How to win in computer games, part II: specific examples

I remind you, there is a man David Sirlin, who is known for the championship in Street Fighter and in GameDev. He wrote a book about how to win and prepare for tournaments. The first intro part is here . Below - squeeze part II and my comments .

So we got to this meat. These are analyzes of game situations and specific examples of how the opponent thinks. For example:

If you have some stupid pattern of action that kills an opponent, do not think about anything else. This technique still has an additional bonus - it brings people to white heat. If someone is beaten with the same repetitive tactics, then they usually lose their temper and break down, play worse as a result, make more mistakes, get fiercer, and so on. Vicious circle.

Part 5

A short chapter on fraud and intimidation of the enemy (which was UPD in the previous post). David believes that this is generally impractical, and explains why. David is polite and sporty.

Part 6

In the huge chapter "The Art of War: Deception ", David writes about various kinds of bluffs. Actions during the game, both inside and outside of it, inform the opponents of the information. A classic example is body language in poker: technically, it does not refer to game mechanics, but is one of the most important elements of the game.

Next comes the example of a regular and double bluff.

In MTG there is such a type of deck - “Control”. Strategy in defense against threats as long as the resources are not enough for one powerful finishing attack, most often - to challenge a strong protected creature. The emasculated essence of control is to repel one or two powerful threats with counter-spells in order to gain enough time. Each time a player with a control deck leaves free sources of mana for someone else’s turn, this can mean that he has a counter-spell. Now the question is: do you have it or not. If there is - the enemy plays a threat, and you disrupt his plan. If not, but the opponent thinks he is, he postpones the play of a strong threat to a better position, thereby losing pace. I saw the game on the national, where one of the “bison” received 14 lands in a row (these are “empty” resource cards, he did not have spells) - and survived this period, because the enemy had thought for the first 6 moves that so many unused resources were sure trap for him.

Disguise applies to the object for which there is a struggle. Here is a great example:

In all five versions of Street Fighter 2, when Ken and Ryu are fighting, the core area is immediately beyond the reach of the opponent’s lower strike. If Ryu is at such a distance without putting a block (it becomes lower than if he bent), Ken’s lower turn strike would not reach him. If Ken’s punch doesn’t hit him, Ryu can easily punch him back or even make a throw. Also from this distance, Ryu can easily block Ken’s projectiles, and can easily withstand a jump attack with an uppercut. In short, a wide range of Ken’s most common practices lose their effectiveness specifically in this area. The exact position of this active zone, of course, depends on the characters of the battle and on the game.

The best players are well aware of this nuance of positioning, and they struggle with all their strength to take the right position. A weaker player, too, in a sense, “fights with all his might,” but perhaps he doesn’t even know that he should fight for this particular place, so a professional player can easily take it. And already from this advantageous position an experienced player controls the situation. As a rule, a skilled player will hide the fact of the existence of this active zone. He will quickly perform various harmless tricks. He will maneuver through the active zone back and forth in an elaborate dance, invented to hide the true advantage he has. Mysteriously, whenever a weak player tries to attack, he always finds himself just outside this area and receives a retaliatory strike upon his attempt. Frustrated, he makes even more serious mistakes and soon loses his head completely.

The next type of disguise of intentions is a trap. In short, this is a subtype of tactics that allows you to lure the enemy on a counterattack, thinking that he successfully avoided your actions. Actually, it is precisely the counterattacks that you expect from him to deliver a crushing blow.

Part 7

About decision-making : understand a few examples of Starcraft and fighting games. They are all specific, so just give a piece of quote:

I put my whole soul in the lower blows. It seems that more than 90% of my techniques consisted of them. I gained infinite patience and, without stopping, performed the lower blow, pushing Tao to overcome this trick. If he could cope with it, we would have to play for real, and then he would, of course, win. But, fortunately, he did not succeed in this: he fought head-on. From time to time he decided to stop the attack and not to beat the brick wall. I used this opportunity to move to the most profitable area (just one pixel further from the opponent than the zone of destruction of my lower long-range strike). Being on this site, I did not stop, continued to strike. Performing this technique, I did not win, but did not lose. Even a robot-like Tao eventually got tired and rushed to the attack, sometimes choosing the wrong time from irritation or despair. The audience told me that I made 18 strikes in a row, at this moment neither I nor Tao used other tricks.

