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Yomi
Layer 3: Knowing the Mind of the Opponent
“Yomi” is a Japanese word meaning
“knowing the mind of the opponent.” It comes from the lingo
surrounding Virtua Fighter, perhaps the most complex video game ever
made. If you can condition your enemy to act in a certain way, you
can then use his own instincts against him (like in Judo). Paramount
in the design of competitive games is the guarantee to the player
that if he knows what his enemy will do, there is some way to
counter it.
What happens, though, when your enemy knows
that you know what he will do? He needs a way to counter you. He’s
said to be on another level than you, or another “yomi layer.”
You knew what he would do (yomi), but he knew that you knew (yomi
layer 2). What happens when you know that he knows that you know
what he will do (yomi layer 3)? You’ll need a way to counter his
counter. And what happens when he knows that you know….
Sound like a joke that could never happen in
real gameplay of an actual game? Surprise: it’s quite common in
strategy games. The reason has to do with conditioning the opponent
and the inequality of risk/reward in these guessing games (see my
article on Rock, Paper, and Scissors in Strategy Games).
Before we get into how ordinary human minds can
become entangled in complicated guessing games, let’s look at what
needs to be there to create these guessing games at all. The
designer’s tendency might be to create moves and counters. Then
create counters to counters, then counters to counters to counters,
then counters to those, and so on. Actually, a game need only
support counters up to Yomi Layer 3, since Yomi Layer 4 can loop
around back to Yomi Layer 0.
Let’s say I have a move (we’ll call it
“m”) that’s really, really good. I want to do it all the time.
(Here’s where the inequality of risk/reward comes in. If all my
moves are equally good, this whole thing falls apart.) The “level
0” case here is discovering how good that move is and doing it all
the time. Then, you will catch on and know that I’m likely to do
that move a lot (yomi layer 1), so you’ll need a counter move
(we’ll call it “c1”). You’ve stopped me from doing m.
You’ve shut me down. I need a way to stop you from doing c1. I
need a counter to your counter, or “c2.”
Now you don’t know what to expect from me
anymore. I might do m, or I might do c2. Interestingly, I probably
want to do m, but I just do c2 to scare you into not doing c1
anymore. Then I can sneak in more m.
You don’t
have adequate choices yet. I can alternate between m and c2,
but all you have is c1. You need a counter to c2, which we’ll call
c3. Now we each have two moves.
Me: m, c2
You: c1, c3.
Now I need a counter to c3. The tendency might
be to create a c4 move, but it’s not necessary. The move m can
serve as my c4. Basically, if you expect me to do my counter to your
counter (rather than my original good move m), then I don’t need a
counter that; I can just do go ahead and do the original move…if
the game is designed that way. Basically, supporting moves up Yomi
Layer 3 is the minimum set of counters needed have a complete set of
options, assuming Yomi Layer 4 wraps around back to Layer 0.
This is surely sounding much more confusing
than it is, so let’s look at an actual example from Virtua Fighter
3 (which will almost certainly confuse you even more).
Example of Yomi Layer 3 from Virtua Fighter 3
Let’s say Akira knocks down Pai. As Pai gets
up, she can either do a rising attack (these attacks have the
absolute highest priority in the game) or she can do nothing. A high
rising attack will stop any attack that Akira does as she gets up,
but if Akira expects this, he can block and retaliate with a
guaranteed throw. Pai does the rising kick and Akira predicts this
and blocks. Now the guessing game begins.
Akira would like to do his most damaging throw
(that’s his m), and be done with it. Even though the throw is
guaranteed here, all throws can be escaped for zero damage if the
defender expects the throw and enters the throw reverse command. The
throw is guaranteed to “start” but Pai might reverse it. In
fact, Pai is well aware that a throw is guaranteed here (it’s
common knowledge), and it’s only obvious that Akria will do his
most damaging throw. After all, this situation has happened a
hundred times before against a hundred Akiras and they all do the
same thing. It’s really conditioning, not strategy, that tells Pai
she needs to do a throw escape here (that’s her c1). In fact, it
will become her natural, unthinking reaction after a while.
