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| 2 | %% Image Pickin' thread did not produce a new image: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1614831057070620400 |
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| 4 | [[quoteright:234:[[Franchise/FireEmblem https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/FireEmblem_WeaponTriangle.jpg]]]] |
| 5 | [[caption-width-right:234:''[[Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily Not shown above:]]'' [[http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/comic/499-theweapontriangle/ Frederick.]]]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | A common way of balancing play in VideoGames is to classify units, attacks, and skills into several distinct classes, with each class having a clear advantage and disadvantage over other classes; in other words, the classes interact with each other like a game of RockPaperScissors. This helps encourage different playstyles by making the effectiveness of a given class slightly context-specific, and encouraging the player to utilize a variety of classes, rather than relying on [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome the]] [[GameBreaker single]] [[SortingAlgorithmOfWeaponEffectiveness strongest]] [[InfinityPlusOneSword one]]. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ElementalRockPaperScissors is a common SubTrope if the relationship is specifically limited to special skills or magic (with regular skills/attacks classed as NonElemental), but the tactical use of RockPaperScissors relationships can in concept be extended to any aspect of any game. Potentially due to the prominence of Franchise/{{Pokemon}}, tactical systems may be ColorCodedForYourConvenience as Red beats Green beats Blue beats Red, even without the elemental association of [[FireIsRed Fire]] burning [[GreenMeansNatural Grass]] absorbing [[WaterIsBlue Water]] dousing Fire. See ChromaticRockPaperScissors. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | For example, in strategy games: |
| 12 | |
| 13 | * Ranged units (i.e. Snipers; Tanks; Gunships; Cruisers) defeat fast units. |
| 14 | * Fast units (i.e. Infantry; Jeeps; Fighters; Submarines) defeat siege units. |
| 15 | * Siege units (i.e. Machine Gunners; Artillery; Bombers; Battleships) defeat ranged units. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | Or in fighting games, beat-em-ups, and hack-n-slashers: |
| 18 | |
| 19 | * Defending blocks attacks. |
| 20 | * Attacking interrupts grappling. |
| 21 | * Grappling cuts through defending. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Or in FighterMageThief games: |
| 24 | |
| 25 | * Warriors are well-armed and well-trained fighters who overpower and outlast Rogues. |
| 26 | * Mages have powerful distant magic that can kill Warriors outside their range. |
| 27 | * Rogues are sneaky and can get the jump on Mages and kill them before they can fight back. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | Or in shooters: |
| 30 | |
| 31 | * Handguns beat heavy weapons. |
| 32 | * Heavy weapons beat rifles/snipers. |
| 33 | * Rifles/snipers beat handguns. |
| 34 | |
| 35 | It is important to note that, sometimes, Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors can be applied separately to an individual unit's offensive and defensive potential, which makes the MetaGame more complicated because the relationships are twofold. For example, tanks may have an advantage against infantry ''in general'', but equipping said infantry units with anti-tank rocketry can level the playing field by creating a MutualDisadvantage, where both units get an attack boost against each other (especially if the quicker infantry gets to shoot first). Likewise, tanks armed with anti-tank cannons or rocketry won't necessarily have their usual advantage against infantry as would tanks armed with [[GatlingGood machineguns]] and [[KillItWithFire flamethrowers]], and machinegun-toting tanks will also be at a disadvantage against other tanks with cannons or rockets. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | In Strategy games specifically, Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors provides an easy discouragement to the ZergRush, as a player building a massive swarm of identical, low-cost, and moderately-powerful units (hoping to wipe out enemy forces with sheer numbers alone) may suddenly find themselves annihilated by a small number of units exploiting their army's common vulnerability. |
| 38 | |
| 39 | To a limited extent, this can be TruthInTelevision; there are plenty of examples of, say, medieval heavy cavalry getting skewered by pikemen, who would in turn be meat on the table for a bunch of men with crossbows, who would themselves be easily trampled by said cavalry before they could load their next shot. But the rock-paper-scissors relationship is often much more explicit, and much purer, in games. |
| 40 | |
| 41 | CripplingOverspecialisation can sometimes be used to enforce this relation. Related to SituationalDamageAttack in that some kind of attack may be more effective to enemies with a certain inferior attribute. |
| 42 | |
| 43 | Subtropes: |
| 44 | [[index]] |
| 45 | * ElementalRockPaperScissors |
| 46 | * ScissorsCutsRock |
| 47 | [[/index]] |
| 48 | |
| 49 | ---- |
| 50 | !!Examples: |
| 51 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 52 | |
| 53 | [[folder:Bladed Weapons Triangle]] |
| 54 | * Sword beats Axe |
| 55 | * Axe beats Spear |
| 56 | * Spear Beats Sword |
| 57 | |
| 58 | [[AC:Examples]] |
| 59 | * ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion'', ''VideoGame/BlazeUnion'', ''VideoGame/GloriaUnion'' |
| 60 | * ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' |
| 61 | * ''VideoGame/AgeOfWonders'' |
| 62 | [[/folder]] |
| 63 | |
| 64 | [[folder:Ranged Weapons Triangle]] |
| 65 | * Direct-attack weapon (such as sword) beats ranged-attack weapon (such as bow) |
| 66 | * Ranged-attack weapon beats magic |
| 67 | * Magic beats direct-attack weapon |
| 68 | |
| 69 | [[AC:Examples]] |
| 70 | * ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'' |
| 71 | * ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion'', ''VideoGame/BlazeUnion'', ''VideoGame/GloriaUnion'' |
| 72 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChroniclesMyLifeAsADarklord'' |
| 73 | * ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' |
| 74 | * ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'' during the army battle segments |
| 75 | [[/folder]] |
| 76 | |
| 77 | [[folder:Reversed Ranged Weapons Triangle]] |
| 78 | Some games reverse the ranged weapons triangle. |
| 79 | |
| 80 | [[AC:Examples]] |
| 81 | * ''VideoGame/VandalHearts'' |
| 82 | * ''VideoGame/{{Stacklands}}'' |
| 83 | * ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiImagine'' |
| 84 | [[/folder]] |
| 85 | |
| 86 | [[folder:Other Video Game examples]] |
| 87 | * ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheSeasons'': Physical damage is good against Force, Force damage is good against Arcane, and Arcane is good against Physical. However, some bosses don't have a type and take normal damage from all types. |
| 88 | * Very [[PlayingWithATrope played with]] in ''VideoGame/KingArthurTheRolePlayingWargame''. [[GeoEffects Terrain]] matters very much to the success of all units. Light infantry will beat nearly everything in the hard terrain (forests, shrubland, hills), especially forests, which will give them defensive bonuses while it hurts the effectiveness of everything else and makes them invisible until the enemy is near enough — and if no one goes into the forest, the light infantry still can charge from it while the enemy is near and get a large enough damage bonus which will likely have them win unless very outnumbered. Spearmen are less overtly good in hard terrain, but do well also and gain damage bonuses against enemy cavalry and ignore some armor. Heavy infantry are ''really'' slow and are good on soft terrain (plains, roads), but are very durable and have a good chance against anything they get into melee with. Cavalry are fast, will beat archers in melee, fight best on soft terrain, and can charge the enemy down if they move past them with enough momentum... but it damages them as well, making them much less effective against hardier and more armoured enemies or spearmen, and it doesn't work against other horsemen. Knights are more damaging and hardier versions of Cavalry, with their higher defense and more damage, but are slower. Archers can attack from a far range, and are considered {{Game Breaker}}s unless the "Weaken Archers" option is on, but do very poorly in melee and are vulnerable to pretty much all damage, making the terrain between them and their enemies absolutely vital in ensuring their safety. They also can damage their allies if they are too close to their firing target. Crossbowmen are very similar, trading fire rates for anti-armour bonuses, damage, and making friendly fire even more likely with them firing in a line as opposed to an arc to their targets. And then... [[LastDiscMagic there's magic.]] [[SubvertedTrope Which can be later powerful enough to make up for any deficiencies in the structure of any of your armies.]] |
| 89 | * ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'' makes use of a Melee > Ranged > Magic > Melee triangle. Other than that, there's also the Range > Flying variant with huge movement advantages given to Flying types by nature. There's also the Special type, which is unaffected by normal rules. |
| 90 | * In ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', they call it the Weapon Triangle: Axe beats spear, spear beats sword, sword beats axe. Magic has its own triangle that varies by game; archers are outside of both. However, Archers do trump flying units. A few units can actually use more than one weapon, so it's a matter of the right tool for the job. Most games also have specialized weapons that deal effective damage against a class of enemies, such as anti-armor, anti-cavalry, and anti-dragon. There are also 'reaver' weapons that reverse the triangle. In ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Awakening]]'', instead of 'reaver' weapons, there are 'superior' weapons. In addition to the normal weapon triangle, each 'superior' weapon has +50 Hit/Avoid against weapons of the same type. It should be heavily noted however, that the weapon triangle isn't the ultimate hard counter to another weapon type. It simply changes weapon might/hitrate slightly for reliability, so the player must have adequate stats in addition to. |
| 91 | ** ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Radiant Dawn]]'' makes uses both the triangle of [=Fire>Wind>Thunder>Fire=] and the triangle of [=Light>Dark>Anima>Light=]. Fire, Wind, and Thunder are all treated as Anima, so all 3 beat Light, but are equally beaten by Darkness. In other words, we have a triangle in a triangle. Nevermind the fact that most casters have so much resistance to magic that it's usually more practical to [[SquishyWizard just hit them with an axe]]. (In the prequel, ''Path of Radiance'', Dark magic doesn't exist and Light magic is outside of the triangle.) Each Laguz tribe is weak to an Anima magic (Mammals weak to fire, Birds weak to wind, Dragons weak to Thunder). It's a wonder why the Laguz don't have their own triangle (but that would mean giving Dragons another weakness). ''Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'' are also the first games to have knives, which exist outside of the triangle. And ''Radiant Dawn'' removes Dracoknights' weakness to bows and wind magic and gives them a weakness to thunder magic, while Pegasus Knights are still weak to bows and wind. |
| 92 | ** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' removes the Magic triangle and reverts Dracoknights to their previous status as being weak to bows and Wind magic. |
| 93 | ** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' shakes up the formula a bit. The "sword beats axe beats lance beats sword" triangle is still in play, but now other weapons get added into the triangle as well, with each weapon in the original triangle getting a ranged counterpart to it: swords and magic beats axes and bows beats lances and concealed weapons (such as knives used by the Ninja class) beats swords and magic. This notably adds an extra layer of strategy to something that was already apparent in previous ''Fire Emblem'' games: bows have always been meant to be the bane of the Pegasus Knight class, as they do bonus damage to flying units, and while Wind Magic did bonus damage to them too, it wasn't quite as apparent, as the high resistance of Pegasus Knights negated it. Since the Pegasus Knight's main weapon is the lance, they get an extra advantage against magic users and have to be doubly afraid of bow users now. The inverse can be said about the Wyvern Rider class, who instead uses axes and therefore increases the risk of fighting against magic users while worrying about bow users even less thanks to both the new triangle and their usually high defense stat. |
| 94 | ** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'' simplifies things by grouping all weapons under four colours. Red weapons (sword, red and fire tomes and red breath) beat green weapons (axes, green tomes, green breath), which beat blue weapons (spears, blue tomes and blue breath), which beat red weapons. There are also gray/colourless weapons (bows, daggers, and staves) which exist outside the triangle, though there are skills like -raven tomes that deal extra damage against them. Gem weapons and the Triangle Adept skills exaggerate this, as they increase damage dealt and decrease damage taken when at weapon advantage and has the reverse effect at weapon disadvantage. |
| 95 | ** This is still present to a certain extent in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', as the "breaker" skills allow the user to gain a hit/evade bonus when using a weapon against the one it is strong against; for example, Axebreaker gives a bonus to sword users who fight axe wielders. On [[HarderThanHard Maddening]] most enemies past a certain point in the game will have stronger variants of these skills, forcing players to, at minimum, think carefully before having units fight enemies with a weapon triangle advantage over them. |
| 96 | ** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemWarriorsThreeHopes'' plays the Sword->Axe->Lance->Sword triangle straight once again, and adds a second triangle to the mix: Gauntlet users have an advantage over tome users, who have an advantage over bow users, who have an advantage over gauntlet users. |
| 97 | * ''VideoGame/HaloWars'' did this plenty with units. Infantry are cheap [[ZergRush Zerg Rushers]] who can fielded by the dozens, but are wiped out by vehicles who are rarer, more powerful, and durable. Said vehicles are then weak to aircraft, who tend to be weaker but faster with a healthy range of firepower, and then those aircraft are trumped by the infantry's [[DeathOfAThousandCuts sheer volume of fire]] or [[AntiAir guided AA missiles.]] |
| 98 | * Inverted in the board game "Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage" where battles are resolved by playing cards representing one of four troop manoeuvers: left flanking, right flanking, direct assault, and envelopment. The counter to each is to play the same card. The battle is lost if you cannot play the same card in response. |
| 99 | * ''VideoGame/{{Langrisser}}'' mimics ''Fire Emblem[='=]s'' triangle with unit types: soldiers beat archers, who beat horsemen, who beat soldiers. ''Langrisser II'' (''Der Langrisser'' on the SNES) and the HD remaster of ''Langrisser I'' changed it to be even closer by replacing the archers with spearmen (soldiers > spearmen > horsemen > soldiers). Archers now have a multiple-square range and dominate fliers, but lose quickly in close-quarters. |
| 100 | * ''VideoGame/ConvictionSRPG'': |
| 101 | ** Like in Langrisser, infantry units are good against lancers, who are good against cavalry, who are good against infantry. |
| 102 | ** There are some one-sided advantages, such as priests being good against undead and archers being good against flyers. However, unit types with no type disadvantages tend to have lower stats to compensate. Archers and slingers are also very weak at close-range to make up for their long-ranged attacks. |
| 103 | * In the ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'' series, archery beats magic, magic beats charging, charging beats archery. This also carries over to the one-on-one duels, where a normal attack smacks a defending character, a desperation attack cancels a normal attack, and defense counters a desperation attack. Pretty much regular rock-paper-scissors with different names, since you get to choose your type of attack each round. |
| 104 | ** Starting with ''VideoGame/SuikodenII'', the randomness of tactical battles results in even archer units being capable of defeating infantry in melee combat. Figuring out what works and what doesn't is less unit type and more luck. |
| 105 | * ''VideoGame/EndWar'' has [[JackOfAllStats Transports]] > [[FragileSpeedster Gunships]] > [[MightyGlacier Tanks]] > Transports, with Engineers beating vehicles while in cover or buildings, and Riflemen beating Engineers. However, Riflemen will last a respectable amount of time against lighter vehicles while in cover and do even better in a building. The Command Vehicle [[StoneWall has a lot of hitpoints but is mostly unarmed]] and relies on {{Attack Drone}}s (or NewMeat for Russians) for protection. Said escorts only stand any chance against Gunships (and infantry, in Russia's case). Artillery beats everything on the ground — [[GlassCannon as long as they're too far to return fire]], that is. Gunships are particularly good at hunting tanks (can't hit them) and artillery (can't fire back), but against anything that can shoot back, mobility doesn't mean much. |
