Rock Paper Scissors

March 17, 2022 - Published

Before fighting games were popular, the prevailing "fighting games" were beat-'em-ups: games where the player was overpowered, and fought down hordes of weak enemies. People who aren't into fighting games might wonder why this is considered a separate genre, and the reason is that this gameplay becomes very different once you pit 2 human players against each other. How do you make 1-on-1 combat interesting and engaging, while retaining the usual player fantasy of feeling cool and powerful?

The answer to this is Rock Paper Scissors, which may sound counter-intuitive since RPS is neither cool nor interesting. However, imagine a game like Rock Paper Scissors where Paper is removed -- Rock will beat Scissors every time, so why would anyone use Scissors? This game would be even more boring than RPS, because everybody would choose the same option, leading to one-note gameplay. It doesn't matter if your fighting game turns Rock into a cool energy blast attack and Scissors into a flying piledriver grab -- if there's not a third option that beats Rock and loses to Scissors, then there won't be any interesting metagame that emerges.

However, nobody likes RPS because it's too simple -- while there is some ways you can play the system or predict the opponent, for most players it just feels like a 1/3rd chance to win any exchange, without strategy or easy ways to figure out a win. How do we make this more interesting? My answer would be adding weights, and adding more options.

Imagine someone challenges you to Rock Paper Scissors, and says "whoever wins gets 5 bucks, but if they win with Rock, they get 50 bucks!" Now things get interesting, because Rock has more reward, which means both players are more likely to use it. Maybe they'll predict that you're going for the 50, and go for paper to beat your rock. Maybe you'll predict that they're predicting that, and go for scissors. Maybe they're predicting that you're overthinking it, and go for rock anyway because the reward outweighs the risk. These are known inside and outside of video games as mind-games, and are what I consider the backbone of all fighting games. You can see how they can only exist with RPS options, and how weighting each option with risk/reward makes them much more powerful.

Despite being fun and workable with just weights, one wouldn't consider this RPS game very complex with just 3 options. That's why most fighting games (and combat in video games in general) usually have interwoven RPS systems. A classic example is responding to a fireball in a traditional fighting game. The most direct response is to jump over it, to avoid getting hit, which also puts you in a position to counterattack the opponent. However, you can also block it, patiently waiting for the opponent's response. Some characters also might be able to parry the fireball, reflect the fireball, or even use projectile-immune moves. This creates a web-like flowchart of responses, some of which are reactable, and many that have to be predicted.

Unfortunately, fighting games have only increased in complexity over time, probably due mainly to the playerbase, who got used to these mind-games and wanted more complexity to keep things interesting. It's like being bored with RPS, then evolving RPS to have 12 different options, getting bored of that, and so on. The reason why fighting games are so difficult to get into nowadays is because they're the result of evolving RPS for over 30 years! That also means that this concept of RPS mind-games are often lost on new players, despite the fact that it's still there at the core of every fighting game.

My advice to new fighting game players is to identify the core RPS mechanics, and then build around that. Don't get sucked into elaborate combos, don't worry about all the complicated mechanics. Even if Tekken has 100+ moves per character with motion inputs and sometimes even meter mechanics, Lows will always hit standing opponents, Mids will always hit crouching opponents, and Homing Moves will always hit sidestepping opponents. This will allow you to create a gameplan to counter the opponent's defenses, or even counter their offense, which is where all other mechanics will build off of.

• Vecderg