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What follows I consider this topic's linchpin in a practical sense but at the same time, a very concise mindcast that owns itself.
Somethings are difficult to wrap your noggin around because they represent something of an affront to conventional wisdom. This is one of those occasions.
RPS (Rock, Paper, Scissors), adapted from board games to comp games, is a technique originally invoked to deal with the limits of comp processing power to sim any aspect of real combat experience.
Over time this has also become an instance of losing sight of the forest for the trees - tactics contra strategy, if you will, in the design of battle GPMs.
What do these tandem statements mean exactly ?
It comes down to the difference between "fixed movement rules" (board games) vs. "free-maneuver" (RTS). This is a partial sim approach and that is more than enough. A total sim is NOT the point or goal here. The latest cognitive science is also being applied but in the service of the art of game design.
Movement ruled by RPS constructed knowledge served, in a very real sense, to replace visceral maneuver skills, audacity, creativity & complexity* (defined below).
As the viability of enhanced maneuver skills escalates through the switch-tasking efficacy of Command Control GPMs-GUIs the central importance of movement rules shaped by an RPS construct is diminished.
Achieving one viable maneuver skill we'll call "asymmetric success" would make of RPS a niche GPM flavor rather than central to satisfying game play or victory.
Maneuver will trump RPS balance under these conditions by a design that is closer to invoking RL War decision-making which is more viscerally & intellectually satisfying to the field general alter ego resident in RTS gamers by definition.
Within a couple years, this will become conventional wisdom, not an affront to and, by extension, the band-wagon to climb aboard.
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* Complexity maneuver I define in this context as effective, coordinated, control over multiple combat groups from multiple vectors at varying velocities..
One practical implementation would go like so (quoting myself):..
- You have 3 Combat Groups: #1, #2 and #3.
- You see those #s on the Mini-Map and can do the following: set-up way points, patrols, coordinated offensive maneuvers from
multiple vectors and at varying velocities.. Basically, this is how 21st Century RL Military OPs are executed. It's called "C3" for
"Communications, Command, and Control". IMHO it would be an elegant way to introduce such a game play mechanic into WZ.
You would be re-assembling what's already there and you wouldn't even need a new GUI. Neat. 'Course it could be further refined
once BetaWidget is fully implemented utilizing one of Elio's fine UI prototype / mock-ups...
- This would also have the side benefit of relieving some of the bogus switch-tasking strain of attending NON-combat tasks while
trying to control a major offensive. As I have said elsewhere - "I think the switch tasking excessive to the point that it degrades the
battlefield aspect of the game which for me is the #1 experience that all other features and GUI's should serve to enhance."
The beauty of all this is that it can be subject to the rigors of a scientific experiment-lab.... readily transcending opinion, if you will.
Arrivederci !, whipper
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You could be a star on you-tube, explaining all this!
xD seriously - google BAHA - will be similar to whatshisface steve austin... hear ants fart at 100 km.... xD
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