| 106 | ** In a RealityIsUnrealistic situation, Gunships are actually vulnerable to small arms fire from the ground: garrisoned infantry (even Riflemen) can and will shoot down Gunships that stray in range. This might seem like this trope, but is actually TruthInTelevision. |
| 107 | ** A partial subversion to this trope is that, aside from Command Vehicles, every unit has an ability that can penetrate shields and knock down health directly. This means that even if you bring the good counter to bear against an enemy, you need luck or inattention on the enemy's part to kill them without casualties. Especially noticeable against JSF Engineers, who, despite being vulnerable to Riflemen, can cut down whole swaths of them with a well-timed use of the [[MoreDakka SAW]]. |
| 108 | * While ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'' uses this basic premise, the actual mechanics suffered a series of complete overhauls from patch to patch, going as far as introducing the "unarmored" armor type and later making some units of this armor type actually have armor for balance purposes. |
| 109 | ** Seeing as Agility increases armor, it can be assumed that anyone "unarmored" with a good armor value is simply an excellent dodger. |
| 110 | ** It wasn't as obvious in ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'', but that's not saying much: Ballista ➞ Cannon Tower ➞ Footman ➞ Ballista. Or Gryphon ➞ Battleship ➞ Destroyer ➞ Gryphon. Or Gryphon ➞ Footman ➞ Archer ➞ Gryphon. |
| 111 | * ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' has a few of these: for example, Anti-Air ➞ B-Copter ➞ Tank ➞ Anti-Air. Or Cruiser ➞ Submarine ➞ Battleship ➞ Cruiser. The introduction of the Anti-Tank artillery in ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars: Days of Ruin'' has created another one: Anti-Tank ➞ Tank ➞ Infantry ➞ Anti-Tank. |
| 112 | ** Some of this shows up in the commanders themselves. For example, Lash, who does more damage based on terrain bonuses, is countered by Sonja, who reduces enemy terrain bonuses. Andy, who can repair all friendly units on the map for 5 HP, counters basically any enemy with a damage-all-the-units-on-the-map power. |
| 113 | ** Its SpiritualSuccessor, ''VideoGame/BattalionWars'', pulls the same thing, just...larger. Infantry is vulnerable to tanks, Assault, and Flame vets, but strong against Bazooka vets. Bazooka vets are strong against Tanks. Light Tanks are vulnerable to Heavy Tanks, which are vulnerable to Gunships, which are vulnerable to Fighters, etc. The series is remarkably good at introducing each leg of the triangle (It's more like an irregular polygon, really) in such a way as to not confuse the player. |
| 114 | *** It also takes the action-oriented gameplay base into account. Most anti-tank or anti-air weapons ''can'' kill infantry easily, except they tend to be slower-moving, and troops can easily jump out of the way. Anti-air weapons can hurt ground targets, but have accuracy issues against them. Also, the mighty Battle Fortress is strong against all ground units... except for a Light Tank controlled by the player, who can use its speed to avoid the Fortress' powerful but slow cannon fire. |
| 115 | * ''VideoGame/WarriorKings'' has the following: Heavy Infantry (polearm) beats Heavy Cavalry, Light Infantry (ranged foot) beats Heavy Infantry and Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry (melee horse) beats Light Infantry, Light Cavalry (ranged horse) beats Heavy Infantry and Heavy Cavalry. |
| 116 | ** There's a bit more to it than that. Light Infantry beats everything other than some specific units, if the light infantry are garrisoned in a fort or if they are firing from a hill, Heavy Cavalry in a wedge can beat weaker Heavy Infantry that aren't in a good formation, and amongst Light Infantry, archers rock against human targets and certain demons, but do almost nothing against the larger demon types, while gunners can do great hurt against any demon other than a Firbolg. Siege weapons rocks against anything that isn't heavy cavalry. Magic trumps everything that isn't protected by One God faith. |
| 117 | * The ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' DS videogame The 3rd Phantom has Power, which strikes once for major damage, Technique that attacks usually with 2 hits, and Speed that attacks from 3 to 10 times (FlashStep masters, of course). Here, Power➞ Speed➞ Tech➞ Power. [=NonCom=] (healers, civilians, etc.) are weak to everything, and Bosses and other powerful enemies have ALL (Powerful) that beats everything. Having the type advantage guarantees a follow-up attack, so Bosses are quite a challenge if you are not careful and just play RPS with everything in your way... |
| 118 | * ''VideoGame/WorldInConflict'''s multiplayer revolves around a core dynamic that goes: Helicopters ➞ Tanks ➞ Anti-Air ➞ Helicopters. There's other units that play supporting side roles as well, such as infantry, anti-air helicopters, medium artillery, or light tanks. But for the most part, a team cannot do without the core combination of heavy tanks, heavy anti-air, and heavy attack helicopters, since you always need one component of your triangle to defeat a part of your enemy's. Also since these core units are limited to the armor, support, and air roles respectively, it becomes imperative for players to coordinate with each other for mutual support or risk getting massacred. |
| 119 | * ''VideoGame/ImpossibleCreatures'': Artillery > Range > Melee > Artillery. |
| 120 | * The ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' RealTimeStrategy GaidenGame ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIIRevenantWings'' uses the melee-ranged-flying triangle, plus ElementalRockPaperScissors... though where espers are involved, the difference between ranks is large enough that, for example, a Rank 1 esper generally isn't strong enough to defeat a Rank 2 esper by itself, even with an elemental advantage in its favor. You have to summon more Rank 1 espers (and Rank 1's can be summoned quickly with little cost) to level the field. This definitely extends to the Rank 3 espers who, despite their high summoning cost, pack enough raw power to bring a world of pain upon anything in their path. Bahamut, for example, is a Rank 3 summon whose attacks have both a wide area of effect and devastating power; his [[SignatureMove Mega Flare]] in particular is NonElemental and also inflicts Disable, making it very difficult to counter, even with a group of ranged units. |
| 121 | * Many Napoleonic and American Civil War wargames have an Infantry ➞ Cavalry ➞ Artillery setup. It works roughly like this: Infantry will beat Cavalry; during this era, Cavalry were armed for short range combat, and infantry had bayonets for their muskets/rifles that were effective AntiCavalry weapons. Infantry moved slowly and in large formations, making them vulnerable to Artillery fire, particularly canister rounds. Cavalry was faster and could overtake Artillery positions before they got too many shots off. Of course, this ignores factors like terrain and weather, but it's generally sound tactics in most strategy games. |
| 122 | ** Formations also plays a part — infantry at the time had 3 major battle formations — lines, columns, and squares. Lines for shooting other infantry, and squares to defend against cavalry. There's also the spread-out "skirmish" formation, used to harass/delay the enemy advance. |
| 123 | ** The above is nevertheless true enough in broad lines that Bernard Cornwall, author of the Sharpe series of novels, has described Napoleonic warfare as a game of "paper, scissors, stone" (the British English name for the game) in the historical notes of his novels. |
| 124 | * The MMORPG ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'' has a 'combat triangle' of ranger (archery or other missile attacks) ➞ mages ➞ melee fighters who defeat rangers, etc. |
| 125 | ** This gets complicated when one considers the Protect prayers and that, more often than not, players versed well enough in at least two forms of combat have defensive strategies for just about any kind of attack. For example, a melee fighter could switch to dragon hide (but only with a ranged level of 40) or robes high in magic defense if he's being attacked by a mage. |
| 126 | ** Because of how pitifully broken it used to be, it was not so much as a "Combat Triangle" as it was a "Combat Squiggly Line". In fact, it went more like this: Melee → Ranger → Mage ← Melee. It is much more balanced in the current version of the game, especially after The Evolution of Combat, which was a huge overhaul of the game's combat mechanics. |
| 127 | ** Meanwhile "Old School" ''[=RuneScape=]'', which has its roots as a pre-Evolution of Combat backup, includes includes such "features" such as the archer Karil being [[ScissorsCutsRock pathetically weak to magic]] despite his armour having some of the highest magic defense bonuses in the game, due to how magic defense is calculated[[note]]Pre-EOC, [=NPCs=]' magic defense was calculated by their magic level first, and then is scaled by any defensive bonuses (e.g., from armour). However, many monsters that didn't use magic attacks had their magic level set to the default value of 1, resulting in magic dominating virtually everything in the early-to-mid game[[/note]]. |
| 128 | * The RTS ''War of the Ring'' has a simple system whereby Piercing > Crushing > Slashing > Piercing, then Hero > everything |
| 129 | * ''VideoGame/AgeOfMythology'' had the same Infantry > Cavalry > Archers > Infantry dynamic as its ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpires'' predecessor, but also added Mythological units which were effective against all of the regular units and Heroes which were effective against Myth units and vulnerable to regular units, thus adding a superdynamic of Heroes > Myth > Regular > Heroes. |
| 130 | ** Additionally, naval warfare follows a dynamic of Arrow Ships > Hammer/Ramming Ships > Siege Ships > Arrow Ships. |
| 131 | ** And the less common, but still important, Towers > Infantry > Siege Weapons > Towers. |
| 132 | ** The game does shake things up in several ways, though. For instance, each civilization has certain "counter" units that are effective against their own unit type but (usually) weak to everything else. This is played completely straight with the Greeks (who are, overall, [[JackOfAllStats the most generally straightforward civ]]), and more nuanced in other civs. |
| 133 | *** Example of that nuance: the Norse, an infantry-focused civ, is very vulnerable to archers- except for one of their units, which is specifically resistant to archers. Lacking archers of their own, they make do with a more varied infantry (including throwing axemen, who are good against flyers and infantry), a rather unusual cavalry segment (raiders ruin buildings and are fast, Jarls beat myth units and are effective as normal cavalry), and some of the best siege units in the game. Oh, and, with the right God, their heroes can occasionally summon Myth units out of nowhere. |
| 134 | ** ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIV'' builds its combat around a somewhat more rigid counter system than in prior instalments. Among light units, Spearmen can negate cavalry charges and deal bonus damage against them, Archers have little difficulty against light infantry, and Horsemen can use their speed to harass and take down ranged units. This simple triangle is given extra depth with heavy units: Men-At-Arms are slow but tanky infantry that can clean up light units, Knights are much the same but remain vulnerable to Spearmen, and Crossbowmen fire bolts which deal extra damage against other heavy units. Naval, siege and unique units have further counters of their own. |
| 135 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' a big, lumbering Heavy Cruiser simply can't hit light, maneuverable fighters unless it gets lucky; however, it has no problem hitting much bigger and slower frigates, which melt under its heavy firepower. Strike Craft eat Capships eat Frigates eat Strike Craft. It may not be an ''artificial'' stratification, but the tactical balance still exists. |
| 136 | ** The classification isn't exactly size, though. For example, an Ion Cannon Frigate is also armed [[CripplingOverspecialisation only]] with a powerful but unmaneuverable gun. |
| 137 | *** The CripplingOverspecialization may be justified, since Ion Cannon Frigates are very specifically designed as cheap artillery ships that can damage opponents above their weight class. Adding on extra tonnage in point defense or secondary weapons would undermine the basic mission of the unit, or at least make them more expensive way to fill the role. |
| 138 | ** On the flip side, certain units are designed to reverse the triangle; Missile Destroyers are capital ships that fare poorly against frigates, but absolutely annihilate strike craft. |
| 139 | ** ''Homeworld 2'' brought up this trope in full force. The Bomber < Interceptor < Corvette < Frigate < Destroyer < Battlecruiser < Bomber mechanic is still intact but now the damage inflicted by a correct counter is so high that just a few shots are enough to kill the target, quite unlike the minutes-long slugging matches of the predecessor. |
| 140 | *** At the same time we have Vaygr Lance Fighters (anti-corvette), Vaygr Laser Corvettes (anti-frigate) and Hiigaran Ion Cannon Frigates (anti-capital), every one of which can punch above their weight class. And despite Bombers upgraded with anti-subsystem bombs being a major menace to bigger ships, Battlecruisers are no longer PointDefenseless and can [[BeamSpam fend off]] small Bomber attacks on their own. |
| 141 | * ''VideoGame/VandalHearts'' has two such cycles; one explicitly stated in the game's help, and one which becomes apparent through play. The one the help tells you about is Fliers > Soldiers > Archers > Fliers. The one which is revealed through gameplay is Armored > Melee > Magic > Armored. |
| 142 | ** [[AllThereInTheManual The manual explains both]]. |
| 143 | ** To quote the game: "Sword defeats bow, bow defeats air and air defeats sword. Armour is strong but slow, mages are weak but wise and monks use word and claw." Other than the face that armour and monk are completely useless, it basically explains the entire tactical foundation of the game in two sentences. |
| 144 | * [=PvP=] in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' is a lot like this. It's very difficult for a Warrior to beat a Mage of the same level, but he'll cut through a Rogue like butter. That same Rogue can easily take down a Mage in two or three hits, provided he gets the element of surprise (which he usually does). |
| 145 | ** The pet-battle {{minigame}} is built around this. Every pet belongs to a family (humanoid, beast, elemental, etc.) which is resistant to attacks from one particular family, and vulnerable to another family. Furthermore, a pet from one family generally has at least one attack that uses a different family (e.g. a "beast" pet might have a single "undead" attack). Strategy relies heavily on exploiting those strengths and weaknesses when picking a pet team. |
| 146 | ** The ships in ''Warlords of Draenor's'' shipyard form a four point cycle. Not counting the Transport which delivers troops to Land objectives, the other four ships engage in naval battle thus: |
| 147 | *** Carriers have airplanes that can attack Battleships without coming in range of their guns. |
| 148 | *** Battleships have guns that can penetrate the armor on Destroyers. |
| 149 | *** Destroyers carry depth charges to attack Submarines. |
| 150 | *** Submarines attack from under the water where the Carrier's air support cannot attack. |
| 151 | ** A ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' video dating from Vanilla-era entitled ''World of Roguecraft'' attempted to explain how imbalanced certain classes were in world [=PvP=]. One part of the video refutes the idea that [=PvP=] is based on Rock-Paper-Scissors by showing how unbalanced the triad was: |
| 152 | --> "Rogues are Scissors, Warriors are Rock; Hunters, Paladins, Priests, Druids, Mages, and Shamans are Paper. Warlocks are Mushrooms. Paper beats Rock, Scissors beat Paper. Scissors also happen to beat Rock, until Rock hits 60, at which point Rock becomes an unstoppable killing machine that also beats Paper, and would beat Scissors, but it can't find Scissors, because Scissors are invisible. So Scissors beat Paper and avoid Rock, and that is called 'Balance'." |
| 153 | * ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'': |
| 154 | ** From the basic infantry units, Scouts beat Snipers beat Shocktroopers beat Scouts. [[FragileSpeedster Scouts']] high mobility mean they can easily close the distance to Snipers, who are helpless at close range; [[GlassCannon Snipers]] can shoot down the slow-moving Shocktroopers from a safe distance; and the [[MightyGlacier Shocktroopers']] high firepower make short work of Scouts that approach them. |
| 155 | ** Those three infantry units then lose to tanks, who can easily mow them down while taking next to no damage from their guns (aside from [[AttackItsWeakPoint the radiator]]). The tanks then get beaten by Lancers, the anti-tank units, who wield heavy, high-power missiles. However, the Lancers' bulkiness, slowness, and inaccurate attacks mean they're vulnerable against other infantries. |
| 156 | * Some time around ''VideoGame/SoulCalibur 3'', Namco started emphasizing Vertical Attack ➞ Horizontal Attack ➞ 8-Way Run ➞ Vertical Attack. It also seems to have an Attack ➞ Throw ➞ Guard Impact ➞ Attack system. |
| 157 | * ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' has an Attack ➞ Throw ➞ Reversal ➞ system. |
