AaaA: On Sirlin's "RPS in Strategy Games"

[Maj]

Article about an Article: On Sirlin's "Rock, Paper, and Scissors in Strategy Games"

pre-requisite reading: Rock, Paper, and Scissors in Strategy Games by Sirlin

The issue i have with this article is that he makes pure RPS sound worthless while claiming that "RPS with unequal payoffs" is the best competitive game design methodology ever invented. I don't buy it. In fact i think he has it all wrong.

If you think that evenly balanced RPS is devoid of strategy then why would you think weighted RPS would be any better? The odds of winning the first game are still the exact same because the game is still the exact same. Without any prior information about your opponent, the only thing you can do is take a blind guess. By making each type of victory worth different amounts of points all you're doing is marking one type as the "aggressive" move, one type as the "neutral" move, and one type as the "defensive" move. But until you play your opponent, how can you guess what their tendencies will be? You literally have nothing to react to, nothing to base a strategy on.

In fact, if you think about it, adding different weights to the options instantly rebalances them. If you make the first option worth twice as much as the second option, then your opponent will defend against the first option twice as often as they'll defend against the second option. So really, you're back at square one. You're back to what seems like an empty guessing game.

Yet once you do play the opponent, you immediately start to gather information about their play style. You start to keep track of their patterns and tendencies. Then it doesn't matter whether you're playing an evenly balanced game or an uneven game. You can still figure out how to outplay them. You don't need weighted values to do this.

Therefore, the article seems like kind of a catch 22 to me. If you're trying to read your opponent's mind based on the information you're acquiring, then the game becomes interesting all by itself. If you're not, then all you're doing is guessing. Assigning different weights to each option only makes the game SEEM more dynamic. But all of the yomi mindgames are there without this extra complication. Even with pure RPS, some people like rock more, some people like paper more, some people like scissors more. Some people panic when they lose two games in a row. Some people don't panic until they lose three games in a row. Some people focus when they lose three games in a row. Some people stop giving a shit and become completely unpredictable when they lose three games in a row. There's inherently a wide range of information to absorb and use against your opponent. Because your opponent is an inherently complicated human mind.

I think people struggle with this concept because they fail to take into account the immediate complexity this puzzle generates when multiple RPS games are being played at once. Yes, RPS is a dumb guessing game. But the only way a fighting game could begin to resemble a single game of RPS is if it was a single match, single round, sudden-death fight between identical opponents positioned at point blank range without the ability to move. And they couldn't be allowed to play each other ever again.

However, in a typical Ryu vs Ryu round between skilled opponents, there are probably something in the order of a few hundred RPS games played out. You see, winning a single game of RPS is a matter of luck, but winning 500 consecutive simultaneous overlapping games played against a single opponent? Now that is a mindgame.

Most people aren't even aware of the existence of all the RPS dimensions that are being simultaneously resolved in Street Figher matches. A lot of people focus on trying to figure out which attack the opponent prefers without paying attention to which range the opponent prefers. A lot of people focus on trying to figure out how often the opponent goes for a throw without paying attention to how much vitality the opponent usually has when he goes for a throw. A lot of people focus on trying to figure out how many fireballs it takes to make the opponent jump without paying attention to how much meter the opponent usually has when he goes for a jump combo. That's what makes RPS interesting: The fact that most players aren't even AWARE of most of the RPS games being played out in any given match.

Here's a simple example: For most players, the most uncomfortable part of a match is the very beginning. Everything seems risky. If you throw a fireball, the opponent can jump over it. If you try to attack, the opponent's fireball will knock you down. If you jump, you can get uppercutted and crossed up. If you do nothing, you lose momentum. But the real reason that it's so annoying is because you enter the round with a blank slate, with (nearly) all of the variables being reset. It's almost like going back to that first blind guess. And it sucks, because a single stroke of bad luck can get you killed. But as soon as you start moving, all of the RPS dimensions re-emerge and mindgames once again overpower luck. You just have to survive that first instant.

Similar examples include wakeup situations where neither player has much momentum, or dealing with a nearly dead opponent with access to a Custom Combo, or situations where one player has temporary access to a powerful super move (such as the opponent's K-Groove meter running out). All of these situations cut through the complex ambient mind games and present a simple glaring instance of RPS. It's scary, it's in your face, and in the heat of the moment very few players have the mental clarity to refer back to previous occurances against the same opponent.

All of this is further compounded by the setting. Casual play introduces elements of unpredictability, because there's nothing more difficult to predict than laziness or distraction. In casual play, people experiment with unorthodox tactics or go for random psychic DP's or take risks even when their best option is clearly caution. On the other hand, money matches and tournaments make players nervous and overly cautious. All of this figures into the RPS scheme because the best mindgames specialists will factor all of these elements into their deductions. They'll realize that some risky offense is actually less risky in tournament play because everyone hesistates for an extra split-second. Or they'll realize that the most conservative attack in a certain situation can become the most unsafe because that opponent is expecting it.

