Rock paper scissors sucks

[Celestin]

You know, I'm really tired of hearing all this stuff about rock paper scissors, especially when it is used in the context of preempting careful analysis of a class or an ability simply because "rock beats scissors, l2p." Honestly, there are few things that annoy me more than displays of ignorance or incompetence like that ( or conversely, people who straight out lie to preserver their overpoweredness ). For those of you people who are afraid of walls of text ( as if you have anything better to do ), I've bolded the important sections. Long story short, "rock, paper, scissors" is a convenient excuse for incompetent or lazy development.

So I'd like to open up discussion to a few other styles and hear people's opinions... I know we can't do anything about the development of AION, but this is all hypothetical.

Has anybody played or know of Guilty Gear? Guilty Gear is a cult classic 2d fighter among fighting game afficandos for it's excellent asymmetrical balance despite having a huge roster of fighters. While there is a tiering system in Guilty Gear, the tiering system is more relative than absolute unlike other fighting games where playing a certain character is a one way ticket to lose ( Marvel vs. Capcom, I'm looking at you ) and as a whole, the game is much more balanced than many other competitors.

Every character in Guilty Gear is initially cut from the exact same cloth. They have the same basic skeleton. Every class has the same initial characteristics as in the same amount of HP, the exact same core moves ( e.g. forward punch, for all but one character is a quick punch that hits mid and offers several frames of upper body invincibility, every character also can burst to break out of a combo, but only occasionally ). But after that, the character developer is free to add whatever they want to that skeleton to form a character ( within certain bounds of course ). They modify things like speed, number of dashes, defense and create the character's move list from the ground up as opposed to designing a move list to cater around defeating one character but loosing unconditionally to another.

You would think this would mean every character plays the exact same, but as anybody who plays Guilty Gear can testify, each single character plays in an unique way. Learning one character is a whole new endeavor from learning any other character. Some characters are best at trapping, some at pressure. Some characters are all about the mental game. The end result is that while some characters may be better than another character, the disadvantaged character isn't shutout from the beginning, and this is all thanks to the fact that at the very core, every character is built from the same skeleton, though everything else might be different.

For example, Dizzy, one of the playable characters is a pressure character based on lethal setups. To play Dizzy successfully, your play style must be highly offensive and you have to keep your opponent off balance. This is because while Dizzy has an impressive array of ranged and close combat abilities, Dizzy is light, her attacks tend to have low priority, and Dizzy has low defense. If you are forced onto the defense as Dizzy, well, it's hard to recover. To help Dizzy's offense, she can double air dash, has a lot of long range moves, a very powerful midrange move that can stagger ( stun ) and a lot of key bread and butter moves can be made to transition into other chains. Finally, four of Dizzy's ranged moves summon some kind of blue flying fish thing that either bites or shoots lasers. All of the four moves have the same initial animation, which keeps the opponent guessing, but all four have very distinct roles in Dizzy's arsenal in addition to serving as 1HP walls that can be used to cancel an enemy attack. Your goal is to get your opponent into a corner where Dizzy can dish out a huge amount of damage.

Now, I don't really know about this character, but I do sometimes play him, so correct me if I'm wrong. Ky Kisuke is more balanced than Dizzy. Though he also has impressive offensive capabilities, he has slightly better defense. His ground dash is a bit faster but he cannot double air dash. Ky's moves tend to be quick and middle to short range. Thus, he has a number of attacks that allow him to rapidly close distance with his enemy. In addition, a number of his bread and butter moves either knock an opponent off his feet or stagger. The standard thing to do, once an opponent is off his feet is to use the quarter circle forward hard slash which shoots a slow, lightning bolt that hits the opponent multiple times, so it's important to knock an opponent down as much as possible so you can get in that extra damage. As a result, Ky is a bit more robust than Dizzy and is comfortable anywhere on the screen ( cornering is a good idea in any fighting game ).

As you can see, the play styles are very different. So who wins? Well, Ky is a higher tier than Dizzy and is therefore at the advantage, but honestly, it comes down to the player. Both characters are very capable ( Dizzy players have to work a bit harder to minimize her weaknesses ). No player will enter a match thinking Ky is better than Dizzy so if I play Ky, I don't have to worry about Dizzy players.

This kind of game design is counter to rock paper scissors where the mentality is well, because if you're rock, you might as well pack your bags and go home when you meet paper. All classes have a good fighting chance against every other class.