| 158 | * ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth'' features a complicated system as it covers warfare from the Stone Age to the ultra-tech Nano age. For a large portion of the game it follows the ''Age of Empires'' model concerning infantry, cavalry, and archers. The World War and Modern periods have a more complicated system which, despite the huge number of units, was at least somewhat intuitive - it was fairly obvious what the Anti-Tank Gun and Helicopter Anti-Tank unit was designed to fight, for example. The future periods became an almost completely arbitrary and unintuitive mess with a model of This Mech > That Mech > This Other Mech, etc. The game came with a poster covered in intricate diagrams charting the complicated RPS-style relationships (each of which had about 8 different units) for all 15 epochs. It was quite literally unreadable. |
| 159 | *** On land, things start easy: archers > swords/blunt weapons > spears > archers. Things start to get complicated when rifle-armed infantry appear and only get worse with the various cannon types and special infantry. In the future epochs, there is generally one anti-infantry mech, one anti-tank mech, one anti-building mech... Generally, if an artillery piece or mech does splash damage, it's an anti-infantry unit; if it doesn't do splash damage but still explodes, it's an anti-tank and anti-mech unit. Also, AP tanks > HE tanks > infantry > AT cannons > AP tanks is a straightforward one... until the two tank types are merged into the Laser tanks of the future epochs. |
| 160 | *** Early game armor is against shock, pierce and arrows. The latter two are phased out in favor of anti-gun armor, and late-game armor is against guns and lasers. |
| 161 | *** Cavalry uses much the same system as infantry (with sword cavalry, spear cavalry and chariot/horse archers), but it's complicated by arrow cavalry being phased out for gun cavalry, while sword cavalry lasts only one epoch after spear cavalry is made obsolete. |
| 162 | *** In water, battleships > frigates > galleys > battleships is the name of the game early on (although a single galley will do a lot of damage to a battleship, it still loses one-on-one). Later, galleys disappear but for all intents and purposes are supplanted by submarines (exact same strength and counter with the addition of only targeting naval units but can now only be targeted by other subs, frigates, towers and a dedicated helicopter). A new equation is also introduced: cruisers > Sea Kings > submarines, [[CripplingOverspecialization with cruisers being vulnerable to everything not in the air and Sea Kings being vulnerable to everything not in the water]]. Aircraft carriers can [[DeathFromAbove wreak massive havoc]] if there aren't any cruisers nearby but die quickly if being shot at. Nuclear submarines are anti-ground artillery but they too die very quickly if shot at. Both of the latter are completely defenseless against submarines. |
| 163 | *** In the air, things remain straightforward: fighters beat everything else in the air (except a ZergRush of fighter bombers) but die against surface-based anti-air (which they can't shoot at). Fighter bombers beat ground units, bombers beat everything on the ground ([[OneHitPolykill especially so]] for nuclear bombers); everyone else is situational (AT helicopter for tanks, gunship for infantry, Sea King for submarines). |
| 164 | ** ''Empire Earth II'' on the other hand, streamlined the counter system (actually called Rock-Paper-Scissors)... by assigning each class of units (Infantry, Mounted, and Artillery, further divide into Light and Heavy) completely arbitrary bonuses against two other classes. You essentially just had to take the game's word for it that riflemen were effective against light tanks and that heavy artillery could somehow kill a soldier holding a mortar better than a soldier holding a machine gun. This also leads to some eyebrow-raising events like modern Heavy Infantry (machine guns) able to shoot helicopters while Light Infantry (mortars) can't, but early units (sword/spearmen and archers respectively) act the same or the aforementioned infantry killing tanks (because the early equivalent was spearmen versus cavalry). |
| 165 | * A basic concept in Falcom's ''VideoGame/VantageMaster'' games. Earth spirits are strong against water spirits, water is strong against fire, fire is strong against heaven (air), and heaven is strong against earth. On the other hand, a particularly powerful spirit can hold its own against a lower-ranking spirit of a 'superior' element. |
| 166 | * Some players of the flight combat MMORPG ''VideoGame/AirRivals'' argue that the character classes were meant to follow this pattern. However, the advantage is very situational and can be overcome with sufficient player ability. Supposedly: Interceptor ➞ Bomber ➞ Artillery ➞ Interceptor. |
| 167 | * [=PvP=] works somewhat like this in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIMAGINE'', at least in straight DB v. DB Combat. Melee -> Magic -> Ranged. However, whichever demon you have out plays a big part of this. (Including with MegaTens classic ElementalRockPaperScissors theme) |
| 168 | ** From a strategic point of view, tightly clustered units beats rushing, Big Boom beats tight clusters, and rushing tends to allow people to escape the Big Boom. |
| 169 | ** In general, both [=PvP=] and [=PvE=], there is a complicated triangle that goes like this: counter beats close range, dodge beats long range, block beats area of effect. there are tons of little variations, but the second half is charge beats block, sweep beats counter, close range beats dodge. |
| 170 | * ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'' had this in combat: a fast/normal attack beats a strong attack by interrupting it before it hits; a strong attack beats blocking by smacking through the block; a block stops fast attacks dead for as long as you hold the block. |
| 171 | ** However, it ends up being broken to the point fast attack beats everything. Fast attack beats strong attack. You are usually a bit faster than enemies, so your fast attack also beats their fast attack. Block does not allow you to do damage or move and there is no stamina bar limiting your attacks, so there is no repercussion for just punching an enemy with fast attacks until they drop their block. Anything you can't defeat this way you're better off just dodging anyway. |
| 172 | * ''[[VideoGame/DragonForceSega Dragon Force]]'' had an entire chart showing which unit type beat the other. Soldier/Samurai > Beastman/Monk > Cavalry > Soldier/Samurai was the main one. Archers and Mages were weak to everything, but since they had ranged attacks, everything took casualties from them until they closed to melee. Zombies beat everything except Mages and Monks. Harpies were strong against everything but fell hard to ranged attacks and Dragonmen, and Dragonmen beat everything but Samurai. The fact that samurai were about the only thing strong against Dragonmen meant players would find the dragon generals and convert them in a hurry, while farming the few castles that generate dragon crest items to equip their most important generals with Dragonmen. Samurai generals were kept on hand to decimate enemy dragon forces. |
| 173 | * The VideoGame/{{Touhou}} spinoff ''[[VideoGame/PatchCon PatchCon! Defend the Library!]]'' had melee, danmaku, and flight units. Melee units were fast and trumped danmaku, which had range and trumped flight, which was [[MightyGlacier slow but powerful]] and trumped melee. |
| 174 | ** Also in the fighting games Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku, the mechanics goes as this: Graze beats projectiles beats melee beats graze. |
| 175 | * Depending on the player's skill in build optimisation, ''VideoGame/BattleStations'' mostly follows this. A [[MacrossMissileMassacre missile ship]] will generally beat a [[RammingAlwaysWorks ram ship]], which will generally beat a [[MightyGlacier tank ship]], which will generally beat a [[JackOfAllStats cannon ship]], which will generally beat a missile ship. |
| 176 | * ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' also uses this trope through the various eras in the game. The precise structure changes from game to game and from era to era within each game (hey, when you have a franchise with six games, plus expansions, each of which covers 6,000 years of history...) |
| 177 | ** In ''V'', the tree starts out as infantry being mowed down by archers, which get charged by cavalry, which impale themselves on spears, which are overpowered by infantry. In addition, cavalry tends to be stronger than its era's infantry, which is counterbalanced by their higher cost and penalties against cities. Conversely, siege weapons such as artillery are highly effective against cities, but suck against everything else. Once the Industrial Era begins, the rock-paper-scissors is maintained, but changes up; range is blitzed past by armor units, which get blown up by anti-armor units, which get outgunned by infantry, which can't approach range. In the sky, ground units get blasted by bombers, which get shot out of the sky by fighters and anti-air, which get shrugged off by ground units. At sea, battleships overpower destroyers, but get outranged and sunk by carriers, which get sneak attacked by submarines, which get spotted by destroyers. Both ground and sea also have their AwesomeButImpractical unit (the Missile Cruiser and the Giant Death Robot), which counter just about everything but make excellent targets for equally AwesomeButImpractical nuclear weapons. |
| 178 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChroniclesMyLifeAsADarklord'' uses the Melee -> Ranged -> Magic -> Melee triangle. There are also Generic-type units and traps, which, as one might expect, [[MasterOfNone have no notable advantages or disadvantages against any type.]] |
| 179 | * ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'', up to ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3 Red Alert 3]]'', at least, has the balance so that Infantry counters Rocket Soldier counters Tank and Plane, which counter Anti-Air and Anti-Ground, respectively, and Anti-Ground counters Infantry. Ok, so that's a bit convoluted, but you get the idea. Exaggerated with ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianTwilight''. Anti-infantry/anti-tank/ant-air damage system was replaced by different damage types (laser, gun, splash). Units weak against particular types will be pulverized in blink of an eye. But any not responding unit will be ridiculously resilient. Also, this kind of rock-paper-scissors completely replaced anti-air mechanics. Thus, EVERY unit can fire at aircraft. Even MOLOTOVS TOSSING RIOTERS. Yep. |
| 180 | ** More like: Guns beat infantry, explosives beat vehicles. Other weapons varied depending on the game. Flamethrowers were usually good against infantry and buildings, Tiberium hurt infantry but generally didn't affect vehicles too much, Lasers and Electricity usually fried everything, but were generally so slow-firing that they were better against vehicles than groups of infantry, and so on. |
| 181 | ** A Naval example: Battleship is stronger than Destroyer. Submarine defeats Battleship, which has no anti-sub defenses. Destroyer has depth charges, and so beats Submarine. |
| 182 | ** The other rare occasions are weapons that don't exactly fall into either bullets or explosions. For example in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]'', Prism Tanks were effective against non-buildings (effective, hitting units causes splash damage) and Mirage Tanks' concentrated fire basically makes short work of ''anything''. |
| 183 | *** The trope comes into full effect in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumAlliances Tiberium Alliances]]'', where every unit is strong against either infantry, vehicles, buildings or aircraft. |
| 184 | * Cartoon Network had a ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing''-themed flash game that used a system like this. sword -> gun -> laser -> sword, as I recall. Fun game too. |
| 185 | * ''Battle Isle''. Tanks beat air defence, air defence beats copter squads, copter squads beats tanks (because the tanks have no aerial attack). |
| 186 | * Bungie's ''{{VideoGame/Myth}}'' games: dwarves (and other [[SquishyWizard weak short range explosives]]) beat warriors (melee), warriors beat archers, archers beat dwarves. The gameplay encouraged close formations of dwarves in front, archers behind to shoot over their heads, and warriors behind them both to rush in when things get hairy. |
| 187 | ** Just don't forget to tell your [[ArtificialStupidity trigger-happy dwarves]] to stop lobbing grenades into the melee. |
| 188 | * ''VideoGame/RaveHeart'': Physical damage is good against Tech enemies, Tech damage is good against Ether enemies, and Ether damage is good against Physical enemies. However, at least two bosses, the Lord of the Unknown and Malgorth, have no type advantages or disadvantages. |
| 189 | * ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations'' has a complex series of interlocking tactical wheels, depending on the age ten different types of ground units, five different types of sea units, four different types of air units, combat buildings, supply, and generalship all have defined x-beats-y interactions. |
| 190 | * ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', a FirstPersonShooter, has multiple cycles of character classes countering each other: |
| 191 | ** The explosives of the Demoman are very effective against the Engineer's buildings, with a Demo able to arc or bounce grenades to a sentry whilst staying out of sight. The Engineer's sentry gun provides very effective area denial against the Scout, who normally relies on being [[FragileSpeedster hard to hit]]. Finally, the Scout's speed and a fast mellee attacks makes him hard to hit for the Demoman, [[CripplingOverspecialization who only has projectile weapons and an ineffective mellee]] (unless it's a Demoknight) and can hurt himself at close quarters, where Scout excels. |
| 192 | ** Replace Demoman with Spy and form a similar triangle: Engineer defeats Scout as above, Spy defeats Engineer as elaborated below, Scout defeats Spy with his ability to pursue a fleeing enemy, and with his speed, he can "bump into" his teammates to suss out Spies by the ones he can't simply pass through. |
| 193 | ** The Sniper has an easy target in the big, slow Heavy, who in turn is very ineffective at long range. However, the Heavy's close-quarter prowess and high health allow him to make short work of any Pyros and not even worry about being on fire. That same fire makes an excellent way to check for Spies, as a single puff of flame tells the Pyro whether a teammate is actually a Spy in disguise. Finally, a cloaked Spy can easy pass through a Sniper's line of sight undetected, and the latter's immobility and narrow sight makes him an easy target for a backstab. |
| 194 | ** A pair secondary cycle is formed between the Spy, the Engineer, and the Pyro, and the Heavy, Demoman, and Scout. The Pyro counters the Spy, as above, the Engineer's sentry renders the short-range Pyro helpless, and the Spy's disguises fool the sentry, his sapper shuts it down, and he can easily backstab the Engineer, given how focused he is on his building. Scout counters Demo as above, the Demo's ability to spam large amounts of explosives lets him chew through the heavy where other classes wound run dry or be out-gunned, and the heavy's constant spray of hitscan bullets lets him kill the fragile scout the easiest of all the combat classes. |
| 195 | ** TheMedic and the Soldier are left out of these cycles by design: one is a healer above all, while the other is mostly, but not quite, the JackOfAllStats. Of course, with the many different weapons, even they can fall into this: a Medic with the Blutsauger is notoriously effective against Pyros, while a Soldier who didn't equip a shotgun can expect to have all his attacks sent back at him by that same Pyro. |
| 196 | ** That said, the "Support" classes (Medic, Sniper, Spy) form a triangle of their own. Spy counters Sniper, as above. Snipers counter Medics, as the latter is a very important target and [[ShootTheMedicFirst a one shot kill on a Medic can stall an enemy for minutes at a time]], and there's only so much a Medic can do to hide behind his teammates. Speaking of the Medic and his teammates, this is how he counters Spies - while his teammates are facing forward to engage the enemy, the Medic is constantly looking around, keeping abreast on friendly and enemy movements to know when to push, when to Ubercharge, who and when to heal. This puts him in the ideal position to spot suspicious behavior from "teammates" (read: disguised Spies), and he can deal with them surprisingly quickly with his higher-damage, more varied weapons. |
| 197 | * ''VideoGame/BattleRealms'' really plays with this one. There are seven kinds of attack (slashing, blunt, piercing, crushing, fire, explosive and magic) and all units have their own degree of resistance (weak, normal or vulnerable) to each of the damage types. Thus, every unit in the game has ''some'' kind of counter through attacking it with the right unit -- buildings and undead like the Necromancer fall quickly to KillItWithFire, while heavily armored Dragon clan samurai and Wolf clan berserkers are best dealt with with magic attacks. |
| 198 | * The Fort Condor minigame in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' features differing soldier types have a rock-paper-scissors relationship to each other, giving and taking double or half the normal damage on a different type of unit: |
| 199 | ** Fast units (Attacker, Wyvern) defeat heavy units. |
| 200 | ** Heavy units (Defender, Beast) defeat ranged-attack units. |
| 201 | ** Ranged-attack units (Shooter, Barbarian) defeat fast units. |
| 202 | ** Exceptions include the "Fighter" (who has [[JackOfAllStats modest effectiveness all around]]) and stationary defenses, which have the highest raw attack power overall but are balanced by having a fixed attack range. |
| 203 | * In the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'' version, Attacker Units (red) defeat Ranged Units (green) defeat Defender Unites (blue). |