It's also dependent on the two players' past history. For example, gimmicky gambles work best when meeting someone for the first time. However, if two players are accustomed to each other's play styles due to having an extensive backlog of tournament matches, then it makes sense to go back to fundamentals. Going one step further, if the two players are regular training partners, then the most effective approach would probably be playing in a wild unorthodox style - because it's the only way to offset the mountain of information in the other player's possession.

There are also some issues regarding player archetypes. In general, technical players tend to do well right off the bat because their success is least dependent on knowledge of the opposing player. They can win on game knowledge and matchup strategy alone. On the other hand, mindgames specialists may require a few rounds or encounters to absorb an opposing player's style, but they can transfer this knowledge from one game to another. Then it becomes an contest of whether the technical player can compose sufficiently complicated hurdles or whether the mindgames specialist can see through to the opponent's basic intentions and adapt accordingly.

In the final analysis, as long as the core RPS structure of the game holds up, the players themselves can construct enormously complex yomi layers without much extra foresight from the game designers. The biggest issue is whether the game presents a diverse enough field of action to where not all RPS games are resolved immediately and in direct sequence.

In the example cited in the article, i think the real problem is that it's way too easy to present simple glaring RPS games in KI2 which cut through any hope of having subtle background RPS games. Every RPS success leads to a knockdown which wipes all of the existing pieces off the board and leads immediately into another identical RPS game. There's simply no room to build unnoticed patterns. Thus, the matrix of RPS games never gets complex enough for players to struggle with keeping track of it all.

The RPS matrix of a good fighting game should be complex enough to force players to choose which sequences to focus on and to struggle with keeping track of important patterns. If both players are ever able to visualize and grasp the entire thing, then all of the opposing counter-strategy is nullified, and the match becomes a dumb guessing game. The game needs to be stable enough to keep this from happening. The winner of a match should be decided by how many critical RPS strands each player can remember and analyze.

Most top players have an excellent memory when it comes to these things. Even when we haven't played for a year, Valle still remembers a lot of my gameplay tendencies and he draws upon that information anytime we meet in a tournament. I don't even represent much of a threat to him, and he still pays attention to how i play. I don't know about you, but i sure as hell don't remember the play styles of 90% of the people i beat. That's why he was so damn consistent back when he was at the top of his game.

[ZenFire]

FG philosophy.. or actually, game theory in general interests me a lot. I'm glad to see it does so to you too. Any particular reason why you're writing these up? Plan on doing anything with it or is it jsut to kill time? I admit I did not read the original (Sirlin's) article so I can't say if your critque is justified or not.

However, I totally agree with how the degree of freedom (number of options) given to the player relates to the inherent complexity of human v human competition. Game makers can only be expected to design a set of actions with appropriate counters/escapes and then balance them out so that effort/skill corresponts to the reward to a certain degree.

I'm of the opinion that trying to explain FG's in terms of RPS is only suited when introducing someone to the subject, but it's obviously not accurate enough. Besides the guessing and mind-reading part of a game comes the fact that choices are made a certain point in time and aren't instant or synchronous with your opponent's actions. (man, I feel like I'm making a long stretch and taking a long journey to relate this to something I want to say) Ok, I'm just gonna break down and give my opinion, cus that's all anyone ever wants to do on forums anyway. I broke down FG player skills down into these facets:
-knowledge of the game. Not only properties of your character, but also things like mixups, counters to certain tactics, match-up specific stuff etc.
-dexterity and reaction. Ability to perform inputs needed to do all the things you have to, lobbed together with reaction/hand-eye coordination needed to... well.. react to stuff.
-ability to adapt/read your opponent. This ties back to all the stuff you said about figuring out your opponent.

I once thought about rating certain players along these axis, but then I realised how silly and pointless that would be. As with everything else this view of FG proficiency is a simplification of the real deal, just like everything else is. I wrote a whole thing about this sort of 'subjective interpretation/simplification'.

My point in all this? I dunno, I just wanted to profile myself. Look at me! har har! On a more serious note, my point is that besides introducing a person to the FG world, RPS is an overly simplified view of FG's that takes away from its complexity and the skills needed to be good at them. It's not really saying anything about your article, which I think makes a good solid point.

[Thongboy Bebop]

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fo ... 020530902X

N

[Maj]

Any particular reason why you're writing these up? Plan on doing anything with it or is it jsut to kill time?

I read all of s-kill's and Sirlin's articles back when i was first finding my way around the SF tournament scene. They were all very helpful and i have a lot of respect for 'em. But they are kind of old now so i thought it might be cool to write up my own take. For example, i think the point Sirlin was trying to make is that adding weights to RPS helps, but the point he ended up making is that it's essential - which i find untrue.

Trouble is, i don't know of anyone who would actually want to read either of my essays. So i didn't put too much effort into organizing or editing them, which seems to be annoying TBBB. Anyway it's best to think of them as failed experiments and move on. I just had some free time so i figured i'd cross something off my to-do list.