As my counter example, let's take WoW. The druid class in WoW is kind of like rock, paper and scissors rolled into one. So what do you get? You kind of get a intercontinental ballistic missile. And as most WoW players will testify ( I asked every single one of my WoW friends on this one and all non-druid players agreed ), druids are damn overpowered. Logically, this sucks. But in a rock, paper scissors world, well, a druid is rock, paper and scissors and therefore, should win and everything is still fair.

So, do you think this kind of game design can be successfully applied to a MMO? Would it work better than the traditional rock paper scissors, which while I admit is great for a RTS, is cumbersome in a MMO?

[aespire]

While in a sense, what you are saying is true, most MMOs are not purely skill and reaction based (more correctly twitch based) games like an arcade game and FPS. I'm sure you know most MMOs are RPGs and they usually have character levels, which as such already create a huge ability difference when this value alone have a significant difference between two players. Of course skill with playing your character to the outmost is important and does have a part in affecting the outcome of a fight between players, however, this is still hugely different from a controlled combat environment like in an arcade arena since a lot of games provide PVP even in the "wild". Also, in MMOs, there are gear, skill choices, talents, ability level, stats, races, and sometimes more, differences where a player can choose how to "configure" their characters. Also, to design characters like what you are saying basically loses the flavor of each type of class that you can play (for example how are you actually going to balance using that system, classes like Spiritmaster, where your summoned elementals are a huge factor?). The arcade game design to balance the game as that is an overly simple design that is not very suitable for MMOs in general. Even within arcade games like that, certain characters tend to be better suited to break another character (but this is less of a factor when player skill and reaction is still the major factor when it comes to it), with some characters having unbreakable (some consider it exploitable) abilities/combos which any character once caught, meant certain defeat.

While I'm not saying the RPS system is flawless, it is not, it still serves as a guideline for balancing some MMOs, as the RPS systems for MMOs are never static (sometimes paper do not win rock, and scissors do not always cut paper).

P.S. not sure if I'm writing all my thoughts on the matter correctly, a little rushed to post this as I'm kinda busy with the lunar new year stuff here and all.

[2aimless]

So if everyone would have the same chance to defeat the other where would be the teamplay? Uhm yes the other play with me against other ppl.... welll everyone should have the SAME 1337-uber skills... dont forget its a fcking laggy mmo and you cant say that anything is fair if the other player got 2 more second delay.

try play Rakion... its and fpsmmo or something like that. Well you got your fighter and do different moves and run away and jump out and knockdown tactics whatever.
Still your able to buy items that make you stronger and you can level up there 2.

If you want a really fair 1vs1 duell or something stop playing mmo.

Well its not even true that the RPS-system always works. a level 50paper would surely win vs a lvl 30scissor...
You talk about 2skilled ppl who know all tricks and now the one got paper and the other got scissor. so for sure the scissor guy will not let you win because he knows his strength. But there always things like surprising and also 2vs1 its allowed. If you have no mmo friends then i feel sorry for you. get some.

[Vissious]

Although referencing Guilty Gear has already made you my favorite person on this forum so far, I have to disagree with your argument a bit. Rock, Paper, Scissors is not necessarily an easy out, but maybe a template for how things would go ideally if characters were equally matched in level (not necessarily skill).

For example: Even if a mage is supposed to beat out a warrior in a RPS system, the way it SHOULD be programmed is so that, yes, if a mage can keep the warrior away from him then he should win every time. However, if the warrior is able to get in close, he smashes the mage with ease. Like I said before, the RPS system isn't all bad, but you're definitely right that it shouldn't be the only factor when it comes to class vs class.

[Celestin]

Originally Posted by Vissious

Although referencing Guilty Gear has already made you my favorite person on this forum so far, I have to disagree with your argument a bit. Rock, Paper, Scissors is not necessarily an easy out, but maybe a template for how things would go ideally if characters were equally matched in level (not necessarily skill).

For example: Even if a mage is supposed to beat out a warrior in a RPS system, the way it SHOULD be programmed is so that, yes, if a mage can keep the warrior away from him then he should win every time. However, if the warrior is able to get in close, he smashes the mage with ease. Like I said before, the RPS system isn't all bad, but you're definitely right that it shouldn't be the only factor when it comes to class vs class.

Haha <3 Guilty Gear, best fighting game ever made.

To be honest, while there might not be any other way to design characters in a MMO ( at the end, I did say something that kind of implied that I'm not even sure if Guilty Gear style characters is possible in a MMO ) because MMOs and fighting games really don't have much in common, what Guilty Gear has done should be admired.