| 204 | * ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' instead based it on weapons more than general unit types. Missiles and Lascannons beat Vehicles, Heavy Bolters/Big Shootas/Death Spinners/Burst Cannons killed infantry, Plasma killed Heavy Infantry, and so on. How effective a given unit was against enemy types depended on what weapon(s) it (and it's target) was armed with. This allowed the game to at least partially subvert both this and CripplingOverspecialization, as while a squad of infantry armed with missile launchers could face a Lascannon-bearing tank in battle, the fact that the tank could be armed with secondary Heavy Bolters meant that victory was by no means certain. |
| 205 | ** The game also usually had a similar hierarchy when it came to close combat involving certain units: HeroUnit > Demon > Walker > HeroUnit. All of which tended to make short work of Infantry in close combat. |
| 206 | ** The sequel had certain units armed with certain weapons that were good against certain units' armour types with abilities to flavour things up. However, these were not always clear, requiring players to look into external information sources and the {{Metagame}} to better understand what's good against what. The general pattern is not entirely clear, though suppression can make infantry nearly useless, ranged damage is always better than melee damage when out of melee range, artillery units beat anything that's foolish enough to stay in their range, deployed anti-vehicle counters force vehicles to retreat or be destroyed swiftly, and melee beats ranged infantry when in melee and do more damage against retreating units. The abilities of units really make things mixed up, with their uses and effectiveness against units varying. And the upgrades. |
| 207 | ** The upgrades - especially the interchangeable wargear in campaign mode - is really just putting a more complex spin on the same basic principals. Realize the enemy you're facing: if it's swarms and swarms of weak Tyranids or Guardsmen, equip rapid-fire and area-of-effect weapons, and bring as many [[KillItWithFire flamers]] as possible; if you're going against heavy armor/daemons/monsters, pack the lascannon/missiles/power weapons and bolster them with melee support; if it's Space/Chaos Marines, focus on weapons that are effective more against Heavy Infantry, etc. Also partially subverted: if a lascannon, plasma cannon, or similar tank-buster shoots an infantry unit, even some that have heavy armor, that unit ''will'' die... And then all his buddies will shoot/chop you to pieces while reloading. |
| 208 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Sacrifice}}'', melee units have more health and speed than ranged units but only deal 10% melee damage to flyers, which ranged units deal full damage to. Ranged units, meanwhile, can't shoot while they're being pummeled in melee. This intuitively seems like Melee > Ranged > Flying > Melee but in practice ''Sacrifice'' has so many and varied units, and variations in types of missile, that it becomes more a matter of specific army makeup than a hard-and-fast rule. For example, the warmonger is a Pyro ranged unit specifically tailored to counter melee by having a very short-ranged but powerful machine gun, but is very big and slow and will get shot to pieces by artillery and snipers. |
| 209 | * ''VideoGame/DokaponKingdom'' has this as the basis of their Combat System. Too bad Field Magic is overpowered, and that TheComputerIsACheatingBastard (blatantly). |
| 210 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}}'' series places some emphasis on Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors, with varying degree of success. |
| 211 | ** In ''[=BF2=]'', the concept is so sloppily implemented that helicopters and fighter jets lay waste to everything, including the stationary and mobile AA that was their designated counter. [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome There's a reason infantry-only servers became so popular]]. |
| 212 | ** In general, the series' combat is based around tools' general effectiveness (some weapons are more effective at certain ranges) against infantry, and ground vehicles, at certain ranges. Other options may provide uselessness to other things aside from killing stuff and getting points. Air vehicles were generally able to beat their non-air adversaries easily (though there are occasionally some options against them), with strategically placed anti-air guns on the map allowed them to be chewed up if they strayed too close. |
| 213 | * In the ''VisualNovel/KoihimeMusou'' {{Visual Novel}}s, Calvary > Archers > Infantry > Calvary. |
| 214 | * ''VideoGame/InfiniteSpace'' has this to a degree with the Normal, Barrage, and Dodge commands. A Barrage attack is three times stronger than a Normal attack, but will complete whiff if the opponent is dodging. However the Normal attack actually becomes ''more accurate'' if used on a dodging opponent. |
| 215 | ** Played completely straight in melee combat. Slash beats Shoot, Shoot beats Leader, and Leader beats Slash. |
| 216 | *** It's worth noting that using 'Shoot' on a retreating opponent [[GameBreaker will halt their retreat and give you a free round of damage]]. |
| 217 | * A few rock-paper-scissors relationships exist between units in ''VideoGame/StarcraftII''. For example, Zerg Mutalisks are a strong counter to roaches; roaches are a strong counter to hydralisks; and hydralisks are a strong counter to mutalisks. ''Starcraft II'' also has challenge missions designed to teach players which work best against others. |
| 218 | ** In general, though, both Starcraft and its sequel go for a more subtle and complex type of advantage system. There is rarely a simple triangle, and many advantages can be overcome through use of micro, mobility, terrain, or sheer numbers. For example, while the Thor is supposed to counter mutalisks, the mutalisks are far faster and can fly, so they can still be used to attack undefended areas and run away before the thors arrive. Siege tanks have powerful attacks and splash damage, so they are usually good against swarms of weaker units, but if just a few of those units make it inside some of the tanks' minimum range, those tanks will be unable to damage their attackers and are also likely to take friendly fire damage from the surrounding tanks. |
| 219 | ** A rock-paper-scissors balance model for air units was deliberately invoked by the developers with the first game's expansion, Brood War. Capital ships (carriers, battlecruisers) made for powerful base-killer fleets but were countered by fighters such as Wraiths and Scouts. The expansion introduced splash-damage Support fliers that quickly killed swarms of fighters while being weak against capital ships, creating a triangular balance for aircraft. |
| 220 | ** Starcraft also has a ''strategic'' rock-paper-scissors element. Most strategies in it can be classified into three categories: Rush (build simple attackers as fast as you can right from the beginning and hit the enemy with a hopefully killing attack in the opening), Defend (spend the opening concentrating on your base's defenses) or Expand (spend the opening making your resource gathering as extensive as possible). Rush beats Expand (because you'll overrun him before he has any fighting capability) beats Defend (because your expanded resources will beat him in the later game) beats Rush (because his early attack will fail to beat down your defenses and leave him open to counterattack). |
| 221 | * It’s not explicitly stated, but the turn-based space-strategy game ''Stars!'' has the missile/chaff/beam weapon circle. Missiles do less damage than beam weapons but have a far longer range, so a missile ship can usually get a few shots in and destroy a beamer ship before it can get into range and bring its superior firepower to bear. However, each individual missile can only hit one ship per round, so it is possible to build hordes of tiny, cheap chaff ships whose sole purpose is to suck up one missile each and die. So you get capital ship killing missiles capable of hundreds of points of damage being used up to kill chaff with 20 hit points each while the beam weapon ship the chaff is protecting is able to close the gap. However beam weapons can shoot multiple targets a round and can chew up chaff like nothing, so chaff is a waste of resources against them. The result: Missile Ships > Beamer Ships > Beamer Ship + Chaff > Missile Ships. The endgame can easily turn into a “Redesign War”. |
| 222 | |
| 223 | * In ''VideoGame/TotalWar'' games, some soldier types are more effective against others. For instance, archers are good against heavy infantry, because they'll shoot from afar and automatically run away when the enemy gets close, and they can outrun heavy infantry (being lightly armored). But cavalry are good against archers, because the archers get only a few shots in before they have to switch to melee weapons (which they do have, but usually only weak ones, and not much armor). And so on. |
| 224 | ** Justified to some extent in that they usually don't get any bonus stats by fighting specific units, it's just the way they interact. The only exception is the "effective against armour" trait that certain missile units and axe-wielding infantry have. |
| 225 | ** However, this trope completely dominates ''TW'' multiplayer. There are strict rules as to which factions you should use to defeat certain other factions, based on their selection of units and those units' particular strengths. The particulars of this go somewhat beyond a simple rock-paper-scissors scheme, but the effect is the same - only a certain army selection using a certain deployment and certain tactics will guarantee victory against an experienced player using a given faction. |
| 226 | ** Beginning in ''VideoGame/EmpireTotalWar'', the Agent units started to have a clearer Rock-Paper-Scissors relationship. Diplomatic units (Gentleman/Scholar, Metsuke) have a bonus against Subterfuge units (Rake, Ninja/Geisha), who have a bonus against Religious units (Missionary, Monk), who have a bonus against Diplomatic units. This isn't quite cut and dried as a very strong Ninja can assassinate a weak Metsuke, for example. |
| 227 | *** Starting with ''VideoGame/EmpireTotalWar'' and continuing in ''VideoGame/NapoleonTotalWar'', the creators boast that they are revamping the traditional Rock-Paper-Scissors relationship. Line infantry is now the mainstay of your forces with cavalry relegated to support and anti-artillery. Line infantry is a mix of ranged, melee, and spear units from previous games. Instead, the formation of your line infantry is likely to determine its success. Your line is being charged by cavalry? Form a stationary square that utterly obliterates any cavalry (some horses will throw off their riders rather than charge a wall of braced bayonets), but risk the enemy infantry charging the square or, better yet, the square becoming the target of enemy artillery. Other types of infantry exist, such as grenadiers (can slaughter large clusters of enemy units but have to get close) and light infantry (have long-range rifles for picking off the enemy from afar but don't have the firepower to match a line). |
| 228 | ** ''VideoGame/TotalWarShogun2'' has spear units that counter cavalry, but cavalry come in many varieties, and don't always win against archers (especially if they are [[BowandSwordinAccord samurai archers]], or on good terrain), and while there are three main melee weapons, they don't function like this (Spears beat cavalry, Katana beat infantry, Naginata are a hybrid between the two with good survivability). Where this trope comes into play, is with the ''caste'' of the units: ashigaru [[CannonFodder have strength in numbers]], {{Samurai}} have strength in armor, and WarriorMonk units have strength in damage output. So it goes like MightyGlacier > ZergRush > GlassCannon > MightyGlacier. |
| 229 | ** ''VideoGame/TotalWarShogun2'' features a mild version of this trope that can be situational, due to terrain, fortifications, and so forth. Combined arms is always the best way to win, but in general cavalry > katana > naginata > yari (spear) > cavalry. Archery and musket units do not fall into the rock-paper-scissors since they cannot beat anyone in hand-to-hand but if supported can do outstanding damage and guarantee the victory of allied melee tropes when the lines close. Artillery units are like ranged units when used in the field. |
| 230 | ** The above chain is somewhat of a stretch; naginata are more of a JackOfAllStats MightyGlacier, and cavalry are [[BackStab specialized for striking otherwise occupied units]] (yari cavalry and light cavalry are the FragileSpeedster who aren't good against anything in a prolonged brawl, and low numbers means even katana cavalry can be isolated and surrounded by archers). Where this trope does fit clearly, is in the three castes of fighters: the [[MightyGlacier samurai armor]] beats the CannonFodder ashigaru's weak attack, the WarriorMonk's strong attack counters {{Samurai}} armor, and an ashigaru unit's [[ZergRush raw numbers]] defeat [[GlassCannon unarmored and rare]] WarriorMonk units. |
| 231 | ** In Fall of the Samurai, set about 1870, artillery is king but cavalry beats artillery if the cavalry can charge, modern beats traditional if the terrain is open enough to bring the guns to bear, and infantry > cavalry > artillery > infantry. However, massed artillery which is supported wins hands down over the others due to its ability cover nearly the entire battlefield and sweep away the enemy army before it can form up. The support units just keep the enemy from sending cavalry to ride down the big guns before the shells have finished off the enemy line. |
| 232 | ** ''VideoGame/TotalWarRomeII'' takes the concept even further to the point of rock-paper-scissors systems ''within'' rock-paper-scissors systems: |
| 233 | *** Infantry blocks mostly consist of large groups of armored foot troops who mainly grind down the enemy in battles of attrition. They are usually too numerous and durable for Cavalry to handle but struggle to effectively fight faster moving Ranged units. |
| 234 | *** ''Spear'' Infantry are an all-rounder unit with a particular effectiveness against Cavalry, but this does put them into MasterOfNone territory. As spears are one of the most economical weapons in the ancient world almost every culture can make use of them with Hellenic cultures, particularly Sparta, fielding the best. |
| 235 | *** ''Sword'' Infantry are the purest expression of Infantry combat, reliably beating ''Spear'' and ''Pike'' Infantry wherever they find them. This does come at the cost of abnormally high vulnerability to Cavalry, particularly ''Shock'' Cavalry. Rome, generally speaking, fields the best ''Sword'' Infantry. |
| 236 | *** ''Pike'' Infantry are a specialized defensive unit who's formations can reliably hold off all other forms of close-combat unit, even bogging down ''Sword'' Infantry and giving ''Shock'' Cavalry pause. These tight formations are notably slow to respond to flanking and rear attacks and any Ranged unit that fires into that area is guarantied a hit. ''Pikes'' are rather rare with only Macedon and some other Hellenic factions making any serious use of them. |
| 237 | *** Ranged units, although they can effectively damage Infantry with impunity, are very vulnerable to Cavalry who are not only better in close-quarters combat but fast enough to avoid their firing arcs. |
| 238 | *** ''Slingers'' are the cheapest ranged unit available with no real elite variants existing anywhere. As a weapon ''Slingers'' have low damage but good range and rate of fire making them surprisingly good at winning shootouts with other ranged units, even ''Horse archers.'' |
| 239 | *** ''Javelins'' have shorter ranges and smaller ammunition pools than other Ranged units but have much better regular and armor-piercing damage enabling them to threaten higher-tier Infantry. The more civilized cultures tend to field better-armored units. |
| 240 | *** ''Archers'' get the best of both worlds; good range and damage, if lacking armor-piercing damage. Conversely, they are the most rare of Ranged units with only some barbarian and eastern cultures fielding them. |
| 241 | *** Cavalry are the fastest units on the field and therefore the best poised to attack Ranged units and make flanking and rear attacks against Infantry, but they risk being bogged down by more numerous foot troops or rough terrain. |
| 242 | *** ''Scout'' Cavalry are the fast-but-fragile, cheap and basic take on mounted combat and as such are present in almost every culture in the game. As a fighting unit they are excellent at scouting and hitting targets of opportunity such as war machines and Ranged units, but can only really fight Infantry with flank and rear charges and only while in support of another unit. |
| 243 | *** ''Shock'' Cavalry sits on the other end of the spectrum to ''Scout'' Cavalry being an expensive, rare and powerful unit with a devastating charge that enables them to take ''Sword'' Infantry head-on, though ''Spear'' and ''Pike'' Infantry should be treated with more caution. Other Cavalry are also able to skirmish and avoid them as necessary. Parthia is the undisputed master of ''Shock'' Cavalry with some Hellenic factions coming in a close second. |
| 244 | *** ''Horse Archers'' are a hybrid of Ranged and Cavalry units and have inherited the strengths and weaknesses of both; They can shoot Infantry with near-impunity and reliably outfight Ranged units but will be outfought by Infantry and outshot by Ranged units. Parthia, Scythia and other eastern-nomad-desert cultures field these units effectively. |