Btw if anyone ever makes Top Players trading cards, i'd love to see your power level rankings graphed on the back of each one.

[Thongboy Bebop]

I don't see why one would put so much effort into typing out all that just for themselves is all. Either you're trying to get a point across, which means you should consider that other people than you are reading it, or you're just jerking off all over your keyboard, in which case you're just posting for the sake of posting.

See also: 98% of videos.

N

[Maj]

What?? There are way more possibilities than the two you listed. If you think everything i've written is completely worthless, go ahead and say that. Otherwise, what's the big deal?

I did have a few ideas that i wanted to convey, but i didn't think they were critical enough to put helluva effort into communicating them in the neatest way possible. It took me three to four hours to write both essays, but it would take me like two days to refine them to the point where i'd want to post them as articles on my website or on SRK.

For now they're simply rough drafts and i'm satisfied with having them written down somewhere. Later on i might decide to revise them and post them on some website. In the meantime, who cares?

If there were a hundred articles posted here every month, then i'd support stricter grammatical and literary standards. Since that's not the case, i don't feel the need to apologize to you for neglecting to spend 8 hours refining a block of text just to cut down your reading time by 10 minutes.

It is what it is and what it is is a half-assed first draft article written at 3am on an experimental forum for the sole purpose of trying out an essay topic idea which isn't even that clever to begin with. It's not my fault that it doesn't fit into either of your two arbitrary classifications.

[Xenozip.]

I've crossed this subject a lot.

Before I say anything more, I'd just like to say this:
Even though RPS isn't particularly fun on it's own, you can actually have quite a lot of fun playing it with the right people, and with the right circumstances. Even RPS can be fun in comparison to Chess if everyone just happens to be in the mood for good old RPS. :)

As simple and basic as it is, if you're in the mood for it then there's nothing wrong with it.

--

That said, I originally came from a FPS gaming background and played with a lot of the high-profile Quake1 players and attended many tournaments. I would consider myself one of the 2nd tier Q1 players back when QW was at the peak of it's popularity.

Moving from FPS to Fighters has been.. strange.

I've noticed a lot of RPS in the core fundamentals for many fighters, which is quite a bit of a strong contrast to what I was use to with FPS, since in FPS there is little to no RPS involved. The winner in a top-level 1on1 in Q1 was determined by who was able to move the best, aim the best, and strategize the best.

What was strategy in FPS? Well it meant a few things actually. There were areas on the map that were more beneficial to be in than others, and also there were powerups that gave direct advantages to you when you obtained them. Naturally a lot of the game became controlling areas of the map, which also forced a lot of cat-and-mouse gaming to go on as well. Eventually some players got good enough and familiarized themselves with the maps and games so well that they could control the majority of the map and the majority of the powerups once they had a initiative or the first kill. But other players also evolved to the point where countering these tactics became staple. You were not automatically defeated once you lose initiative, but then came the task of not losing all more lives until you could regain initiative by out-playing your opponent. The way to do that was to play defensively to counter your opponent who was attempting to maintain control.

A player who was intent on maintaining control ran patterns because the powerups spawned in a pattern, therefor their movements were automatically predictable. And I daresay anything truely predictable has a counter to it.

There were a lot of ways to do this, such as predicting your opponents movements and taking advantageous areas, masking your movementss, faking your movements (feinting), taking pop-shots, provoking, taking hard-to-maintain powerups and using them, and sometimes even brute force.

And then comes Fighters. To me fighters were very confusing at first because all it was, was simple RPS. Taking Guilty Gear for example, once a character had initiative it became a very long series of attacks with high/low/throw points thrown into the mix, eventually causing the opponent to guess wrong and end up being comboed and knocked down. And to make matters worse, another functionality of Guilty Gear is that the majority of the cast has a slow-moving projectile that could be used meaty, and due to the nature of projectiles that meant a completely safe meaty move against a downed opponent, thus looping back to the string of RPS.

But then I realized a key feature in Fighters: Gaining initiative. Some Fighters were very dynamic in what I like to call "the first step" (which is gaining initiative). Because really, no one is simply going to strait up allow you to run RPS strings like the ones in Guilty Gear right off the bat. No, they are going to be trying to gain initiative too, while also attempting to avoid losing it to the opponent.

As said, some are more dynamic than others. When I look at fighters I see a vast number of attack and defense methods with all kinds of hitboxes that can counter or interact with one another in different ways. In order to gain initiative on a player who is trying to do the same thing and of equal or greater skill, you really have to use your tools. Stuff like baiting, trapping, zoning, and spacing come into play.

Truth is, Fighters are not 100% RPS because both players are trying hard to outplay the other in order to take initiative. Although a large portion of it is RPS, not all of it is.

But some are more interesting than others. Honestly looking at SF3:3rd Strike Chun-Li vs Chun-Li makes the game feel a lot less dynamic. In fact it almost makes it feel like it's back to core RPS. Since in Chun vs Chun it's almost like both players are simply guessing which of the three attacks the opponent will use and which three they should use at any given time, and when to expect/use them.

But, of all the 2D Fighters I've played, I have found some that are significantly more dynamic than others. One of the more interesting ones being Immaterial and Missing Power (IaMP). Not surprisingly RPS exists in that game too, but the First Step in this game is significantly different than a lot of other 2D Fighters that I have played. In this game there is a very strong emphasis on a lot of functionalities that I enjoyed in FPS games: movement, aim, and control. Learning to beat your opponent in IaMP means learning how to position ones self in a completely advantageous space while limiting your opponents space. In order to gain initiative you cannot rely entirely on melee because bullets, and bullet+melee combinations will always directly counter plain melee.

For example, most people are familiar with Chun-Li's back+HP move in SF3:3S. If that character were in IaMP then this attack would not be effective at all. This is because even though to move itself tends to counter most other characters melee, the move can not counter bullets. What this means is that if an IaMP character were to surround Chun with bullets, and then run in with a dinky little kick, Chun would be unable to use b+HP to beat it because the bullets would knock her out of her b+HP. Chun would be forced to make a decision to either move through the bullets or block. And therein lies the other mindgame involved in IaMP. If Chun moves in order to bypass the opponent's bullets, then she becomes vulnerable to the opponent's melee while moving. But if she chooses to block she then is forced to deal with the opponents direct offense and RPS mixups.

Sounds simple, but it isn't. Since the majority of the IaMP cast comes equipped with a variety of movements, bullets, and attacks things get very very complicated.

The game feels a lot more like an FPS game to me. While other Fighters feel like Checkers or just plain old RPS. The notion that you and your opponent have ways to limit each others ability to move and attack, and the notion of using movements and attacks to take advantageous space while limiting your opponents. There's quite a lot that goes into it.

Meanwhile there are other games that have kind of come close to this as well, but I believe IaMP is the closest I've seen to something more than just RPS. While a lot of Fighters feel like little more than just sticking out high-priority attacks until you've gained initiative and then running RPS rushdown until you win or lose.

In closing I wish some one like Sirlin would give IaMP a chance. Long enough to understand it, at least. Sirlin has written an article about the different layers of Yomi. Personally, I feel that a lot of Fighters only reach about Yomi layer 3 at best, while I have experienced some Yomi layer 4 in IaMP and Q1.

[Maj]

Haha you are such an IaMP fanboy. Btw, i brought up your blog in some dumb discussion on another forum. So i did my part and got at least one dude to check out the game. I'm just letting you know that it's a dumb discussion so you don't waste your time reading the rest of the thread.

I'm not sure that yomi layer four is necessary, and i'm not sure what purpose it would serve. Three layers is all you need to maintain a dynamic strategic exchange. Plus, wouldn't having four layers add a whole bunch of empty interactions?

With three layers, you have A>B>C>A. So the only null interactions are AvsA, BvsB, and CvsC. But if you have four layers, then you have A>B>C>D>A. In that case AvsC and BvsD are both undefined as well.

Oh also, i disagree with your Chun Li example. If she was in IaMP, her B+HP would in fact counter bullets.

Also when you categorize Street Fighter games as "just RPS" i think you're overlooking the most interesting part of fighting games, which is movement and the subtle hidden struggle for superior positioning. GGXX is an extremely extreme case of initiative being the most important thing in a match and even that game has all sorts of defensive weapons such as alpha counters and combo breakers. Most traditional fighting games give you one high/low/throw mixup before you're pushed too far away to maintain offense, so you're constantly forced to revert to the struggle for initiative.

[Xenozip.]

I'm just letting you know that it's a dumb discussion so you don't waste your time reading the rest of the thread.

It's on HerV, not reading the sillyness is implied.

Oh also, i disagree with your Chun Li example. If she was in IaMP, her B+HP would in fact counter bullets.

BAITED. Actually, she IS in IaMP and her name is Yukari. And her b+HP does not counter bullets, muahahaha (see: blog post).

Also when you categorize Street Fighter games as "just RPS" i think you're overlooking the most interesting part of fighting games, which is movement and the subtle hidden struggle for superior positioning. GGXX is an extremely extreme case of initiative being the most important thing in a match and even that game has all sorts of defensive weapons such as alpha counters and combo breakers. Most traditional fighting games give you one high/low/throw mixup before you're pushed too far away to maintain offense, so you're constantly forced to revert to the struggle for initiative.

Movement in Street Fighter isn't exceptionally complicated due to the nature of pokes and anti-airs, and the fact that it's 2D. You move into position where your hitboxes are ideal, such as moving into ideal anti-air positioning or moving outside of jump-in range or moving just outside of sweep range. There are ideal positions at any given moment and moving into any other position is technically subpar. This is why you see top-level Japanese players with robotic-like movement, always standing at exactly the same locations for various situations, such as always standing exactly just out of reach of Urien's j.HK or Chun's c.MK.

Yes of course movement is very important but it's not very deep or dynamic. You're either in the right place at the right time or you're not.

In my Chun vs Chun example what exactly determines who lands the first hitconfirmable normal into SA.2 for the knockdown + oki? They are both doing the "Chun Dance" shifting themselves right around c.MK range and trying to land it. That's all there is to it in that situation. They are trying to bait a whiff or trying to land it when the other one walks forward. To me it feels like a guessing game like RPS.

You're fishing. At least it feels a lot like fishing to me. Fishing for that hit into super.

The sad thing, is that Chun effects almost everyone. Put Chun up against Urien and you still end up seeing "Chun Dance" for the majority of the round until some one gets a knockdown, then it's rushdown for the next half of the game. Why? because after that first knockdown they both have ridiculous oki and mixups, and the best counters to said mixups usually result in the defender knocking the aggressor down and returning with their own mixups.

I disagree that most fighters give only one high/low/throw mixup before ending the momentum. How many times have I seen Chun or Dudley or Urien keep some one in the corner for the entirety of the round after the first knockdown? Way too much. Even if they block the c.MK it doesn't really effect Chun all that much, she still has your back to the corner and all she has to do is tap forward to get right back into the c.MK/kara-throw mixup range.

And that actually applies to a lot of games I can think of.. Let's see..
SF3, Garou, Melty, GG, AH, CvS2, bk/bbb, etc

Rushdown/momentum, totally. And lots of chances to high/low/throw per initiative. Some moreso than others, granted.

I don't play enough MvC2 to know if it applies there too, but I assume it applies to certain teams but not others. Like I know Magneto can rush you the fuck down, etc.

[Maj]

Yes of course movement is very important but it's not very deep or dynamic. You're either in the right place at the right time or you're not.

Wow! I completely and categorically disagree. Haha, i don't see it that way at all. To me, walking forward is the most advanced thing in Street Fighter. The absolute only time it's as straightforward as you describe is when you're playing against people who have no idea what they're doing aka people who stand still or people who fidget around without purpose/understanding just to mimic top players.

On the other hand, if you watch a match between two masters of footsies/zoning like the grand finals of the B3 tournament, it becomes unbelievably dynamic. I just don't see what more you could possibly want out of a fighting game. If you're looking at that and thinking it's boring, then we must be looking for different things.

By the way, most of the examples you cited are degenerate cases that people use to illustrate the failings of 3S. Chun Li is the number one reason that game got no play for the first three or four years it existed. Every couple of days, people at SHGL would actually head over to the 3S machine and play a few matches. Eventually someone would pick that hooker, that single match would get played out, and everyone would walk away from the machine.

Also, the retarded oki mindgames are what everyone hates about that game and simultaneously what attracted so many newbies to it. In that situation it's a pure guessing game. You throw all of the multi-dimensional RPS games out the window and focus on a single glaring instance of RPS. Usually this happens three or four times in a row until someone manages to escape a wakeup situation without getting knocked down again. You can literally kill your opponent through a series of seven or eight lucky guesses. Even the most careless, most fundamentally unsound player has moments of sheer luck against vastly superior opponents. It makes 'em think they're way better than they really are and it keeps 'em coming back with more quarters.

It's not like that in CvS2. It's not like that in ST (with the exception of Vega wall dives which are dumb and also certain throw/hold traps like N.Ken/Dhalsim/Balrog). It's not like that in Alpha series unless you're playing against Sakura who is a dirty whore. For the most part, good Street Fighter games are played with both characters standing up. If the majority of a round is played with one character laying down on the ground, then something went wrong.

[Xenozip.]

On the other hand, if you watch a match between two masters of footsies/zoning like the grand finals of the B3 tournament, it becomes unbelievably dynamic.

So, break it down.

[ZenFire]

tl;dr


jk...
you guys sure typed a lot while I was in la-la-land. I hate to say this (trust me a I really do) but you're taking out too much of the human factor and making this about what game is better than another. I'm usually the one basking in theory fighter text wars, but I am, at the same time, very aware of how humans have very limited capacity for keeping a clear mind.

Let's say you have Nuki playing against my sister. For the record, she doesn't play fighting games. It would take her at least 5 matches to figure out that "wow, that C.MK move is really dangerous" then another few to realise "I can't win by just blocking, cus he throws me like a doll". Let's keep it at that for now. So the first few times she was confronted with a mixup/guessing game/rps situation she would not be even aware of it. She wouldn't know what Nuki's likely options are (even I don't know all the stuff he's capable of) and definitely not what the counters would be. She would simply make a choice between pressing a button or not without even knowing the implications of the situation she's in. Why am I naming this example?

