[MUD-Dev] Cognitively Interesting Combat (was Better Combat)

[cruise]

This is a general summary of various mails - just kinda thinking out
loud for a bit...

Paolo has suggested three "metrics" for the cognitive complexity of
a process:

  1) Number of unique rules accessed during the process.

  2) The rate of access of these rules.

  3) The total number of rule accesses required.

I would, however, add a fourth:

  4) The number of rules available to choose from.

Chess has been oft quoted in this thread as an excellent example of
cognitive complexity, but there are times when you can play on
auto-pilot: During the first few moves of a game (openings are
almost standardised. You have to worry less about the individual
moves, rather than the "type" of opening), and during "mopping up"
at the end against an outclassed opponent.

These are both times when #4 above is minimal. In the first
instance, because it matters little what choice the opponent makes,
halving the amount of decision required, and in the second, the
opponents choices are severely limited, again, reducing the search
complexity.

In fact, the winning condition of chess is leaving your opponent
/without/ a choice of move. The various powerful "tricks" in chess,
like pinning or forking, all involve removing or limiting the
opponents choice.

When players reduce MMOG combat to a fixed series of moves, they're
reducing #4. This is not quite the same as reducing #1, as making
only one choice, from twenty equal choices, is cognitively different
from making ten yes/no decisions.

I noticed a few references to beat'em'ups since I originally
mentioned them - it's worth noting that there is very rarely only
/one/ choice of response to any attack. Dodge, block, attack first,
counter-attack (a specific type of move, for those unfamiliar with
beat'em'ups) or combinations thereof. If you know the opponent's
next move, then the game becomes trivial and no longer fun.

In a large proportion of MMOG's, this is the situation. Adding
randomness is one way of getting around this, depending on what you
randomize. Adding a wider selection of abilities is another, given a
"good" selection of abilities.

--
[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / transference.org ]
   "quantam sufficit"
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