| 245 | * To some extent in ''VideoGame/CompanyOfHeroes'': in general, it's Infantry > Anti-tank gun > Armored vehicles > infantry. But there are a dizzying variety of exceptions - Panzershreck-wielding Tank Busters, sticky bombs thrown by Riflemen, emplaced [=MGs=] that will shred infantry and can activate armor-piercing bullets - and that's not even including elements like artillery, cover, or flanking, all of which are implemented. In short, there's no single game-winning combination that won't cost an impractically high amount of resources; balance is maintained through the different costs and usages of the units rather than a strict rock-paper-scissors dynamic. |
| 246 | ** They may not actually be any tactical rock-paper-scissors even without upgrades. The basic rifleman will have a tough time against MG emplacements and if strategically placed, an [=AT=] gun or two will murder units (it's still firing an explosive shell). Tanks, despite usually requiring infantry support in real life, can hold its own against anything other than a tank or an AT gun because infantry can't do creative things like hop up and drop a grenade in. Basically, you can't really use the typical tactical rock-paper-scissors mindset in this game. |
| 247 | *** If you think infantry can't kill tanks, you've never faced Ranger or Panzergrenadier spam. Even a Tiger II is meat against 3-4 squads of Rangers. |
| 248 | * ''VideoGame/StarWarsRebellion'' divides starships into starfighters and capital ships. Even starfighters with hyperdrive need a capital ship base when they go on the offense; they can retreat on their own, however. But more relevant is that some fighters specialize in dealing with fighters (A-wing, TIE Interceptor), some specialize in dealing with capital ships (B-wing, Y-wing, TIE Bomber), and some are the JackOfAllStats (X-wing, TIE Defender). One, the TIE Fighter, is completely useless. Capital ships also specialize in dealing with fighters, dealing with capital ships, or transporting fighters or troops. And this overspecialization ultimately results in the Death Star, which can wipe out capital ships easily but is defenseless against fighters (except the A-wing). |
| 249 | * The three ancients in ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness: Sanity's Requiem'' go in a Rock Paper Scissors pattern: Chattur'gha beats Xel'lotath, Xel'lotath beats Ulyaoth, and Ulyaoth beats Chattur'gha. [[spoiler: The fourth ancient, Mantorok, is manipulating events so that the three end up destroying each other.]] |
| 250 | * ''VideoGame/{{Gladius}}'' has three classes of gladiator, heavy, medium and light. Heavy gladiators crush medium gladiators who squash light gladiators who run rings around heavy gladiators. You do less damage and take more from the weight class you are weak against while doing more and taking less from the one you are strong against. A skilled player can sometimes overcome the disadvantage through careful use of skills, facing and height. |
| 251 | * The battles in ''VideoGame/JumpSuperStars'' and its sequel run on this. The playable and supporting characters are all divided in three categories: 力 (''chikara'', strength - usually fighting manga protagonists), 知 (''chi'', knowledge - mostly reserved for mentors and/or [[TheLancer Lancers]]) and 笑 (''warai'', laugh - which are characters from gag manga, or {{Idiot Hero}}es). By the system, strong beats smart, smart beats funny and funny beats strong. Doesn't mean you can't beat other characters with a "bad" combination, but following the Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors here will net you a quicker and easier win. |
| 252 | * ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion'' has a complex, multilayered example. At it's base, you have the classic swords beat axes beat lances beat swords. Collectively, these three shock weapons beat bows, bows beat magic, and magic beats shock weapons. In addition, you have "lump" weapons (used by summoned creatures) that are weak against magic and neutral to everything else; Scythes (used by the BigBad and his EliteMooks) that trump shock weapons and are neutral to everything else; and the "book" weapon type which trumps other magic. |
| 253 | ** ''VideoGame/BlazeUnion'' added a character that attacks with a koto, and ''VideoGame/GloriaUnion'' replaced bows with guns, which have the same properties. The koto is neutral to everything. |
| 254 | * ''VideoGame/HalfMinuteHero'' has a mode called [=EvilLord=] 30 which uses a monster summoning system based on this, Nimbles beat Shooters, Shooters beat Brawlers and Brawlers beat Nimbles. It is made kinda redundant by the end though when Brawlers destroy everything if you hide in a corner near a Goddess Shop. |
| 255 | * ''VideoGame/WarhammerOnline'' tried to do this; heavy tanks weather the storm of ranged DPS to crush their faces, ranged DPS obliterates lightly armored melee DPS, melee DPS have enough tricks to knock out the tanks or at least murder the support keeping the tank alive. Support units themselves work differently depending on race, but usually get yelled at to heal, heal and heal some more even if they're supposed to be a "balanced" or buff/debuff specialist. This can work out in some smaller scenarios, but the massive end-game [[strike:[=PvP=]]] RVR battles the game was touted to be all about usually boil down to "Right, who can lay down the most AOE damage the fastest?" |
| 256 | * ''Spellbound Kingdoms'' combat system is focused on responsive tactics. A combatant switches between different moves of the style, while styles themselves are built for specific advantages -- Guardsman is good at [[StoneWall shielding himself and another]], while Swashbuckler has [[LightningBruiser mobility]] and [[HeroicSpirit morale]] based tactics. As such, |
| 257 | --> "not all styles are meant to be balanced against each other individually. Rather, the game as a whole is balanced. Some styles should consistently kick certain other styles from here to the Kingdoms and back!" |
| 258 | * ''VideoGame/AgeOfWonders'' has several sets; in ''Shadow Magic'', the simplest for human troops is: Halberdiers < Swordsmen < Cavalry < Halberdiers. Because the former is the weakest by stats, but Polearm gives bonus vs. [[AntiCavalry cavalry]] and fliers, First Strike means even near-dead units can't be mopped up with impunity and due to cost rate 1:1.5:3.5 for equal gold there's too many of them to answer all attacks. |
| 259 | * ''VideoGame/AdvancedStrategicCommand'' has a lot of units good against specific other types, such as AntiAir units being weak against sea- or land-based units, and most of them are fodder for aviation. The simplest and cheapest rock-paper-scissors cycle is Assault Trooper < Sniper (hits infantry from afar hard and without retaliation) < Light Tank < Assault Trooper (anti-tank rocket). |
| 260 | * ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheCrystals''' Arena features a 3-on-3, and this is implemented: Weapon-based jobs beat Magic-based jobs, Magic-based jobs beat Bare Hand-based jobs, and Bare Hand-based jobs beat Weapon-based jobs. Any subversion of this combat triangle may apply, though; if the job level is high enough, arena ability(ies) are activated, or both. |
| 261 | * In ''VideoGame/RedAlert3Paradox'', surface units are primarily divided three ways; infantry, light vehicles, and heavy armour, countered by small arms, light ordinance, and anti-tank weapons respectively. Each is also soft-countered by the weapons a grade above and below it; so light armour gets the short end of the stick as guns and cannons still hurt it relatively well, and autocannons are very flexible, though their soft counter damage is reduced. Further complicating matters, however, is a ''second'' set of softer counters devoted to air units, and specialty counter cycles for structures, urban garrisons, defensive turrets, and units with unusual properties, plus weapons that cut across counter lines. Then, it gets really complicated, with units that mezz, buff, debuff, and otherwise play with the counter cycle. |
| 262 | ** Special note must be made of the Bhor Waveform Device, an allied unit that flips counters around, turning tank armour to infantry and vis versa, throwing off attempts to counter or making enemy units easy targets. |
| 263 | * ''VideoGame/CosmicBreak'' has a rock-paper-scissors system with its Air, Land, and Artillery units and the weapons they specialize in: Air units are best at using beam weapons against Land units, while Land units specialize in melee weapons which Artillery units are weak against, and Artillery units' long-range missile weapons can easily swat Air units out of the sky. |
| 264 | * ''VideoGame/BattlestarGalacticaOnline'': Strikes, with their mobility, can nibble Lines to death. Escorts are intended to defend against them, but their size makes them prey for Lines. Carriers don't really fit. |
| 265 | * ''VideoGame/JadeCocoon 2'' overlaps this with ElementalRockPaperScissors. Fire monsters have strong attacks that can kill water monsters quickly, but struggle against earth types with good defence. Earth monsters have stat boosting abilities and a focus on defence, letting them stand up to fire types, but are vulnerable to special attacks. Wind monsters have enemy weakening attacks that counteract earth, but water minions typically have resistances to them. Water monsters can heal their allies and resist special attacks by wind monsters, but lack the defence needed to withstand fire. |
| 266 | * ''VideoGame/SDGundamCapsuleFighter'' doesn't even hide this, outright labeling everything as Rock (melee), Paper (general purpose), and Scissors (ranged). A few units have special skills designed specifically to break the paradigm by increasing their defense against their respective weakness (Rocks vs. long-range weapons, Papers vs. mid-range weapons, Scissors vs. melee attacks). This has been nulled, though, with the advent of the Generation Six update and the removal of this system. |
| 267 | * ''VideoGame/TheAncientArtOfWar'' employed this with the three unit types: |
| 268 | ** Archers defeat Knights because the Knights move slowly enough to get picked off |
| 269 | ** Barbarians defeat Archers because they move in quickly and take out the Archers |
| 270 | ** Knights defeat Barbarians because the Knights are better armed and have armor. |
| 271 | * In ''VideoGame/StarWarsEmpireAtWar'', this applies both in space and on land. In space, Fighters -> Bombers -> Capital Ships -> Light Cruiser-> Fighters. On land Infantry -> Missile troops -> Vehicles -> Infantry, with some vehicles also being more effective against other vehicles. |
| 272 | * ''Videogame/MarvelAvengersAlliance'' has five classes in this circle (Blaster -> Bruiser -> Scrapper -> Infiltrator -> Tactician -> Blaster) and a sixth 'Generalist' class which is neither strong nor weak against any class. Played with in that being "strong" or "weak" against another class is not just a matter of doing more or less damage, it gives a tactical advantage: Scrappers get an immediate follow-up attack on Infiltrators, Infiltrators automatically counter-attack Tacticians, Tacticians get a full extra turn when attacking or being attacked by Blasters, Blasters ignore Bruisers' defense and automatically crit them, and Bruisers get a stacking buff that increases all their stats when attacking or being attacked by Scrappers. |
| 273 | ** On top of that, there's a secondary tactical rock-paper-scissors going on at the individual character level, in that many character or equipment abilities can nullify class advantages. For example, characters or weapons that can inflict the Off-Balance debuff can negate counter-attacks, weakening Infiltrators; Impaired prevents critical hits, neutering Blasters; Exhausted prevents extra turns, removing Tacticians' advantage; and Generalized removes all class-based abilities. |
| 274 | * This is a large part of Kabam games on Facebook, like ''DragonsOfAtlantis'' and ''KingdomsOfCamelot''. You must scout and find out what your enemy has and send out troops accordingly to succeed in a hit. Mounted troops, for example, are weak to Pikemen. Swordsmen are strong against horses. And it's not only their troops you have to plan for, but their wall defenses. Siege weapons are weak against Trebuchets. Militiamen are sent first to take out traps. Heavy cavalry and cavalry will die if there are spikes or caltrops present. And now KOC has the added element of the Throne Room, which gives boosts to certain troops. |
| 275 | * In ''VideoGame/MarvelContestOfChampions'', characters are assigned to one of six classes based on the source of their power (the ''ComicBook/XMen'' are almost all Mutant class, ComicBook/SpiderMan is a Science class Champion due to receiving his powers from a FreakLabAccident, etc.) Characters with a class advantage get a slight bonus to health and attack power in battle, while characters with a class disadvantage get slight penalties to those stats. Mutant (any of the X-Men) -> Science (Spider-Man) -> Mystic (ComicBook/ScarletWitch) -> Cosmic ([[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]]) -> Skill (ComicBook/ThePunisher) -> Tech (ComicBook/IronMan) -> Mutant. |
| 276 | * The ''VideoGame/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAsPortable'' fighting games follow an Attack -> Throw -> Counter -> Attack system when characters fight in melee range. |
| 277 | * ''VideoGame/FateExtra'' has Attack, Guard, and Break. Attack is a fast, light attack that pokes holes in someone making a heavy Break attack, Guard blocks Attacks and allows a counter, but Break can smash through Guard. Servants also have Skills which disrupt any part of the whole cycle, though Guarding at least reduces damage from attack Skills. Most of the game centers around getting information on enemy Servants so you can predict and counter their attack patterns. |
| 278 | * ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' has four distinct triangles among its classes: Saber > Lancer > Archer > Saber; Rider > Caster > Assassin > Rider; Avenger > Ruler > Moon Cancer > Avenger; and Pretender > Alter Ego > Foreigner > Pretender. In addition to these triangles... |
| 279 | ** Berserkers [[GlassCannon are offensively strong against and defensively weak against all others]] but Shielder and Foreigner. |
| 280 | ** Rulers [[StoneWall are defensively strong but offensively neutral against everything]] but Shielder, Avengers, Berserkers and Moon Cancer. |
| 281 | ** Pretenders are offensively strong against Saber/Lancer/Archer, defensively neutral to classes outside its triangle (besides Berserker), and Rider/Assassin/Caster takes less damage from them. |
| 282 | ** Alter Egos are offensively strong against Rider/Assassin/Caster, defensively neutral to classes outside its triangle (besides Berserker), and Saber/Lancer/Archer takes less damage from them. |
| 283 | ** Foreigner has a unique resistance to Berserkers, deals and takes neutral damage to all other classes outside its triangle, but is also weak to [[TakesOneToKillOne itself]]. |
| 284 | ** The "Unknown"/[[spoiler:Beast I]] class of Demon Pillars are the reverse, strong against Saber/Lancer/Archer and weak to Rider/Caster/Assassin. |
| 285 | ** The special Shielder Servant exists outside this system and is completely unaffected by class matchups by dealing and taking neutral damage to all classes. Avenger and Moon Cancer perform similarly with only their exceptions being Berserkers and the other members of their triangle. |
| 286 | ** Beast IV:L/[[spoiler:Tamamovitch Koyanskaya]] has an extremely unusual interaction with this system. She deals less damage to Casters and deals neutral damage to all other classes. However, she has the unique Nega-Weapon passive that specifically deals more damage to "Hominidae" Servants (those of human origins) and takes more damage from "Demonic Beast" Servants (those who have animal-based traits). These two systems overlap so she deals neutral damage to Hominidae Casters since the resistance and weakness cancel each other out and effectively has an offensive advantage against any other Hominidae class Servant. All Demonic Beasts are Non-Hominidae but not all Non-Hominidae are Demonic Beasts so there's a pool of Servants who can take and inflict neutral damage alongside the pool of Servants who take neutral damage and deal more damage to Beast IV:L. The only Servants who can deal both more damage and takes less damage from her are Demonic Beast Casters. |
| 287 | * ''VideoGame/{{Wizard101}}'' has this for the elemental schools, storm wizards specialty is a powerful single strike attacks that can quickly kill an undefended opponent, ice wizards have a natural defense to all spells, the highest health, and the ability to create shields that reduce damage of a single strike by half allowing them to whittle away at the naturally low health of storm, fire specializes in the use of damage over time which enable them to get around ice's shields but it's susceptible to storm since storm can kill them before the fire's attacks to fully affect them. |
| 288 | * ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork 4'', ''5'', and ''6'' extend the ElementalRockPaperScissors to 4 new "tactical elements" Cursor > Breaker > Sword > Wind > Cursor. With +/-, Healing, and Obstacle types that are totally neutral to both weakness cycles. |
| 289 | * The ''Franchise/PrinceOfPersia'' series features enemies that will always counter certain moves. Rather than just having the attack blocked, you always take damage for attempting it against that opponent, usually getting knocked down as well. |
| 290 | * Both ''VideoGame/GroundControl'' games feature this, along with special emphasis on aerial units. The first game includes bombers, capable of demolishing a whole enemy base in around 15 seconds. Problem is, every anti-air unit here is insanely powerful, with one side having guided missiles and the other having quad machine gun vehicles in ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill squads of four]]''. Basically, you need to get into the base and take out those defences to allow aerodynes, which are already pointless by then. The sequel tones it down; aerial units can hurt infantry either lightly or not at all, they got rebalanced armor, and they are generally more like normal speedy tanks than the powerful fragile speeders they used to be. The rest of the units play this trope straight, except for the ability to flank and produce suppresive fire, which effectively means that even basic infantry can defeat the heaviest tank, if one plans carefully. |