Well, it proceeds to my point that a player can be very unaware of what his opponent is even capable of, simply because there are so many options available. Reaction comes into play a lot here, so do reflexes/instinctive reactions. If something happens htat is off your radar of "set movements" you're going to have to react purely on instinct OR freeze up entirely. If I tell someone to put up their hand as soon as they hear a bell, then they'll react fast. If I tell them to do that plus if they hear a dog bark they should stomp their feet... reaction time goes down... Add to that they need to nod their head when they hear a cash register make that "ka-ching" sound, reaction time goes down even more. Now imagine I were to mix up different senses like reacting to visual cues as well as sounds and even touch. Reaction times would suffer greatly. In SF3, though admittedly not as dynamic as a game with bullets, the number of options is truly great. If some Yun player for the first time in 100 matches does a F+MK overhead and I get hit, my follow-up to it (be it blocking or whatever) is dictated by reflexes and instincts. It's not a concious perception of a guessing game/RPS where I'm making a decision. Games are full of moments where your opponent's options are too many to consiously be aware of all of them, so what you do is learn to defend against the ones you think are likely based on your experience. If you guess wrong you're thrown off for a split second and need to regain composure (of the mind) and proceed to the next state the game has moved to.

This is why shit like parrying low after you accidentally whiffed a throw works so much. If I'm going to karathrow some bitch as part of an Oki guess and I mess up the kara and whiff a throw, in THEORY that's very punishable... but guess what... if my opponent (the bitch) was blocking, saw the whiff and was totally taken by surprise, he might spaz and press a button, but do so LATE because he's surprised and then I, who in my infinite knowledge have trained myself to parry low knowing that contingency plans are essential to victory, will own him.... or just mess up the combo. (ZenFire - knowledge:8/10 reactions&execution:1/10 opp.reading:1/10).

Balanced/neutral situations are much like this because options are not clearly defined in your little "expectations box". So, what you might call a boring ass "chun dance" is actually one of these neutral situations where doing something unexpected may infact prove very useful. Also, that last GVision ranbat where Rikimaru plays Tokido you can see very clearly they have different styles. Tokido did some very risky parries of C.MK because Rikimaru apparently became predictable. 2 matches later Rikimaru stopped doing that shit as soon as he entered range for it. TOP PLAY!

[ZenFire]

I don't see why one would put so much effort into typing out all that just for themselves is all. Either you're trying to get a point across, which means you should consider that other people than you are reading it, or you're just jerking off all over your keyboard, in which case you're just posting for the sake of posting.

See also: 98% of videos.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/killjoy

ZF - I can reply with URL's too

[Thongboy Bebop]

The trick to being witty is relevance, funboy.

N

[Maj]

So, break it down.

Wow, nice move. I got owned up. You only had to type four words and now i'm being called out to write a goddamn novel. Well played.

Trouble is, i don't think i'd do a very good job right now. I'd have to put a lot of time into it to make it work and i already have plans for the weekend. Maybe we can postpone this discussion?

I hate to say this (trust me a I really do) but you're taking out too much of the human factor and making this about what game is better than another. I'm usually the one basking in theory fighter text wars, but I am, at the same time, very aware of how humans have very limited capacity for keeping a clear mind.

You're right, these kinds of debates always do spiral out of control. If we sat down and fully catalogued every single aspect of any given match, the result would be too wordy for anyone to find useful. The best we can do is narrow the scope to a specific situation and then talk in general terms in order to point out something insightful about one piece of the puzzle.

However, my original argument was actually in line with yours. The point i was trying to make is that the real metagame of competitive games is "who can keep track of the biggest matrix of simultaneous of RPS instances?" and also "who can accurately identify and zoom into the most relevant RPS history to apply to any given pending/upcoming decision?"

On the other hand, Sirlin's article implied that the question was "who can win multiple sequential RPS games in a row?" So in order to make that experience more interesting and dynamic within a fighting game, he proposed the solution of making the RPS game rewards uneven. Although i agree that it can help in certain instances, i don't think it's absolutely necessary because i don't think he asked the right question to begin with. I just don't think the universal solution to any game with RPS issues is "make the rewards uneven and problem solved!"

[Maj]

So i talked to Choi briefly about his thoughts on B3 finals. He's swamped at work today so i'm just gonna post what he said:

I've never written any sort of breakdown. I think there were plenty of discussions about it back in the days though. Mostly on agsf2. I don't know what I would even write about really. People were still learning about A2 at that point. My biggest weapon was the alpha counter and Alex of course had customs. I believe about a year later the game fully matured and everyone was all about customs from then on(along with every other SF version). Customs are king. But we just didn't know until after B3.

As for spacing I don't know what to say other than Alex displayed really good footsies. Definitely the best that I faced at that point. I think we probably both surprised each other with our ground game and was definitely a heads up battle on the ground. Since Alex stood up against me in that and I had no definite advantage, I had to sit back and rely on ACs (which Ken has the advantage in terms of damage). Along with his footsies, Alex unleashed his now famous Valle CC and that surprised me further. Not only did he stand toe to toe with me in ground game, but his "cheap" option of CC did much more damage than my "cheap" AC option. It also made his footsies that much deadlier.