In this game, Tao waited for the logical continuation of this chain - a strike with a turn, which, logically, became more and more likely after each “blocking” bottom strike. But David did not beat with a turn, but continued to put an actin block with his blow. At that moment, when Tao could not stand it and stopped waiting for the strike, David did hit him with a U-turn.

Part 8

Discipline . Here is an example of a psychological trap:

When you missed with a certain technique, you are embraced by the desire to “prove” (to yourself? The audience? God knows ...) that you CAN do it (as if someone really doubted it), and you rush forward at the very first opportunities to do this. As if you have some ridiculous "reputation" that you need to "protect". And so, you performed the fireball, received an immediate rebuff, or something like that - and you will be IMPAIRED to how many otherwise intelligent, competent players will IMMEDIATELY ANOTHER ONE fireball. It reminds that they have deviated from the mental scenario of how the match should look like, and cannot continue until they redo this part “as it should.”

Maybe it sounds stupid for inexperienced players, but if you don’t think about a perfect game during the tournament, it will be a great advantage as you move forward.

In the “Unlimited Fight” by Kasparov, by the way, the situation is described - there Karpov thought he had to win with a certain score, and therefore made a serious mistake when instead of reducing the game to a draw and thus strengthening his position, he tried to wipe the Fisher record . It became a stepping stone to losing.

Part 9

Attack by fire . According to the Chinese military doctrine, when you have one army, and the enemy camp, it is assumed that you use the weather and natural conditions in order to create a "second" army. For example, you set fire to the camp on the other side - and the enemy will simultaneously fight with fire and you. In games, this means the possibility of separating you and one of the active objects. For example - in Mortal Kombat, a robot fighter can launch a homing missile and attack when it hits. If the enemy puts a block - he will protect himself from the rocket, but you can make a throw. If the enemy decides to keep you at a distance by a blow, he will get a rocket. In the chapter are examples from chess and counter strike.

Part 10

Analysis of game resources at the micro and macro levels . The soloist is a guy named Zileas, who at one time turned StarCraft, offering a new vision. Here is its basic formula:

If the ratio of enemy losses to your losses, multiplied by the ratio of your performance to the performance of your opponent, is less than 1, you lose. If the enemy's economy is gaining momentum, and yours remains in place, and their ratio is almost equal to one, but slightly higher than it, you still probably lose. When I talk about the loss ratio, I mean not destroyed or lost units, but destroyed or lost resources related to the creation of units, to a variety of operating costs (scarabs) and to the construction of buildings.

Another important note in this chapter is the ability to stretch the attention of the enemy. Resource attention in strategies can be exhausted by creating incidents in different places of the map - the enemy will not be able to respond to them simultaneously.

Part 11

Pro poker , using Mike Caro's experience. Nothing too cool, but just an interesting set of quotes. By the way, Mike Caro's complete book "Sign Language" is very easy to find as a free PDF in RuNet.

Total:

Just in case, I remind you that you can play games for fun, but you can for the sake of victory. We love and are able to do both. David’s experience is only about winning.

We continue to translate. The original is under the free-to-read license, the translation too.

The next part is about tournaments and behavior on them, as well as the psychology of different types of players. There are very important things for GameDev - for example, the concept of increasing the risk for higher remuneration. The point is that when the gap between players widens, the weaker can try tactics that are unreliable in a normal situation (for example, rely on random). If he doesn't succeed, he has already lost, and if he is lucky, he will be able to catch up.

This information is also useful for GameDev - after all, we simply don’t have literature that would describe the position of a greedy-looking and very resourceful player so well.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/249287/

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