| 291 | * In ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'', a side quest in the post-endgame zone the Sea involves battling [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent Mer-kin]] gladiators. You can find three different Mer-kin weapons to use, each of which lets you learn three special attacks with that weapon which will counter the special moves of one of the types of gladiators you might encounter (the Mer-kin dodgeball is used to counter the Mer-kin bladeswitcher, the Mer-kin switchblade is used to counter the Mer-kin netdragger, and the Mer-kin dragnet is used to counter the Mer-kin balldodger). |
| 292 | * In ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore V'', there are three defense types, with corresponding weapons that inflict said damage types: KE (Kinetic Energy, basically bullets and the force from fragmentation explosive), CE (Chemical Energy, direct contact explosives), and TE (Thermal Energy, basically energy weapons such as lasers, plasma, and whatnot). Attacking an AC with the damage it is strong against, and the damage is "plinked", meaning it will deal very little damage. This is accompanied by a flashing message on your HUD that says "Ineffective", a certain impact sound. On the other hand, attacking said AC with something it is weak against is the easiest to deal massive damage. Likewise, each frame part of an AC (head, core, arms, legs) has a high rating for a certain defense type, and a much lower rating for the other two defense types. This makes it impossible to build an AC that has high overall ratings in all 3 defense types, and so you can only build an AC that has high ratings in only 2 defense types. Each AC can focus heavily on one defense with a secondary defense of sorts, and can carry up to 5 weapons. While carrying a weapon that fits every damage profile is an option, most go for the equipment that lets them maximize damage for 2 damage profiles (eg, 3 KE weapons and 2 TE weapons, say). This being an online squad-based game, most players rely on other teammates to cover for their shortcomings, making matches, especially one-on-one matches, heavily reliant on having the correct "hand". |
| 293 | ** In V's sequel, Verdict Day, this is heartily subverted as ineffective "plink" damage is increased, and weapons such as gatling guns and shotguns are very much viable to deal [[DeathOfAThousandCuts death via a thousand bullets]]. Furthermore, there is a certain attack value where even effective damage does not deal its full potential, making the rock-paper-scissors aspect much less pronounced. This has been double subverted and ''triple subverted'' due to successive patches. One can only wait until FROM concludes their "patch month" if the this trope will take place again. |
| 294 | * ''VideoGame/DesertMoon'': Flamethrowers/Imploders are effective against Hunter and Infected enemies by being able to do huge damage at close range [[note]]The Flamethrower pushes back Hunters that surface while the Imploder [[OneHitKill instakills an enemy]] and pushes back units around it, like hordes of Infected[[/note]]. Nail Gunners and Flare Gunners can't hit the burrowing Hunter at range or deal enough damage to the [[StoneWall slow, durable]], ZergRush of Infected, but they can beat the fast but weak Bursters. Bursters can easily kill Flamethrowers and Imploders as they're fast, not repelled by Flamethrower fire, can get past the Inmploder's slow fire rate and explode on death/contact and kill anything nearby. |
| 295 | * In ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', ranged carries (ADC, marksmen, usually start bottom lane) typically deal with tanks, assassins and mages (typically mid lane) burst down carries with a single skill rotation, while tanks (top lane) can easily survive several skill rotations from assassins and deal enough damage to kill them if it comes to 1v1 fight. |
| 296 | * ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper 2'' has four creature types; flankers, support, blitzers and blockers: |
| 297 | ** Flankers are weak individually, and like to either atack a distracted enemy [[BackStab from behind]] or form groups with other flankers and use ZergRush tactics to surround enemies. They overwhelm blockers with minimal casualties but are whittled down by support. |
| 298 | ** Support creatures are {{Glass Cannon}}s with ranged attacks. They can kill flankers without being threatened but tend to die quickly if the enemy deploys blitzers. |
| 299 | ** Blitzers are {{Lightning Bruiser}}s [[MagicKnight who often have spells to supplement their melee ability]]. They like charging through enemy ranks to reach the enemy support creatures, but blockers can stop their charge. |
| 300 | ** Blockers are {{Mighty Glacier}}s who will choose one position prevent the enemy from getting past it. They can stop blitzer charges, but they tend to have slow attack speed and can't fight off flankers by themselves. |
| 301 | * In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', the sumo minigame is an example. Grappling is avoided by dodging, which is punished by striking, which is countered by grappling. |
| 302 | * ''VideoGame/TheHalloweenHack'': PSI Flash (Whiteshock) works on undead, Hypnosis (Sleepstun) works on living enemies, and Paralysis (Timestop) works on dead enemies. |
| 303 | * ''Warrior's Way'' from ''VideoGame/StreetPassMiiPlaza'' has a quite literal example, in that your three types of units are labelled with rock-paper-scissors symbols, as a reminder on what beats what: Cavalry (Rock) beats Archers (Scissors) beats Infantry (Paper) beats Cavalry. |
| 304 | * Very important tetragonal scheme in ''VideoGame/TheBattleForMiddleEarth'', especially in sequel. Cavalry charges through archers, archers excel against normal infantry (with swords, axes etc.) and normal infantry crushes pikemen - which, of course, impale the cavalry easily. |
| 305 | * If you factor out the units using special abilities, then ''VideoGame/GrimGrimoire'' has Alchemical over Glamour, Glamour over Necromany, Necromancy over Sorcery, and Sorcery over Alchemical. Units with the advantage take less damage and inflict more against vulnerable enemies. |
| 306 | * {{Downplayed|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'', with scheme similar to that from [=BFME2=]. Cavalry ➞ archers ➞ light infantry (without big shields) ➞ pikemen ➞ cavalry. Terrain is extremely important, as cavalry in open plains is strong against everything, while mountains make it useless. Some kinds of archers can effectively defend against cavalry charges, some kinds of light and offensive footmen have shields and skills good enough to protect them against the arrows etc. |
| 307 | * Rather {{downplayed|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships''. Destroyers mostly rely on their torpedoes which are great against slow and heavy battleships but not so good against more versatile cruisers. Cruisers with their fast guns hunt destroyers quite nice, but aren't very effective against powerful armor of battleships. Battleships' slow, powerful guns work great against cruisers, but destroyers can avoid their rounds. Aircraft carriers are extraordinary support, working somewhere beyond that scheme. |
| 308 | * Certain heroes in ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' are meant as counters for each other. For example, Bastion is able to transform into a turret with a [[GatlingGood Gatling gun]], giving it ridiculous damage output at the cost of mobility. Genji has the Deflect ability, allowing him to send any projectile attacks (bullets, missiles, EnergyBall, etc) back at the shooter, while D.Va can ShootTheBullet, stopping any projectile that enters the area of her Defense Matrix. Either character will negate the threat of Bastion's [[MoreDakka dakka]], while having their own counters (Genji is a FragileSpeedster who cannot Deflect beam weapons, while D.Va is a CloseRangeCombatant vulnerable to snipers). |
| 309 | * ''VideoGame/RenownedExplorers'' has three forms of attack and associated "moods." Aggressive gets a bonus against Friendly, Friendly gets a bonus against Devious, and Devious gets a bonus against Aggressive. |
| 310 | * The ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'' game ''VideoGame/TeenyTitans'' gives its characters a class that counters another, going Martial Arts (Robin) > Beast (Beast Boy) > Cute (Silkie) > Dark Arts (Raven) > Super (Starfire) > Tech (Cyborg) > Martial Arts. The one character who has no class at all is ComicBook/TheJoker. |
| 311 | * ''VideoGame/TownOfSalem'' has the Pirate and his {{plunder}}ing method where he chooses a target and attack type (Scimitar, Rapier, or Pistol), and the player selected has to pick a defensive maneuver (Sidestep, wear a Chainmail, or Backpedal). Success means the Pirate kills that player and plunders them, failure means the target lives another day. Unlike most examples here, each attack is only successful against one type of defence, and fails against the other two. |
| 312 | ** Scimitar beats Sidestep (wide cleave hits dodging foe) but loses to Chainmail (blocks it) and Backpedal (out of range) |
| 313 | ** Rapier beats Chainmail (pierces it) but loses to Sidestep (dodges it) and Backpedal (out of range) |
| 314 | ** Pistol beats Backpedal (ranged attack beats moving backwards) but loses to Chainmail (blocks it) and Sidestep (dodges it) |
| 315 | * ''VideoGame/IronMarines'': |
| 316 | ** The main RPS triangle is Melee > Ranged > Flying > Melee. Melee units are very effective at dealing with ranged opponents and in fact [[NeverBringAGunToAKnifeFight deal twice as much damage to them]], but cannot hurt air units. Ranged units ([[AntiAir especially missiles, which deal incredible damage to air units]]) can attack aerial units but are vulnerable to melee. Air units are immune to melee attack but are vulnerable to ranged attacks, especially missiles, although the only playable air unit so far is a paid hero while most flying units are AirborneMooks. |
| 317 | ** The Taskmaster enemy unit has a great amount of health and is capable of deploying swarms of weak aerial [[AttackDrone Oculi drones]]. It counts as a structure, meaning that it is invulnerable to OneHitKill attacks from Snipers (whose low health and slow fire rate gets them shredded by Oculi) and Channelers (Low health, can only target one unit at a time which is oftentimes the Oculi). However, this in turn makes the Taskmaster vulnerable to Engineers, whose abilities specialize in AntiStructure (their plasmarays deal great damage to structures AND they can also be upgraded to throw structure-disabling bombs which make the Taskmaster a sitting duck) and their [[ReflectingLaser plasma bolts]] ricochet off the weak aerial minions and destroy their numbers. |
| 318 | * ''VideoGame/KartiaTheWordOfFate'' uses an altered version of the "bladed weapons triangle" where the weapon is affected by terrain type rather than weapon match. Spears are great against enemies that stand on higher terrain, axes get bonus when the enemy is on lower terrain and swords get their bonus against foes that are on the same level. |
| 319 | * {{Downplayed|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasyNT'' with its different classes for combatants. Vanguards (such as the Warrior of Light and Jecht) hit hard and tend to have defense-specialized abilities in their repertoire, but don't have the best range. Assassins (such as Squall and Kuja) move fast and often have attacks while moving, but don't hit very hard. Marksmen (such as Terra and Ultimecia) have long-range attacks that can rack up damage while the enemy is in no position to strike, but lack short-range options. Specialists (such as Onion Knight and Exdeath) have unique gimmicks that set them apart from their fellow champions in some way or another. |
| 320 | ** In theory, Vanguards can intercept the frontal-assault of Assassins to cut them short, Assassins can close the distance and hit Marksmen up close, Marksmen can use their variable projectiles to deal with Vanguards at range, and Specialists are wild cards that serve as jacks-of-all. |
| 321 | ** In practice, the game has a CastOfSnowflakes, with combatant classes being a very loose set of guidelines rather than a solid set of actual rules. The Emperor is a TrapMaster, Kefka has a black belt in ConfusionFu, Cloud specializes in charge attacks that could come out any time over a five-second period... Basically, no class or even ''character'' has such an advantage over another as to make victory impossible if both sides are evenly skilled. |
| 322 | * Also downplayed in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam: Battle Operation 2''. Mobile suits are placed into one of three classifications: the lumbering long-ranged Supports, the nimble melee-focused Raids, and the balanced mid-ranged Generals. Raids inflict more damage on Supports, Supports inflict more damage on Generals, and Generals inflict more damage on Raids. Damage inflicted is also reduced when attacking a unit that is strong against you. In practice, the mobile suits are varied enough that the rock-paper-scissors relationship between mobile suits isn't too much of a deciding factor in battle. |
| 323 | * The Spirit system in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' works like this. Attack spirits are strong against grab spirits, grab spirits are strong against shield spirits, shield spirits are strong against attack spirits. Neutral spirits have no specific benefits or weaknesses to any type of spirits. Also, once a spirit's power level gets high enough, [[ScissorsCutsRock you can steamroll any given spirit, regardless of type]]. |
| 324 | * In ''VideoGame/PowerRangersLegacyWars'', each character has attacks that come in three categories: Strike, Breaker, and Defense. Whenever characters hit each other with attacks of different types at the same time, Breaker beats Defense (doing damage despite a block), Defense beats Strike (blocking the damage and allowing a counterattack), and Strike beats Breaker (interrupting the opponent's attack). |
| 325 | * ''VideoGame/DCUniverseOnline'' does this with basic weapon combat, where countering the enemy's current move will stun them: guarding stops interrupt attacks cold, block breakers (channeled attacks) break through guards, and interrupt attacks are for interrupting block breakers. |
| 326 | * ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsZ'' uses a squad-based system with upwards to three units per squad. The "TRI-Battle System" incorporates three different strategies when tackling enemy squads - "Tri Formation", where all units in the squad uses their respective "TRI" capable weapons together as a single attack, damaging all units in an enemy squad with no damage penalties and [[ArmorPiercingAttack automatically pierces enemy barriers]]; "Center Formation", with the squad focusing fire on a singular enemy unit; and "Wide Formation", where the squad fires on their respective enemies in a squad (squad leader attacks enemy squad leader, left to left, right to right). |
| 327 | * ''VideoGame/PokkenTournament'' has a rock-paper-scissors relationship between normal attacks, grab attacks, and counter attacks: normal attacks interrupt grab attacks, grab attacks power through counter attacks, and counter attacks power through normal attacks. |
| 328 | * ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedCarbon'' applies this to motorsports, with 3 car classes paired against 3 different track styles. Exotic cars are usually European supercars, have balanced performance, perform best on tracks with long, smooth corners and are used by the TFK gang; Tuner cars are mostly JDM cars, are slow but have great handling, perform best on convoluted tracks with tight corners and are used by the Bushido gang; and Muscle cars have low top speed and handling but great acceleration, perform best on tracks that alternate long straights with angular corners, and are used by the 21st Street gang. The final stage features tracks that blend all three design styles, and its controlling gang uses cars of all types. |
| 329 | * ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'': Along with its famed ElementalRockPaperScissors aspect, competitive battling necessitates learning another triangle. Pokemon can be classified into three basic battling styles: Tank, Sweeper and Wall. Tanks are [[MightyGlacier bulky, survivable, often hard-hitting]] Pokemon that can take whatever a [[GlassCannon comparatively fragile Sweeper]] can dish out and counterattack. Wall Pokemon lack offensive power, but make up for it with all manner of nasty StatusEffects and field traps that can either soften up a Tank for a Sweeper to finish off or even defeat them outright through the use of the likes of Toxic. Sweepers, however, are roundly faster than most Walls and strong enough to beat them before a Wall can hit them with an ailment. In fact, Sweepers often use a Wall's presence on the field to set themselves up with attack and speed buffs and then brute-force through the entire opposing team, [[ScissorsCutsRock Tanks and all]]. Pokemon ''can'' multirole as Sweeper-Tanks that use their defensive bulk to survive and set up buffs (Shell Smash Cloyster), Wall-Sweepers that shut down foes with ailments before going on the offensive (Darkrai) or Wall-Tanks that combine ailments and obscene defenses to wear down the opponent's entire team through attrition (Toxic Chansey), but they usually end up leaning toward one or the other role and [[DifficultButAwesome demand teammate support to properly function]]. |
