Rock, scissors, paper (soft version)

[Chris]

Each player has several unit types. Some units are better against other units. These units make one big army that always fight together (no tactical map and meneuvers), combat is instant an automated (computer leads the army and make all tactical level decisions).

With these assumptions, can we make it work in a massive multiplayer browser game?



EDIT: I meant that one unit gives like +20% against another unit, not that an unit completely wipe out the unit that is virnelable. So as Nox pointed out, these would be "soft counters", not "hard counters" like in RSP.

[Nox]

RSP is IMHO only usable if
1) the player can manage to acquire some knowledge of the enemy
2) is given an opportunity to adjust
3) can use his units on the field properly

(3) seems to be entirely in the hands AI and of (1) and (2) we don't have info... if the possibilities of those are limited, I'd advise using softer counters

with 1,2 being possible, than it's in the hands of AI and it depends... and the game will probably about (1)

[Chris]

I don't expect "real" RSP, this would be impossible. My expectations are lower, just something with the feel of it and with some of its properties. I mean, it is cool to have some units in your army and win against that sucker because he had "wrong" army composition Or the sweet dilemma how to build your army.

What you mean by "softer counters"?

[CygnusX]

I believe pure RSP is unusable in BBGs.. especially in PvP scenarios.  The reason is, it is not possible to come up with a strategy to defend against such large a user base.  In short duration, limited enemy battles (such as starcraft, league of legends, etc), it IS possible to utilize RSP as you can 1) scout to determine what the enemy has, and develop your counter 2) effectively play against a limited number of enemies.

The problem with BBGs is that, because of the number of enemies, it is not possible to come up with a viable  attack and defense strategy.  With no viable strategy, we fail to create fun for the user, and this is a certain no win for us as designers.  Unlike starcraft where the probability is small that you can play 1v7 CPU (though still possible, and super amazing when you win after 2 hours)... it is, by all accounts, 0 for large PVP games.  This breaks the classical rule of 'all players must have a chance to win, even if its only a small chance'.  

In my belief, what you 'can' do is create a variation of RSP inside BBGs IF you couple it with 3 things.  1) Power must primarily be obtained through accumulation over time 2) You must be able to scout your opponents for weaknesses, 3) you must be able to try to hide your own weakness.  If Rock sometimes beats paper IF the rock player has accumulated a significantly larger amount of rock resources, then this scenario could be ok.  

Example:  player 1 has 10 units, each do 2 fire damage, 0 water damage.
               player 2 has 5 units, each do 2 water damage, 0 fire damage.

Player 2 draws player 1 into a water type fight.  Each player has 80% of all non-water skills go toward combat, 100% of all water-type skills go toward combat. So, Player 1 has an attack of 16, player 2 has an attack of 10.  Player 1 wins the fight, even though player 2 had the tactical advantage.  Add some scouting in this (such that water types can find fire types), and suddenly the game is interesting and fun.

[Nox]

'm not really sure what you want then this rather comes down to the combat system in general

If you want RSP player need to get info about the opponent and ability to adjust composition or have sufficient count of other targets - however as for defense I have no idea now.

Ad "softer counter" - RSP is sometimes called "hard counters system", Rock is a hard counter to Scissors etc. so if it becomes softer it would deal e.g. 55% dmg to Scissors and 45% to Paper... or basicly you know - moving the slider how much anti-{something} or universal units are

[Chris]

Oh, yes. I definitely meant soft counters when I started this thread Just didn't know the word (first post and topic name changed)
Yes, some units are stronger against other units, but do not wipe them out.


How about this:
- pikemen get +30% bonus vs knights
- knights get +30% bonus vs archers
- archers get +30% bonus vs pikemen
- pikemen are 20% cheaper than other units

* combat is a series of rounds where AI sends troops against other troops (first attacker then defender then attacker and so on).
* AI always sends troops against the vulnerable troop if possible
* each player can invest in general (each level cost like 5 units let's say)
* if your general if lower than enemy general there is a 10% chance each combat round that AI will send a random unit against a random unit instead of checking vulnerability

[CygnusX]

Is there any way to know what you will be attacked by (or most likely to be attacked by) in this system?  With no means of scouting, then the 'best' choice could not be logically deduced, and the player would be forced to rely on pure luck.  I would not advise designing your system in this manor.

My basic rule is:
Choices based on logic = fun
Choices based on luck = anti-fun
antifun > fun

[Chris]

Life is not black-white. There is not only logic and luck. There are more options like probability, intuition, psychology, sociology.

Assuming there is no in game mechanism to get the information about target player setup you can still:
- use intuition/psychology (pikemen will be most likely enemy since it is the cheapest)
- use social networking skills (to gather info from your friends what thye have, then use probability theory to calculate the most probable enemy setup)
- use sociology to observe public ingame communication channels to get what people would see as the best one (spreading misinformation about your setup is an option too)

Anyway, what model of soft counters you see possibly working?

[pixlepix]

well, in a casualty based model, where actual wars are fought between leagues, this has been done in many games to some extent. In 1v1, then this idea would be very good.

[Chris]

In Civilization IV they made various counters for units (vs meele, vs mounted, etc). Althrough they have a tactical map you still move armies in stacks so you can't really attack a vulnerable unit, at least during important battles when a huge stack arrives. So, even with map they still faced this problem. They tried to fix it by introducing colloteral damage (artillery damage all units in stack at once), but I'm not sure it worked...

Anyway, as a player, while the counter system is flawed I still find it very appealing... It made me a bit surprised since I was very negative and sceptical about the system when I saw it first. Still, I enoyed it in the end. Imagine how much the system would be enjoyed by a player who was excited about it from the start...