Rock paper scissors is a good initial design choice. It's simple to understand and it works well in practice. But the problem is when people begin discussing classes, idiot jackasses, lazy or incompetent designers or people looking to prevent nerfing of their own class immediately begin shouting down all thoughtful discussion by saying "rock beats scissors, stop whining and go find paper." This is exactly what happened in WoW, especially within the year following release, but a lot of good discussion that could've helped to balance the game was preempted by people who were too lazy to formulate their own arguments. In addition, because nobody actually bothers to designate what class is rock or papers or scissors, when an overpowered class like a shaman appears and proponents of the shaman start yelling rock paper scissors, it's very difficult to argue against them, especially as you find that in one thread, they are referring to themselves as rock and the next as scissors.

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.

While rock paper scissors does provide a good initial design template, perhaps even the only viable design template, the problem is that in realization, rock paper scissors is highly flawed and proves cumbersome. The worst thing about rock paper scissors is that it prevents crucial in depth analysis of classes and abilities simply because rock should always beat scissors. But MMOs are not designed to be this simple and neither should the basic premise. Finally, because nobody bothers to say what class is rock or paper or scissors, there's nothing preventing a class from becoming all three.

[gguus]

[Datippa]

Apply the RPS system to Spells & Skill (kinda like a block or counter, silence, interrupt. w/e u wanna call it with a CD.) instead of classes! That way No one spell is the most powerful or weakest. Just know when to use which skill or spell! This way everyone can defend themself. but i don't recommend just 1 button being able to do all that. Instead different button to counter different spell or skill that the enemy is casting.

Originally Posted by 2aimless

So if everyone would have the same chance to defeat the other where would be the teamplay? Uhm yes the other play with me against other ppl....

Wrong! Just because you can defend yourself or kill the enemy doesn't mean that is the best choice of action. You still want your healer to heal and your buffer to buff, tank to tank etc. That is TEAMWORK.

2 exact team made up of: Healer, Tank, Assassin, Chanter, Ranger, Mage
If Team A just tries to kill everyone solo like u're saying they'll lose to team B who works as a team. since team A is just attacking everyman for himself. Team B is buffing and healing the team (which is TEAM PLAY). This allows their team to be stronger and survive long. think outside the box.



just because u can doesn't mean u should.

[Celestin]

Originally Posted by gguus

Sorry troll, we have not any bridges for you to live under nor do we have any cats, goats or pretty virgin girls for you to eat.

Anything but rock paper scissors promises while maintaining uniquely distinct gameplay styles promises to be a design problem that grows exponentially, especially since different classes should have distinct roles. Who knows, it might not even be possible, but who knows, one day, when the world is a bit more ideal...

A Guilty Gear based MMO though, would be pretty goddamn awesome. I would definitely roll Dizzy first. Then maybe Ky or Jam ( but damn her voice is annoying ).

[Calindor]

I said it before, here it is again.

Your combination of rocks, scissors and paper to make up a full party, or a raid party is more important than the rock vs scissors it self o.O

Look at L2, an archer is arguably the weakest class in the game by itself or in a 1v1 with no buffs. But a fully supported archer party is arguably the best PvP party in the game.

A destroyer, or duelist with no buffs will rape an archer, but a party of duelists and destroyers with no support will get rolled even by 2 archers with proper support.

This isnt WoW, imo I dont really care what happens in a 1v1.

[Kyuzo]

Why are you comparing it to GGX? A fighting game lmao.

[Marchosias]

Alright. I'm just gonna throw out a QFT to Gguus here. Troll or not, he's right.

I've posted a wall or two on this topic myself. Basically, a small degree of "RPS" is inevitable simply because perfect balance is impossible. However, this "RPS" is not something to strive for. I'm leaving it there.

[Theron]

If it is Rock Paper Scissors I hope it doesn't become complicated like this

YouTube - World of roguecraft - Balance

[Celestin]

Originally Posted by Kyuzo

Why are you comparing it to GGX? A fighting game lmao.

Because Guilty Gear is one of the best current examples of asymmetric balance without resorting to RPS. Note that I even said it might not even be possible to apply Guilty Gear principles to a MMORPG. I just said it would be nice to see something different, and more importantly, see if it works.

[Ecronyte]

Teamwork always comes up in these discussions. And I think teamwork should always be rewarded over disorganization. But rock, paper, scissors isn't the only way to foster teamwork. Teamwork should give you strength, not cover your debilitating weaknesses to certain classes.

And Aion is gonna be a more casual/solo friendly game. And as someone who loves to solo, and loves to duel (And also someone who comes from a fighting game background). I don't want to have to bend over anytime a class I am weak against walks into my area. And conversely, I don't want my victories to be handed to me. I want to earn my wins, and I want my opponent to be able to earn his/hers.