| 330 | * In ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuth'' and ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuthHackersMemory'', every Digimon belongs to one of four Attributes: Vaccine, Data, Virus, or Free. Vaccine is vulnerable to Data, Data to Virus, and Virus to Vaccine with Free being neutral. |
| 331 | * ''VideoGame/CryingSuns'' uses a triangle wherein [[JackOfAllStats Fighters]] beat [[FragileSpeedster Drones]], which beat [[MightyGlacier Frigates]], which beat Fighters. Cruisers sit outside the triangle, being able to attack at range (which other units cannot do) but unable to attack adjacent enemy units. |
| 332 | * ''VideoGame/SwordFight'' does it with the StanceSystem. Barrage > Blitz > Guard > Barrage, with the Technique skill boosting stats by 6 per level if you're using the stance that's strong against the opponent. Attack and Defend stances have no impact in the triangle, but they do trigger the Technique bonus if used against each other. |
| 333 | * ''VideoGame/StartAgainStartAgainStartAgainAPrologue'' plays it literally: Scissors > Paper > Rock > Scissors. The Researcher can help you determine what type the Sadness you're currently facing is. |
| 334 | * ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterStories'' has the attack types of Power > Technical > Speed > Power. When two opposing units target each other on the same turn it triggers a Head-To-Head, in which the attack whose type wins the matchup does extra damage while the loser's attack is weakened. If a [[PlayerCharacter Rider]] and [[{{Mon}} Monstie]] attack the same target with winning moves, they perform a Double Attack that cancels the loser's action entirely. Some attack skills are typeless and simply don't cause Head-to-Heads. |
| 335 | * ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'' has the Emotion system in a triangle. Happy characters deal more damage to and take less damage from Angry characters, Angry characters beat Sad characters, and Sad beats Happy. Neutral emotion is well, neutral to all other emotions. There's also a rare emotion, Afraid, which takes more damage from all other non-Neutral emotion. What's interesting is that emotion can be changed mid-battle through certain skills or items. Emotions also have tiers, with higher tiers further affecting the effectiveness of the triangle. For example, an Ecstatic (tier 2 Happy) character will take even less damage from Angry characters but also take more from Sad characters. |
| 336 | * ''VideoGame/TheWayRPGMaker'' has the Plunge combat system, which revolves around a Rock-Paper-Scissors trinity of attacks: Cross Sweep beats Lunge Cut, Lunge Cut beats Drop Slash, and Drop Slash beats Cross Sweep. |
| 337 | * ''VideoGame/PrimalCarnage'': The human and dinosaur classes were initially designed with this system in mind, with each human best equipped to deal with one dinosaur type and vice versa. However, later updates added more dinosaur species and interchangeable weapons for the humans, strongly downplaying this aspect of gameplay, although there are still advantages and disadvantages with each human class versus each dinosaur class. |
| 338 | * ''VideoGame/AngryBirds2'': In addition to knowing which birds are effective against which tower material (they're all the same as before, and Silver is about as good against stone as Bomb), you also have to be smart about choosing which bird to use depending on the arrangement and construction of the towers. |
| 339 | * ''VideoGame/TheBattleOfPolytopia'': |
| 340 | ** The classic Infantry>Cavalry>Archer>Infantry dynamic is present here. |
| 341 | *** Warriors, Defenders, and Swordsmen have high defense and strong counterattacks, so they can deal a lot of damage in close combat even if they get attacked first. |
| 342 | *** Archers and Catapults can attack from a distance, so they can deal damage to melee units without giving them a chance to counterattack. |
| 343 | *** Riders and Knights are fast, so they can quickly close in on enemies and attack first, negating the range advantage of missile units. |
| 344 | ** When you add Giants and Mind Benders into the mix, the dynamic becomes Giant>Everything else>Mind Bender>Giant. |
| 345 | *** Giants are incredibly strong and hard to kill. They can easily hold their own against most units in a fight. |
| 346 | *** Mind Benders are able to convert enemy units to your side, regardless of how strong they are. Giants are especially easy to convert due to how slow they are. |
| 347 | *** Mind Benders are also unable to fight and vulnerable to pretty much everything, so any damage-dealing unit can dispose of them easily. |
| 348 | * ''Franchise/MassEffect'': As a general rule, the series follows a Combat>Biotic>Tech triangle, which inverts the usual Warrior>Rogue>Mage dynamic. |
| 349 | ** Combat classes tend to have heavy armor that allows them to resist Biotic powers. |
| 350 | ** Biotic classes posses area-of-effect offensive skills that hit through cover (which Tech classes heavily use), and that cannot be hampered by Tech debuffs. |
| 351 | ** Tech classes have various skills that debuff weapons and armors, both of which are heavily used by Combat classes. |
| 352 | * Both the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' and ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' series derive a lot of their combat from variations of the basic Jump and Hammer attacks and the fairly intuitive ways they interact with enemies. For example, jumping on an enemy with spikes or fire will hurt you, while hammering enemies that are up off the ground (whether by flying or being suspended in some way) will always miss. |
| 353 | * In ''VideoGame/MinionQuestTheSearchForBowser'' and its follow-up ''VideoGame/BowserJrsJourney'', minions fall into three types: Melee, Ranged, and Flying. Melee units have the advantage over ranged units. Ranged units have the advantage over flying units. And flying units have the advantage over melee units. |
| 354 | * Each team in ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'' is composed of a Speed character, a Flight character, and a Power character. Speed beats Flight, Flight beats Power, and Power beats Speed. |
| 355 | * Combined with ChromaticRockPaperScissors in ''VideoGame/TransformersForgedToFight'' with regards to the six classes of bots: Warriors (red) beat Scouts (green) beat Techs (aqua) beat Demolitions (yellow) beat Tacticians (blue) beat Brawlers (purple) beat Warriors. |
| 356 | [[/folder]] |
| 357 | |
| 358 | !!Other Media |
| 359 | |
| 360 | [[folder:Anime and Manga]] |
| 361 | |
| 362 | * ''Manga/The100GirlfriendsWhoReallyReallyReallyReallyReallyLoveYou'': A Ramen Shop owner repeatedly makes challenge Ramen that no one can eat (or order), but the first challenger is always a girl who's unique suited to it. This includes Ridiculously Blinding Ramen versus Mei who is EyesAlwaysShut, and Ridiculously Ridiculous Ramen versus Naddy who is a CloudCuckooLander. |
| 363 | * ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'': The protagonist Touma has an AntiMagic ability known as "Imagine Breaker" which allows him to negate esper abilities and magic abilities. However, he's otherwise a seemingly normal human who can street fight. So while he shows himself capable of fighting and defeating mages who are overly reliant on their powers, he still struggles against normal humans who are capable of fighting or people with guns. Street thugs and gunmen are in turn generally overwhelmed by powerful espers and mages. In other words, Espers and Mages--->Normal street thugs and gunmen --->Touma--->Mages and Espers. |
| 364 | * The ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' franchise gives us an interesting variation. Almost every Digimon belongs to one of three Attributes: Vaccine, Data, or Virus. Vaccine is vulnerable to Data, Data to Virus, and Virus to Vaccine with a neutral Attribute called Free. However, this never comes into play in the various shows aside from ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' and only really matters in some of the games like ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuth'' and ''VideoGame/DigimonStoryCyberSleuthHackersMemory''. |
| 365 | * In ''Manga/{{Keijo}}'', the players are divided into three categories - [[MightyGlacier infighters]], [[FragileSpeedster outfighters]], and {{counter|Attack}}s. Infighters overpower outfighters in direct combat, outfighters outspeed counters, and counters turn the infighters' strength against them. |
| 366 | * ''Manga/MedakaBox'': Medaka, Zenkichi, Kumagawa, and Ajimu defeat their doppelgangers this way; [[spoiler: Medaka defeats Zenkichi, Zenkichi defeats Kumagawa, Kumagawa defeats Ajimu, and Ajimu defeats Medaka. ]] |
| 367 | * ''Manga/MyMonsterSecret'': Spoofed, like everything else. Late in the series, Aizawa claims that there's a "Rock-Paper-Scissors of Idiocy": Serious Characters outwit [[StraightMan Straight Men]], Straight Men keep Idiots in check, and Idiots frustrate Serious Characters. [[spoiler:Indeed, [[TheDitz Youko]]'s innocent kindness makes far more headway against [[BigBad Principal Shirayuki]] than [[TheHero Asahi]]'s straight-up attempts to confront her.]] |
| 368 | * In ''Literature/{{Overlord|2012}}'', this sort of balance applies to the three strongest melee specialists in Nazarick. Albedo -> Sebas Tian -> Cocytus -> Albedo. However, if Sebas Tian turned into his dragonoid form, he'd be able to beat Albedo too. If one looks at their stats and skillsets, this is justified: |
| 369 | ** Albedo is the MightyGlacier with top notch defense, high offense, but middling speed (by level 100 standards -- she's still much faster than most beings in the New World). She can thus tank most of Sebas Tian's blows with ease before beating him with a decisive attack. However, her defenses aren't enough to counter Cocytus' overwhelming attack power and she isn't fast enough to dodge him. |
| 370 | ** Cocytus is the GlassCannon of the trio (again, by level 100 standards). He can break through Albedo's defense and she isn't able to dodge him. However, his own lackluster defenses mean he's vulnerable to Sebas Tian's attacks, and Sebas is also fast enough to dodge Cocytus' attacks. |
| 371 | ** Sebas Tian is the LightningBruiser with high attack, speed, and defense. He is powerful enough to overwhelm Cocytus' lackluster defenses and fast enough to dodge Cocytus' counterattacks. However, his normal form lacks the offensive power to break through Albedo's top notch defense, allowing her to tank his blows and wait for a chance to strike back. His dragonoid form otoh would be strong enough to overcome even Albedo. |
| 372 | * In ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', After the TimeSkip, the army has replaced the old Ganmen (considered "relics of the Spiral King") with the latest mass-produced Grapearl. Turns out Ganmen were originally designed to fight the Anti-Spiral and its Mugen but Grapearl weren't. In the end, Ganmen lose to Grapearl (superior in every way), Mugen lose to Ganmen (thanks to the Spiral Power) and Grapearl are [[CurbStompBattle dominated by]] Mugen. |
| 373 | * In ''Manga/TokyoGhoul'', this is the base theory behind different RC types and their resulting [[ShapeShifterWeapon Kagune]]. A veteran [[HunterOfMonsters Investigator]] explains to his rookie partner that in general, a Kagune will be strongest against the type directly above it and weakest to the one directly below it. |
| 374 | ** [[FragileSpeedster Uka]][[RazorWings ku]]: Uses speed to outmaneuver and overpower the plain Bikaku, but quickly depletes their energy reserve and risks running empty mid-fight. (Shoulders/Upper Back) |
| 375 | ** [[MightyGlacier Kou]][[BladeBelowTheShoulder kaku]]: Their defensive capability is sufficient to tank out Ukaku's flurry of light attacks, but the increased defense comes with reduced speed. (Below/between the shoulder blades) |
| 376 | ** [[GlassCannon Rin]][[CombatTentacles kaku:]] Their offensive capability is enough to punch through the slow-moving Koukaku's defenses, but their RC cells are less concentrated, resulting in lower defense. (Waist) |
| 377 | ** [[JackOfAllStats Bi]][[TailSlap kaku:]] Lacking any glaring weakness to prey on, they are considered a Rinkaku's worst enemy. (Tailbone) |
| 378 | * ''Literature/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'' applies this to demons, spirits and angels. Demons are weak to spirits, spirits are weak to angels, and angels are weak to demons. One mage attempts to exploit this by summoning a Superior elemental earth Spirit against what he presumes to be a Greater Demon due to what he can sense of its power. However, said Greater Demon turns out to be not only an Archdemon hiding its true power but one of the the seven Primordials, the oldest and most powerful demons in existence, which means that he can [[ScissorsCutsRock ignore the disadvantageous matchup]], and even laments that the spirit was far too young and inexperienced to ever pose a threat to him after destroying it in one blow and before taking a bite out of its core. |
| 379 | |
| 380 | [[/folder]] |
| 381 | |
| 382 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 383 | |
| 384 | * ''ComicBook/{{Uber}}'' has this in the three varieties of [[SuperSoldier Tank Men.]] First, you have regular tankman, who have both super-strength and toughness and energy blasts, and are extraordinarily lethal to conventional infantry and armor. Then they made Heavy Tankmen, who are a lot tougher and stronger with no energy blasts, but their extra resilience and the heavier armor they can wear lets them plow through the energy blasts and rip normal Tank Men apart. We complete the triangle with all-energy Blitz Men, who ''can'' blast through the armor of a Heavy, but die in droves to ordinary Tank Men. Of course, even from the first issue, there were a few human Battleships who were far more powerful than any tankman of any variety, and the introduction of [[FragileSpeedster Zephyrs]] has further complicated things. |
| 385 | * In the ''ComicBook/UsagiYojimbo'' RPG, Total Attack > Cautious Attack > Total Defense > Total Attack |
| 386 | |
| 387 | [[/folder]] |
| 388 | |
| 389 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 390 | |
| 391 | * ''Fanfic/LulusBizarreRebellion'': The inability of non-stands to harm or see stands makes them an absolute nightmare for Britannian mechs, since even one with no exceptional strength can completely immobilize a reasonably skilled pilot even without using its ability. However, stands are part of the user's soul and thus viable targets for most geass users. Meanwhile, most geass are short-ranged and only affect people, so there is very little a geass user can do against a knight. Of course, this is not a universal rule, as shown by powers like Rolo's "timestop" geass, Cornelia's anti-stand knightmare. And of course, anyone can get in a Knightmare. |
| 392 | |
| 393 | [[/folder]] |
| 394 | |
| 395 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 396 | |
| 397 | * In ''Literature/BabeRuthManTankGladiator'' man-tanks come in three styles: Heavy, the largest, strongest, and slowest style; Agile, the fastest and most nimble; and Long-reach, with extending tentacles capable of reaching a good distance. The Heavy could withstand the most of the Agile's attack and lay it out easily if it hit. The Agile could dodge the Long-Reach's attack and slip in close enough to hit it almost unchecked. And lastly, the Long-Reach could easily attack the Heavy from a distance, leaving it unable to hit back. |
| 398 | * In the fourth novel in Creator/PiersAnthony's ''Literature/{{Cluster}}'' series ''Thousandstar'', three sapient species compete for control of precursor technology: the spherical [=HydrO=], whose needle-like water jets can penetrate the flesh of an Erb, but are vulnerable to the claws of a Squam; the snake-like Squam, whose claws can cut the flesh of a [=HydrO=], but are vulnerable to the drilling action of an Erb; and the plant-like Erb, whose drilling action can penetrate the carapace of a squam, but are vulnerable to the water jets of a [=HydrO=]. |
| 399 | * Used by Shef when introducing his battle plan at the end of ''[[Literature/TheHammerAndTheCross One King's Way]]'': Coastal defense ship beats seagoing ship. Catapult beats coastal defense ship. Now, what beats catapult? |
| 400 | * The Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse goes into detail about the [[FantasticFightingStyle seven different styles of lightsaber combat]] and how each has certain advantages and disadvantages compared to the others (speed, strength, endurance etc.). In order, they are: [[MasterOfNone Shii-Cho]], [[MasterSwordsman Makashi]], [[StoneWall Soresu]], [[FragileSpeedster Ataru]], [[MightyGlacier Shien/Djem So]], [[JackOfAllStats Niman]] and [[GlassCannon Juyo]]/[[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Vaapad]]. |
| 401 | ** It's also worth noting, however, that a fair bit depends on how well trained a saber wielder is - for instance, Makashi, designed for sheer precision and exclusively for saber combat, is weak against blaster fire, but Dooku is good enough at it that he can pull that off anyway. Likewise, Soresu, which is designed to counter massed blaster fire and most lightsaber forms, is vulnerable to Makashi because of its sheer precision - especially with Dooku, who is perhaps the best Makashi practitioner in history. Yet Obi-Wan becomes good enough at Soresu by ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' that Dooku can't pick his way through and is forced to resort to telekinesis to just get rid of him. Finally, Shii-Cho and Niman are characterised as MasterOfNone forms (Shii-Cho being pure basics, and Niman composed of elements of all of the first five forms), with Shii-Cho being seen as Lightsabers 101 and Niman as the easy pass for the NonActionGuy. But when wielded by a Master, it's different: Shii-Cho is noted as incredibly unpredictable and borderline ConfusionFu, great for multiple opponents or opponents with multiple arms, such as Grievous. Niman, meanwhile, supposedly takes a decade to truly master, verges on MasterOfAll in the right hands such as Exar Kun, one of the greatest Jedi or Sith swordsmen of all time, is the foundation of dual sabre combat, and is key to using the Force in combination with a lightsabre. |
