Professional Soldiers are Predictable
Kill Ten Rats has a great writeup on the “myth” of the “unpredictable PvP foe.” It’s a good read, and echos something from way back in my military days.
See, the same is often true for real life military tactics. We had “Standard Operating Procedures” for virtually everything- how to react to an ambush, how to breach a building, how to secure an operations post. When the platoon leader was going on a recon, he left a “5 point contingency plan” to those left behind. 13 years later, I still remember it.
There are literally thousands of examples, and their purpose nicely paralells the rationale for PvP routines- you use the best tried and true practices because they work. Because your team KNOWS those practices, they’ll work well within that framework. Granted, a good tactician could always read the battlefield differently and come up with a novel approach, but even then it was executed under textbook “SOP’s.”
We even had our own saying that summarized the military side of things:
Professional Soldiers are predictable.
Unfortunately, the world is full of amateurs.
I was going to rephrase that in a response post at KTR, but something was wrong. The PvP worlds in most games don’t have ametuers. The hardcore “professional” PvP’ers that are so regimental in their thinking, so systematic in their tactics that they’re “predictable” soldiers have driven away all the free-thinkers who may have given them variety in play- an unpredictable opponent.
It may not have been through defeat, but through attitude, through the trash talk and the unforgiving nature of the hardcore PvP culture that so marginalizes participation. It may be through game mechanics that pit even the novice against the hardcore, giving the less experienced no playground to hone their skills and try new ideas. It may just be a legacy of unpalatable experiences from PvP in earlier games.
Regardless the reason, it doesn’t take long for residents of PvP environments to start complaining of stagnation, of FOTM builds and FOTM tactics, of, in a sense, the loss of unpredictable adversaries.
Hardcore PvP’ers are predictable.
Unfortunately, we’ve chased off all the amateurs.
September 10th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
In FPS games, a major factor in my choice to avoid their multiplayer modes has been the lack of physics-based predictability. Characters are not bound by momentum (so they can switch directions instantly) or by limited energy (so they can switch directions and jump constantly).
But it’s a game, right? Why should they be bound to realistic physics?
Tactics and strategy are only made possible by predictability. If you can’t predict (with limited accuracy, of course) what the enemy’s going to do, then you’re just shooting into the dark. If you succeed in that scenario, you’re just lucky; you’ve got nothing to feel proud of. Such a game has no depth.
The key to better PvP in MMOs isn’t unpredictability; it’s variety and reactive tactics. There shouldn’t be only one or two strategies that all melee combatants employ against a particular enemy type. If there isn’t one optimal gearset or skillset, then strategies must be adjusted. If the environment is a real factor, then strategies must be adjusted.
And the choices of one player should affect the other player’s choices. If your tank can use the same skill combos regardless of what I do and succeed, that’s poor PvP design. Tactics is in-the-moment strategizing. When your tank has to alter his actions based on the choices I make, and vis versa, then the gameplay really involves tactics.
The problem in MMO PvP right now isn’t the players so much as it is the rules/environment which the designers have given them. The games discourage tactics and variety, for the sake of easier game balance.
Over-emphasis on balance is the devil behind a lot of MMO problems, I think.
October 1st, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I read the original blog you mentioned and this post a while ago, and after reading the title of this blog post maybe 10 times in the last week (no updates) I’m finally going to reply.
I don’t think you can always predict what people are going to do. If you’ve gotten somewhat far in a game that requires skill to be good, then you should know this.
Players begin to separate by their skill, it is noticeable. I’m mainly using my experiences from CS 1.6 here. People start to move certain ways, be in certain positions, fire in certain patterns etc etc. Now a good player can go into a public server and use these skills he has, but some newb can spray and get him in the head no matter what he does. Why does the better player die? Because he belongs to a different tier, people in his tier wouldn’t normally noob it up like the guy in the public server.
Fights that occur in higher tiers of skill require the players to move and act in different ways. If you’re in this tier you know those ways, you know maybe a couple of tricks (which usually deviate from the “ways” that are the norm in this tier), and if you’re good you know what your opponent is going to do. This is the key to not being predictable, knowing what your opponent is going to do.
In my opinion, just by reading the title of this post, I think you would be predictable. It seems like you haven’t experienced many PvP type fights. Where the way to get an advantage is to deviate from what is expected of you. If deviation is expected, don’t, but you have to know who you’re up against and somewhat how they think.
The best way to realize what I’m talking about is to 1v1 someone close to your skill level in CS 1.6. Play first to 50 kills and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe even playing Thidranki a while in DAoC. It’s all about outsmarting your opponent by knowing what he expects and deviating from that so that you have an advantage.
I hope this made sense, if not, well shit. All I have to say is I am unpredictable in PvP because I’m not a professional soldier, I’m a survivor, I’m a winner, and my epeen is very very rong.
October 1st, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Thanks for the insight Bonedead. To be fair here, I do agree with you. The best people -in the military or civilian life- are the ones that KNOW the routines and think around them. While 99% of the people understand that “Doing rountine X works most of the time” they don’t grasp the next part- “if my foe is doing routine X, I can counter it with oddball trick Y.”
Thus, oddball trick Y will win… and eventually, it will be come the “SOP” for countering X. People will routinely use it, and it’ll be the broad thinker that advances strategy a bit farther.
My lament is that, in general, these people are few and too far between… if they were a little more frequent, or if we had a little more fresh blood out there, the PvP realm would be much more entertaining.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Well that’s the only drawback for people like myself (teehee) who, as you said, are few and too far between; we enjoy winning. Therefore, we don’t share our knowledge so that we can be the 1 man team we so desire.
December 15th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce