Rock paper scissors sucks

[aespire]

Originally Posted by Celestin

By the way, somebody earlier mentioned that gear makes a difference. This is true. But the problem is, if the system really is rock paper scissors, than it doesn't matter if rock goes all out in gearing up against paper, paper will still with much less effort put into gearing up to secure his advantage against rock.

Not entirely true, though not false either, since equipment in different games are designed differently. However, sometimes equipment does turn the RPS system around, e.g. like how paper lose to rock in WoW in some cases, and some talent spects just plain don't work against anything.

RPS system is mainly a guideline as to how to tune classes, it is not a rigid system where R always wins S but loses to P. You don't really see players who do not put effort, into building up their character, winning someone who has, even thought their character are supposed to do so by design. Even similarly geared does not automatically means a win if the person does not know how to play their class.

Personally I don't really see how you can use Guilty Gear type arcade game character design for MMOs. A major issue would be the difference in the nature of the skills for each class, with combat not being straight forward like in arcade arena. Also in most MMOs, Skill hits/resists/blocks/parry etc are all calculated by the system and not through player action, try comparing MMOs like Planetside (Sci-Fi MMOFPS) and a game like Tabula Rasa (Sci Fi MMORPG), you'll notice that the combat system are hugely different, where Planetside (lag aside) is hit where you aim just like normal FPS, Tabula Rasa is a system where you have to point at the general direction and the system will handle the hit/miss calculation, being a complex hybrid of FPS and normal stats based game. As I have said before, the system for Guilty Gear is overly simple for a MMO where stats and gear tend to factor a lot more over player based reaction and accuracy.

One more thing to add, in a lot of case, while MMOs do provide room for PvP, one should note that in many cases, the skills were originally designed for use in PvE. When brought into the PvP context, some of these skills might be overpowering against certain classes even though in RPS theory, the class design was not supposed to be that way. This in itself is a huge factor where the arcade game character and skill design do not actually need to take into account since they do not have to.

[l0wryda]

has anyone here played EvE-online? If you have you would know that game is heavily based on RPS theory. I'd like to hear your opinion of the game...unless nobody here has played eve ill offer mine.

[Calindor]

There are quite a few eve players, i personally only played it for about a week, I couldnt get into it, probably due to me being an ex Earth and Beyond player.

[l0wryda]

it's a hard game to get into but its extremely gratifying. The pvp is extremely cut throat, you lose and your ship is in pieces and half your equipment is stolen by the victor 8( Very prevalent RPS system in eve. I love greeting new players and hearing the same old, "I'm going to train for a battleship right away and pwn."

[Vissious]

Played EVE for the amount of time it took me to read Ender's Game (I did both at the same time), and that wasn't long. Once I realized I didn't have to play to learn all of the skills.... no thanks. I know there's definitely more to it, but I just prefer to have a character that swings a sword around.

On topic: I think everyone here agrees, RPS is a building block and should be the first step rather than the last when developing a solid PVP system. When it comes down to it, level should be the MAIN deciding factor. The reason I say this is because higher level players have spent more time trying to make their character stronger, and it should show.

I have always hated seeing a level 50 toon take out a level 65 just because he/she has better damage dealing skills. I'm not talking a one to two level difference, a significant jump in level should also have a significant jump in power.