Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

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hooby
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Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by hooby » Wed Jun 01, 2011 1:53 pm

Hi everyone,

I just registered here. Have been losely following Overgrowth since i saw the first videos on gametrailers. I believe the blood splat video was the first one I saw.

The last few days I browsed through large parts of the wolfire blog, reading any article of interest to me - mostly those more "philosophical" writings about game design and how to do stuff right. I'm a programmer by trade, and although I'm not in the video game market I believe a have little more technical insight and prefer a more analytical approach to games than the average gamer does.

And I have to say, I really love what you guys are doing here. I love that open approach towards the community - not holding back information about the game, showing everyone what is going on and how the process of making a game comes along. I especially love the use of procedural methods in gameplay - instead of using scripted events as is common. I fully agree on your stance on OpenGL vs. DX, and many other things that where posted on the blog.

But there's one blog post that I believe does not do it's topic justice. And that's the post "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill". That's a topic that I already did a ton of thinking about, and even more research about - and I believe not only that the post on the blog doesn't even scratch the surface, I also believe that it does contain some misconceptions and errors of thought.

And that's what got me registered here. I hope you don't hate me for storming in here, already forming a huge wall-o'-text in my mind, that even dares to partly disagree with the opinion of the devs.

I'd just like to share my thoughts (and as I said, I already did a lot of thinking on that topic) and well - if some critical thoughts are not welcome here, I'm willing to pack my things and leave again, with no hard feelings.

Just let me state that nothing of this is meant as an offense or insult. It's just my two cents on the topic. Well maybe a bit more than two cents. I'm gonna need more than one post for that.

Also please excuse any errors in writing or grammar I might make - I'm not a native speaker, and sometimes stumble into sentences that are just to complicated for my language skills. I'll try my best!

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hooby
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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by hooby » Wed Jun 01, 2011 2:45 pm

First of all, I'd like to make a little excursion into the realms of child psychology.

Playing actually is on the very first things (except for crying, eating, sleeping and shitting oneself) that any human being does. But why do we play instinctively? Because it's the most efficient form of learning.

Fueled by curiosity babies just randomly try to do things, and figuring stuff out is the greatest joy they can have.

A baby shakes a rattle and hears the sound. The baby shakes it again - and the rattle gives of the sound again. By this the baby learns the basic principles of cause and effect. Shaking causes the rattle to make a sound. Reliably. On top of that, the baby learns that it can influence it's surroundings, which leads to basic understanding of one's self vs. the rest of the world.

As kids grow older their games become more complex and sophisticated, and simple trial and error is replaced by more planned methods. One of the first new methods children employ is imitation. They see a parent do something, and try to do the same thing themselves. This type of play starts off very simple, but evolves over time, leading to children using puppets and toys to imitate being a parent themselves by playing through scenes observed and/or invented/fantasy scenes. The children not only imagine being someone else, they also imagine being someone with a specific task (like being a mother, a car driver, etc.) - someone with a specific role. This is the most basic form of role-playing. Playing make-belief to be someone else. By doing so children learn and train social interaction and general patterns of behavior.

The instinct to learn (and therefore the will to play) is very strong in children. And although it is natural for this impulse to learn to decrease a bit when getting older, we are loosing it way faster than is natural. That's because the common method of ex-cathedra teaching as used in schools is possibly the worst thing you can do. This very much extinguishes (or burns out) the will to learn in many of us.

Still I believe that whatever is left of that will to learn through playing inside everyone of us, is still a driving force behind our fascination with games. Surely not the sole driving force - but a major contribution.

So I hope we can agree that learning/training is one of the most central aspects of any game.
If we wanted to just passively waste time, we'd rather watch some stupefying TV-shows, than to play games where we have to get active ourselves, and where some learning of the games rules and the workings of it's mechanics is required from us, to be able to master it.

That was part one - the introduction - part two will follow as soon as I find the time to write it. Feel free to comment mean-whilst ;)

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by pookaguy » Wed Jun 01, 2011 4:49 pm

You sir, may just be the most serious person on this forum.

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by Conner36 » Wed Jun 01, 2011 5:17 pm

pookaguy wrote:You sir, may just be the most serious person on this forum.
Seconded.

@hooby
You should think about doing a guest blog post. Try to get in contact with the Wolfire team, I think you make very good points in the intro. Try to find the time to finish your thoughts, your worth reading. Also, if you aren't 100% about your grammar skills I'm sure someone on the forum will be able to proof read for you if you ask.

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by Endoperez » Wed Jun 01, 2011 11:03 pm

pookaguy wrote:You sir, may just be the most serious person on this forum.
He's serious about the subject. There's many others in this forum who are serious about at least one subject.


I'll be very interested in reading the rest of this when you have time!

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by hooby » Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:49 am

pookaguy wrote:You sir, may just be the most serious person on this forum.
Don't let yourself get fooled by first impressions ;)

You guys might also like watch this episode of Extra Credits, especially the first half (to around 3:30) of it:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... Easy-Games

Actually many of the other episodes are worth watching too - but this one fits the topic of this thread very well.