Since I could not walk back and forth freely anymore, my footsie game was reduced and my only option was to sit back and attack mainly with AC. And as the match progressed and I understood the CC better, resorted to using it back towards him.

And of course, Alex displayed he is a true champ with the final move of the game in which he countered his own technique with that uppercut. Go CaliPower!

There are a lot of interesting points in there. But i think what's most relevant to this discussion is the part about how everything revolves around the ground game and how Valle was really the first person to match Choi in that regard. It's easy to lose perspective and think that Valle CC trumped Choi's AC skills, but the most important thing by far was the footsies. Cuz if Valle's ground game had major weaknesses, then Choi would have owned him up regardless of how good Valle CC's are. Halfway through those matches, Choi had already incorporated Valle CC's into his arsenal. And of course, the word "major" in "major weaknesses" is completely relative. Someone like Choi can turn even the smallest deficiency into an exploitable weakness.

I think a lot of people see players like Choi and Valle doing the whole "footsies dance" and imitate it without understanding what each of the movements mean. Like, they'll be faced with a midrange situation where they can't attack safely, so they'll just wiggle around a little bit, almost as if they think that wiggling is a move. But when you watch the absolute top players, their level of control over their character is absolutely staggerring. Each of those little movements has a true purpose, even if that purpose isn't clear until after the fifth time you've watched the replay.

I dunno man, personally, i could play Ryu vs Ryu in almost any game for hours and hours and hours and hours without ever feeling limited.

[jchensor]

I think it's impossible for many to grasp the true intricacies of Footsies. I've been playing Street Fighter since Classic, over 15 years ago (geez louise), and I still don't understand it well enough. I'm a gimmick player, and I've slowly been trying to understand the Footsies game and have been making huge strides in it, but I think I'm honestly only 50% there if someone like Choi counts as 100%.

I largely believe it is Footsies that determines whether a game is a "Street Fighter" game or not. Many games these days have circumvented Footsies (which is a good thing... having all games based on this would be boring). MvC2 and GGXXAC have no Footsies. In those games, controlling space and rush down and mixups become paramount. But in games like Super Turbo, CvS2, Third Strike, and the Alpha games, Footsies pretty much = everything. It's not a wonder why the best players are all really good at Footsies. You rarely see good players in those games succeed with rush down and gimmicks.

But even games like CvS2 and Third Strike have ways to sabotage Footsies. CvS2 has Roll Canceling, which adds an element to Footsies that can sabotage even the best Footsies player. Third Strike has the possibility of random Parries, so a good calculated Footsies game gets sabotaged: you need to be more random.

Bleah, I don't even know where I'm going. My main ponit is that Footsies is impossible to understand unless you just get it. Many people think they know Footsies, but they really don't get it at all. I never knew until very recently how important it is, for example, to NOT HOLD BACK in Super Turbo a lot. People will take advantage of that, because that game has "whiff Block Stun". If you are holding back and I whiff a Standing Jab, you go into Block Animation and actually end up with frame DISADVANTAGE because my Jab recovers faster. Punishing Ken's whiffed Jab DP, for example, REQUIRES you to not be holding back when he does the move, so you have to be brave enough to not hold back as a crutch in that game. It's weird things like that that make Footsies so hard to grasp. So many things you will never notice until someone points it out to you.

And I think the thing that makes it harder for people to learn it is that those who get Footsies just get it. It's so conceptual that it's soooo hard to explain it to other people.

- James

[ShinjiGohan]

I'm a gimmick fighter to. I got shit for footies, I try and pretend that I do but I fail lol

[Thongboy Bebop]

From my perspective, footsies and space control are different versions of the exact same concept, governed only by the game engine.

I'm not a great 3s player, but when I'm on I can (and have) overcome ridiculous odds against players who on paper should never lose to me. I say "cleanly" because it's not a matter of guessing, it's just eliminating all mistakes and playing to the best of your ability at all times. That's possibly the most centralized skill of the truly remarkable players, not so much the "crazy inhuman skillz" but making the most of every situation and thinking ahead. Justin Wong is an obvious example of that.

"Footsies" is never really defined directly because it seems to mean different things to different people. What I see is just making the most of every situation and playing to your personal and character strengths.

N

[Xenozip.]

Yeah ok.

[ZenFire]

Necrobump!
This thread was/is gold. It touches on some pretty fundamental things. Just thought I'd say that. I wish I could crosspost this entire thread onto Drakenslag

[Maj]

Yeah i was enjoying it too. Hearing Choi's perspective was especially awesome. Dunno why it got so belligerent there for a minute, though.

[Xenozip.]

Belligerent, eh. That must mean me! Huuuhahahaha.

Hmmm. But, I hear there's some complications with Sirlin's card game. This Yomi card game he has had in the works since forever, he won't be able to use SF due to license issues, and such.