Akira is tired of having his throw escaped
again and again. He decides to be tricky by doing one of his very
slow, powerful moves such as a double palm, a reverse body check, a
two fisted strike, or a shoulder ram (we’ll just lump all those
into c2). Why does a big, slow move work in this situation? First of
all, if Pai does her throw escape and there is no throw to escape,
the escape becomes a throw attempt. If her opponent is out of range
or otherwise unthrowable for some reason, her throw attempt becomes
a throw whiff. She grabs the air and is vulnerable for a moment. One
important rule in VF is that you cannot throw an opponent during the
startup phase or the hitting phase of a move. So if Akira does a
big, powerful move, he is totally unthrowable until after the
hitting phase of the move is over and he enters recovery (retracting
his arm or leg).
Back to our story. Akira is tired of getting
his throw escaped all day, so he does standard counter to any throw:
a big, powerful move. This c2 move does a decent amount of damage,
by the way. The next time this whole situation arises, Pai doesn’t
know what to do. Her instincts tell her to reverse the throw, but if
she does, she is vulverable to Akira’s slow, powerful move. Rather
than go for the standard reverse, Pai does her c3 move: she simply
blocks. By blocking, she’ll take no damage from the Akira’s
powerful move, and depending on exactly which move it was, she’ll
probably be able to retaliate.
So what does Akira do if he expects this? In
fact, he needs no c4 move since his original throw (m) is the
natural counter to a blocking opponent. A throw is a special kind of
move that grabs an enemy and does damage regardless of whether they
are blocking. It’s specifically designed to be used against an
opponent in block who is afraid of an attack.
In summary,
Akira has: throw; powerful, slow move
Pai has: throw escape; block.
As I tried to show, it’s actually pretty
reasonable to expect players to be thinking on Yomi Layer 3, 4 or
even higher. It’s because conditioning makes doing the throw
escape (c2) an unthinking, natural reaction. But against a clever
opponent, you’ll have to think twice about doing a standard throw
escape, or blocking. The Akira player will do the occasional
powerful, slow move just to put his enemy off balance and abandon
his instinct to escape the throw. Then Akira can go back to his
original goal: land the throw.
Another very interesting property is
“beginner’s luck.” Notice that a beginner Akira in this
situation will go for the throw, since that works on other beginners
who haven’t learned to throw escape. The beginner Akira will never
land the throw on an intermediate player, though, since the
intermediate player knows to always throw escape. But strangely, the
beginner will sometimes land the throw on the expert, since the
expert is aware of the whole guessing game and might block rather
than throw escape. Of course, the expert will soon learn that
beginner is, in fact, a beginner and then he’ll be able to yomi
almost every move.
Just as a final note on Virtua Fighter to
further demonstrate the complexity of its guessing games, I actually
greatly simplified the example above. I left out, for example, that
Akira has another c2 move besides a slow, powerful move. He can also
do what’s called a “kick-guard cancel” or “kg.” This means
he can press kick, which will make him unthrowable until his kick
reaches recovery phase. If Pai tries to throw, she’ll whiff. But
then Akira can cancel the kick before it even gets to the hitting
phase. Now he’s free to act and take advantage of Pai’s whiffed
throw vulnerability. Now, Akira has a guaranteed throw, putting him
back in the exact same situation he began in. The catch is that if
Akira does kg-cancel and then goes for the throw he originally
wanted to do, Pai will probably not have time to react with a throw
escape. It’s just too fast. She’d have to be on the next yomi
layer. She’d have to expect Akira to throw, enter a throw escape,
see the kg-cancel, then immediately enter her next guess (probably
an attack or throw escape). Any hesitation and she’d be thrown.
Crazy huh?
The point I’m making here is that despite
Virtua Fighter’s absurd complexity, players really are able to
think on the levels I’m hinting at. Playing such a game and
successfully landing a move because you knew he knew you knew he
would do a particular move is the greatest feeling in the world. So
design counters and counters-to-counters, and so on, but know that
making Yomi Layer 4 the same as Layer 0 allows you to only design
counters up to Yomi Layer 3. It’s nerdy, but true.
Talk
back! Discuss this article in the forums.
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