units was the RPS stats, then the system will likely be rather dull, however, if you allow factors to modify the SPR relationship (even reversing the direction of the relationship temporarily) then you can add in much more variety to the game, even though the underlying system is RPS.

This is a good thing.

It is also why I recomend, when designing an RPS system, that you design the RPS around how the units can be used rather than just giving a raw bonus/penalty against the other units.

If Cavalry gain their dominance over Archers because the Cavalry are fast and have heavy armour, then that is a lot better than just saying cavalry have a +10 damage to archers and get a -10 damage from archers.

This way, if you have something that can slow down the cavalry (say swampy ground or a tangle spell), then you change the balance of the RPS system (although because they have heavy armour, they might still have a slight advantage over archers, it is just that it is no longer as big an advantage).