Basically his hookup went bye bye. Now Capcom -- outside the hookup -- has turned their back on him.

Probably old news. He wrote an article about it, so it's old news for sure.

Hohum, hohum. I really hope he doesn't actually do the dog-character things he talked about in the blog, or it will be labeled as "furry" and doomed into obscurity for all of eternity. Hohohoho.

Well, to get semi-back on topic this is my take on yomi.

[Don Vecta]

It's interesting to see this point of RPS, specially mostly based in SF games (I really stopped playing SF throughfully since ST, to be honest, but I can understand most concepts), but it's also quite interesting how this mind-gaming, RPS and footsies element changes when we talk games like... say, KOF or Tekken, for example?
I guess that's what gives a good sense of discussion and probly I might be rephrasing many of the points already discussed in this thread but with Tekken/KOF games examples (those are the games I'm more currently with... or at least have some decent knowledge about gameplay).
I guess, according to my own experience, that Tekken fundamentals are mostly FPS, since the beginning in Tekken 1 or 2, the concept of FPS was enormous traduced in Hi/mid/low attacks. Of course they also have introduced back step, side step, many ways to stand up or to punish in ground etc. (gotta love when some people gnash their teeth every time someone knock them down and simply can't stand up since they get pummeled in the ground, ah the goodness of oki), but I guess that's precisely when it relies the use of several options to stand up and avoid being eating alive OTG, sometimes even the best choice is to remain on the ground for a while instead of standing up quickly.
Regarding footsies... i guess it varies a lot from game to game how effective they can be. In KOF, for example (since 96 or 97/98 in advanced mode) it gives more dynamism from the use of run or roll evasion, i mean, it's easier and faster to move, thus, sometimes it's less difficult to be caught off guard since there's many options to do in game to attack and defend.

I might go on discussing about this later if there's people who could be interested in how KOF/Tekken games are involved into this (I know most of you are usually SF junkies, so I really dunno if you play other games the same way)

[AtTheGates]

shoto (german no.1 in theoretics i guess) wrote an interesting article about fighting games that also adresses sirlin's concept of yomi. since this is somewhat related to RPS and guessing games, i think it should fit into this thread.

What is it about Yomi*
Still when it comes to such questions there term Yomi will come up at one point. This leaves us with the question what is Yomi and what is the place of it in the decision making process.

Yomi is actually an western term, not a Japanese one. Yomi standalone means reading and is seldom used in reference to Fighting Games. The common word seems to be Yomiai which seems to basically describe the same thing as the western term “mindgame”.

The term Yomi as I know it has been coined by David Sirlin in his Playing to Win Articles and his book by the same name. According to his book on page 115, Yomi is the ability to guess right, a mysteries right brain function that is inheritable hard to explain. Something that goes beyond educated guessing (p. 115) and seems to be more than studying the details of the opponent (p. 74). Furthermore he implies that you don't need to be good with game theory if you have this kind of skill (p. 74). Still he states that Yomi should be the single most important factor if you judge the strategic depth of a game (p. 75).

Actually this sound pretty esoteric. While I'm not totally against such ideas and believe that you need terms for ideas you can't yet explain, I don't think the term is needed by any means, nor do I think that what it is meant to describe exists. From my point of view which I presented in this essay it pretty much can be explained in a reasonable and mundane fashion.

This is kind of surprising since Sirlin presented great ideas on the mental attitude, valuation, concentration and other stuff relating to competitive games in the very same book and obviously some of the ideas influenced this little essay. So I still recommend the book highly, but I feel he still owes his readers a clearer definition of the term Yomi.

link to the full article:
http://forum.hardedge.org/fighting-game ... ing-games/

afaik he also posted the whole article on sirlin's blog / forum whatever, but i don't go there at all.

[Maj]

Actually i think Sirlin got the term "yomi" from the Virtua Fighter community, though it wouldn't surprise me if it was loose slang or even mistranslated. I think the concept exists, but it's such a high-level theoretical term that it's only useful for like philosophical discussions or whatever. Also it's damn near impossible to distinguish yomi from pure luck as a match spectator. But yeah, if Sirlin had a precise definition for whatever he was trying to say, he probably wouldn't have adopted a foreign language term.

[Xenozip.]

I still think focusing on yomi mechanics turns the game into gambling. Gambling can be fun and addictive, so there's something to be said for that. But it's still at minimum half luck-based. An analogy would be taking the difference between a card game like poker and comparing to a sport.

I'm sure 3S was hugely popular because it had a lot of gambling elements, people could have fun with educated guessing, but oldschoolers disliked it because the mindgame was dead. Taking that at face value, I'd prefer a game to emphasize footsies and give minimal rewards to RPS, but I can understand why a lot of people would be hooked on the enjoyment of yomi.

It seems to me that the direction most modern games took was in favor of RPS, since the overwhelming majority of matches in most games play out like throw/high/low->super, the difference among them being what kinds of "defensive" options force the aggressor into additional guessing games.