| 402 | * ''Literature/TheTravelersGate'': Each [[ElementalPlane Territory]] is weak to another; for example, Endross Travelers are highly emotional due to the nature of their powers, so Asphodel, which attacks and feeds on emotions, is most effective against them. The exception is Valinhall, which is highly effective against all other Territories and is best fought by another Valinhall Traveler. |
| 403 | * ''Literature/WearingTheCape'': Discussed (and mentioned by name). Astra is one of the top hundred most powerful [[FlyingBrick Atlas-types]] in the world. Therefore, her first training session with the team involves everyone else giving her quick and humiliating defeats in order to demonstrate the tactical value of different powers. Quite a few powers make her awesome strength and toughness simply irrelevant, which is why superhero teams focus more on having a varied set of powers on hand rather than simply using overwhelming force. In the second novel, as she is groomed for a leadership role, she has to consider this as she builds her team and when she's going into the final battle. |
| 404 | |
| 405 | [[/folder]] |
| 406 | |
| 407 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 408 | |
| 409 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Beyblade}}'' has included this from the beginning. Attack types beat Stamina types, Stamina types outlast Defense types, and Defense types repel Attack types. Balance types incorporate aspects of all three. Effectiveness isn't a hard rule though, and a good build of one type might stand against the type it has a disadvantage against in certain situations. |
| 410 | * ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' has this, to a degree. |
| 411 | ** AD&D has weapon type vs. armor type modifiers -- e.g. chain mail has +2 for slashing and -2 for blunt weapons, splint mail has 0 for slashing, +1 for piercing and +2 for blunt weapons. ''Combat & Tactics'' has three basic armor types (leather, mail, plate) against which some weapons were better (e.g. mace vs. mail, maul vs. mail or plate), worse (chakram vs. anything heavier than leather) or inefficient at all (blowgun vs. any heavy armor). |
| 412 | ** Telepathy in AD&D has 5 attack and 5 defence modes with specific adjustments against each other, from -5 to +5. If 5x5 table wasn't enough, TabletopGame/DarkSun {{sourcebook}} ''The Will and the Way'' adds 4 constructs/harbingers for each of 10 powers, expanding the table to 20x20 (plus the old 5x5 for opponents not using these) of the adjustments in range -8 to +8. |
| 413 | ** Nonmagical combat in 3rd Edition has a subtle version of this. Most Uberchargers (characters who rely on [[FragileSpeedster massive speed]] and [[GlassCannon damage]]) lose to Lockdown tactics (combining long-reach weapons with {{Counter Attack}}s that halt movement), which in turn has little defense against ranged combat. Other combat styles have less consistent properties, [[ElementalTiers but are generally weaker]]. |
| 414 | * The tabletop game ''Dungeon Quest'' settles all fights with a fantasy rock paper scissors of three moves: slash > leap aside > mighty blow > slash. The only kink is that player mighty blows deliver two points of damage, while the other two-player moves and all monster moves only do one point. |
| 415 | * In ''TabletopGame/GameOfTheGenerals'', all the Officers outrank Privates, who are the only pieces that can capture Spies, who in turn can capture any of the Officers. |
| 416 | * In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', this is present in the three standard categories of tournament decks: aggressive, combination, or control (aggro, combo, and control). Sometimes decks can play as either of two roles, but not as well as a deck truly dedicated to that role. The three roles fall into a rock-paper-scissors scenario: Aggro decks play multiple redundant threats to keep the pressure on and overwhelm Control decks. Combo decks use cards that are individually relatively weak but synergize to create powerful effects that can overcome even the strong threats from an Aggro deck. Control decks focus on defense foremost and use card-removal effects to dismantle combos — if a Control deck removes one part of a three-card combo, it cripples the whole combo, while removing one of three Aggro deck cards will leave the other two to continue attacking. So basically: Control > Combo > Aggro > Control. |
| 417 | * In ''TabletopGame/XWingMiniatures'', there are three chief strategies that more-or-less counter each other (although individual builds can monkey-wrench this in various ways, and the upgrades in each wave shift what's dominant). You have the Jousters, which are straightforward, tend to rely on durability and damage output, and want to fly in, shoot, turn around as the enemy go past, and keep shooting. Jousters are countered by Arc-Dodgers, which tend to be small, elite lists featuring extremely mobile ships that dodge enemy fire arcs, allowing them to [[CherryTapping gradually cut the enemy to death without ever getting hit]], since Jousting ships tend to be only so-so when it comes to manoeuvrability. Arc-Dodgers are countered by Turrets, which tend to favour big, chunky, durable ships equipped with turret weapons that don't ''care'' about fire arcs, allowing them to soak up the relatively light damage output of Arc-Dodgers while spraying death at them no matter where they are...but their size, expense and lack of mobility allows jousters to gang up on them and cut them to ribbons with their superior damage output. |
| 418 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Yomi}}'': In this fighting game simulation in the form of a card game, attacks beat throws, throws beat defensive cards (block and dodge), and defensive cards nullify attacks. |
| 419 | |
| 420 | |
| 421 | [[/folder]] |
| 422 | |
| 423 | [[folder:Toys]] |
| 424 | |
| 425 | * The concept has been used in two Creator/{{Hasbro}} toylines: |
| 426 | ** ''Battle Beasts'', originating in Japan as ''Beastformers'' (a ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' SpinOff, although the ''Battle Beasts'' line was [[DivorcedInstallment not connected]] to Hasbro's ''Transformers'' line), featured rub symbols (similar to the rubsigns on many G1 Transformers) that revealed one of three "elements" - Wood, Water, or Fire. Fire beats Wood, Wood beats Water, and Water beats Fire. There was an ultra-rare fourth symbol, the Sunburst, which beats the other three. The symbols were applied at random, and part of the toys' marketing was that you wouldn't know which symbol you got on each figure until you opened the package and rubbed the symbol yourself. |
| 427 | ** ''Franchise/{{Transformers}} Bot Shots'' features symbols on three-sided tumblers in the robot mode's chest, which are selected by each player before the figure is placed face-down in vehicle mode and crashed into the opponent's figure. Upon crashing, the toys are supposed to automatically transform into robot mode, revealing their symbols. Blaster beats Fist; Fist beats Sword; and Sword beats Blaster. In the event of a tie, however, the symbol decals also contain "attack strength" rankings, so the higher value wins. In the event one of the figures fails to transform, the other figure automatically wins. This play factor was not a feature of Takara Tomy's version of the line in Japan, ''[=BeCool=]'', which focuses on their simple transformations as their selling point. |
| 428 | |
| 429 | [[/folder]] |
| 430 | |
| 431 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 432 | |
| 433 | * Parodied in ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'': In [[http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/comic/499-theweapontriangle/ strip #499,]] [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Frederick]] is assailed by an UnknownRival who intends to defeat him by exploiting the weapon triangle... only for [[MemeticBadass Frederick]] to inform him that being a CrutchCharacter [[ScissorsCutsRock beats everything]]. |
| 434 | * ''Webcomic/NerfNow'' [[http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/230 illustrates]] the necessity to have at least two of the three components. |
| 435 | * ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}b'': [[http://www.xkcdb.com/?6244 Mormons < Police < neighbors < Mormons]] |
| 436 | |
| 437 | [[/folder]] |
| 438 | |
| 439 | [[folder:Web Video]] |
| 440 | |
| 441 | * ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'': |
| 442 | ** In "[[Recap/DeathBattleS04E10BalrogVsTJCombo Balrog VS TJ Combo]]", the boxing triangle theory is brought up: according to this, sluggers have an advantage over swarmers, swarmers have an advantage over outboxers, and outboxers have an advantage over sluggers. [[spoiler:Both combatants were found to be almost completely evenly matched in most categories, so this ended up being what gave the outboxer TJ the edge over Balrog, who's a slugger.]] |
| 443 | ** One of the reasons why "[[Recap/DeathBattleS08E06IronFistVsPo Iron Fist VS Po]]" ended the way it did is how the combatants' fighting styles relate to each other: Iron Fist is a FragileSpeedster, while Po is much more of a StoneWall. [[spoiler:While Iron Fist's speed advantage is significant, Po is experienced in fighting more agile opponents, using his bulk to endure the hits until he finds an opening.]] |
| 444 | * ''WebVideo/TierZoo'': In "The 4 Animal Combat Styles", this dynamic happens between the four types of animal combat styles. |
| 445 | ** [[GrappleMove Grappler]] builds beat Spacing (zoner) builds because the MightyGlacier Spacing builds rely on using their horns or tail to attack for heavy damage, and once they're caught in a grab, it becomes hard to move those heavy parts around. |
| 446 | ** [[HitboxDissonance Spacing]] builds beat Rushdown builds as many Rushdown builds tend to be GlassCannon or FragileSpeedster types, which means one powerful hit from a MightyGlacier Spacing build will usually spell the end of a Rushdown build, with the Spacing build usually safe thanks to extended attack box. |
| 447 | ** [[FragileSpeedster Rushdown]] builds beat Projectile builds as they can often get in close quickly and attack the Projectile build before the projectile can take good effect. |
| 448 | ** [[LongRangeFighter Projectile]] builds beat Grappler builds as the Grappler build needs to get close and find the right opportunity to perform their Grapple Move—and a ranged attack can hit the Grappler as they're attempting to do so. |
| 449 | |
| 450 | [[/folder]] |
| 451 | |
| 452 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 453 | |
| 454 | * [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''. Finn and Jake were about to be killed by some ghosts due to an elaborated prank from [[VampireMonarch Marceline]]. She comes to them to apologize, but states that vampires cannot win against ghosts; as she said, it was kind of a Rock Paper Scissors thing. |
| 455 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' episode "The End", Starfire, Beast Boy and Cyborg have trouble defeating their respective clones. So, they switch enemies hoping to counter the clones. [[spoiler:Cyborg's armor protects him from Nega Beast Boy's animal forms, allowing him to knock out the shapeshifter, Starfire's starbolts overpower Nega Cyborg, and Beast Boy's shapeshifting lets him change forms faster than Nega Starfire can react, allowing him to crush her when he turns into a whale.]] |
| 456 | * Near-identical situation in a ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode, as well, where the heroes switch up in order to defeat their robotic duplicates without [[HannibalLecture being argued into despair]]. |
| 457 | [[/folder]] |
| 458 | |
| 459 | [[folder:Other]] |
| 460 | |
| 461 | * Game Theorist/Designer David Sirlin notes that to have a tactically engaging game, at minimum: P1 has a Move M, P2 has a Counter C1, P1 has a counter to C1 C2, P2 has a Counter to C2 C3, P1 Counters C3 with M. RPS is just about the simplest implementation of this rule as you can get. The implications of sorting games that have this property by the Kolmogorov Complexity of their payoff tables are also fascinating, especially as applies to the competitive scene. |
| 462 | * [[http://singingbanana.com/dice/article.htm Nontransitive dice]] do it for random number generation: if one die is rolled against another 1d[[subscript:A]]6 > 1d[[subscript:B]]6 > 1d[[subscript:C]]6 > 1d[[subscript:A]]6 in average (the specific probability varies in different sets). |
| 463 | * In mathematics this is called an "intransitive" relationship. (a transitive relationship is one where A>B>C = A>C.) In ''Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities'', Ian Stewart illustrates this with a game played with three dice: a red one with the numbers 3, 4 and 8, a yellow one with the numbers 1, 5 and 9, and a blue one with the numbers 2, 6 and 7. Both players pick a dice and roll it, and the highest number wins. If the mark seems suspicious, you "generously" allow them first pick to choose the best dice. Of course, the point is that you can always pick a dice that's better: the yellow dice beats the red two times out of three, the blue the yellow, and the red the blue. Stewart uses a further example of three [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball football]] teams: one with a good goalie and defence, but a poor attack that loses to a good goalie; one with a good attack and defence, but a poor goalie that loses to a good defence; and one with a good goalie and attack, but a poor defence that loses to a good attack. |
| 464 | * ''Blog/HamstersParadise'': The grasses and grazers of the Therocene savannahs have this kind of dynamic. Mison are able to eat the hardy weedwood due to their powerful jaws and grinding molars, the boingos can eat the toxic bleedweeds thanks to their reduced ability to taste bitterness and ability to excrete the poisons out through their urine and the ungulopes can feed on the sharp saberleaf because of their thick saliva and rubbery tissue lining their throat and stomach. When the herbivores in a given area deplete their grass of choice they move on to a new area and a different grass grows in to replace it, which in turn, draws in the grazer adapted to feed on it and the cycle starts anew. |
| 465 | |
| 466 | [[/folder]] |
| 467 | |
| 468 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 469 | * Fencing swords have this built into their mechanics, and it is understood by sport fencers today. In its simplest formulation, it goes like this: The direct attack is a fast thrust at the opponent. It is defeated by a parry-riposte, where you block the attack and immediately counter. The parry-riposte is confounded by the compound attack, where you present a menacing false attack (a feint), evade your opponent's parry, then attack for real. The compound attack is defeated by the counter-attack, where you hit your opponent as he unwinds his over-long compound attack. The counter-attack is defeated by the direct attack. A more complex discussion can be found on pretty much any site about the sport, and needless to say, when you have to actually land the attacks against a flesh-and-blood opponent, it's not as easy as selecting the counter to their movement. |
| 470 | * Another big real-life example is boxing, where it's commonly believed that, all things equal, a boxer's style determines the outcome of a fight. An [[LongRangeFighter Out-Boxer]], who keeps at a distance from his opponent and allows him to wear himself out, beats a Slugger, who favors punching power and a strong chin over finesse and evasion. A [[MightyGlacier Slu]][[UnskilledButStrong gger]] beats an Swarmer, whose strategy is to crowd his opponent, and hit him over and over with hooks and uppercuts (which leaves him especially vulnerable to heavy punches, while the Slugger's strong chin lets them withstand the Swarmer's faster, but lighter strikes). A [[FragileSpeedster Swa]][[GlassCannon rmer]] is great against an out-fighter, who can't maintain the distance he's comfortable with when his opponent is charging him all the time. |
| 471 | * For an example of this sort of thing happening in nature (combined with ColorCodedForYourConvenience, no less), look no further than the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_side-blotched_lizard common side-blotched lizard]]. Specifically, the males of this species come in three varieties, easily distinguished by [[http://bio.research.ucsc.edu/~barrylab/lizardland/lizard_heads.jpg of the patch on their throat]]: orange conquerors, vigilant blues, and sneaky yellows. Oranges are physically powerful {{Boisterous Bruiser}}s that control large territories with multiple mates and who can easily beat up blues to take their partners. Yellows [[DisguisedInDrag are very similar, size and appearance-wise, to females]], and can thusly [[BeneathNotice sneak past oranges with ease]] and mate with their partners unnoticed, as the orange males can't pay attention to all of their mates due to having so many of them spread out over their large territory. Blues [[DevotedToYou form strong bonds with their partners]], making them far less likely to mate with yellows (the fact that blues are big enough to beat up yellows ''and'' smart enough to recognize them also helps). Each type takes turns being the most common: when one color becomes overrepresented, its counter takes advantage of this and becomes the dominant morph next mating season, which in turn allows that one's counter to take the lead the year after that. |
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