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hooby
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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by hooby » Thu Jun 02, 2011 6:54 am

Well, let's get on with part 2:

Games for a more juvenile or grown up audience (including computer games) tend to be far more complex and demanding than child's play - but they still follow many of the same principles - albeit at a higher level.

Playing Foosball (tabletop soccer) requires much better handy-eye coordination, reaction times and dexterity than doing some baby puzzle:
Image.

Playing a pen&paper role-playing game (like Dungeons&Dragons) requires the players to take on much more distinct and well-defined roles than playing mother with a doll, and may even require a lot of thinking, since any decision the players make in the game could have a serious impact on the story. (At least if the DM is any good).

Did you notice the distinction I made here?
The first example is of a game that's based on entirely physical/bodily skills, while the second example revolves mainly around mental/cerebral skills. This is a distinction which also can be found in early children's games, as well as in mature computer games.

There's a second important distinction in these examples, that you probably did not notice:
Foosball is a purely competitive game - you absolutely have to play it against each other, there's no way of playing cooperatively.Pen&paper games on the other hand are purely cooperative games, that just don't work if you try to play them competitively.

Now how does all that stuff apply to computer games in general, and to the discussion of Character Stats vs. Player Skills in detail?

First I'll need to debunk some misconceptions about what "player skill" actually means. When gamers brag about their skills (which mostly happens in competitive multiplayer shooters) they are mostly talking about purely physical skills. How pixel-precise they can swing around their mouse-cursor in the blink of an eye, hand-eye-coordination, reaction time, high speed button hitting and stuff like that. (You might disagree with this - more on that later...)

In a competitive game the winner always should be the more skilled player, and outcome should not depend on chance/luck or other factors. But there's no reason it has to be physical skills. Chess is fully competitive and fully skill based - no luck involved. Still it is completely cerebral and does not require any physical skills at all.

Athletic sports on the other hand are purely based on physical skills - you need no tactics nor strategy to run 100 meters as fast as you can or throw a spear as far as you can. But those kind of sports aren't really games, are they?

Sports games - like baseball, football, etc. - _always_ include things like team play, team strategy, play tactics and the like. No matter how small or unimportant that mental skill part may be - it's always there. If you remove it, the sport ceases to be a game.

So you can't have a game without any cerebral skills at all, but as chess shows you totally can have a great, competitive game without any physical skills at all.

And shooters do feature elements like team tactics, strategic positions on the map, cover and stealth elements, and other stuff. How important those mental skills are for winning the game differs from game to game, but I believe that older shooters were more likely to favor physical skills to the exclusion of anything else, while more modern shooters tend lay a bit more focus on the mental part.

And to me personally that mental part is the real important part - the "fun" part. But why is the mental part the more important part?

I already talked about how learning/training is a very important (if not the most important) motivator behind the desire to play. And that mouse-twitch skills and all that more mental skills are both things a new player has to learn. But there's one big difference: The physical skills have to be learned only once, and they carry over from one game to the other.

Actually players even expect their skills to carry over, and any game that completely defies common aiming and control mechanics in order to require the players to relearn their physical skills, will inevitably fail. Players will hate the controls and drop the game. Gamers don't actually find it fun to learn that physical skills anew. They want to keep them and take them with them, from one game to the other. (Many even prefer games that do offer aiming help, like almost all console shooters do - so that they don't have to perfect their aiming skills themselves).

But players do expect their new game to provide them with something new to learn. And this they expect to happen within the mental skills department. They want the game to feature innovative game mechanics, new combat rules like cover or stealth mechanics, that require them to learn new strategies and tactics. New ways of map design that force them to use new approaches to game-play. That stuff is held in high regards - and that's also the reason why shooters tend to put more and more effort in those things.

I hope you agree with me, that those strategic, tactical and team skills are the important part of a games learning curve, and that those crazy mouse twitch skills have their value, but aren't that central to the learning experience - except for the very first game in which you need to train them.

Well, that's a good place to pause - I'll finally come to the conclusion in the third part, I promise! :D

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by Endoperez » Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:46 am

hooby wrote:There's a second important distinction in these examples, that you probably did not notice:
Foosball is a purely competitive game - you absolutely have to play it against each other, there's no way of playing cooperatively.Pen&paper games on the other hand are purely cooperative games, that just don't work if you try to play them competitively.
It's possible for everyone to have fun even while they're backstabbing, lying, plotting and accusing each other in-game. Paranoia would be a good example, except that you are not permitted to know why this is so, citizen, and showing too much interestin this question counts as treason against the Friend Computer. If you're reading this, you should immediately report to the closest Suicide Booth for termination.

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by hooby » Thu Jun 02, 2011 12:27 pm

Endoperez wrote:It's possible for everyone to have fun even while they're backstabbing, lying, plotting and accusing each other in-game.
True.

I probably should have made myself more clear on what I mean by "competitive gameplay".
In short I'd define "competitive gameplay" as follows: Game ends, someone wins, someone looses.

Of course you can have your character engage in competitive behavior in any pen&paper game, but you couldn't hold a tournament to find out who's the best pen&paper player in the region.

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hooby
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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by hooby » Thu Jun 02, 2011 2:34 pm

So, it's time for the grand finale.

That means I'm going to push up the speed and intensity, provide a good climax containing some hopefully surprising plot-twist and tie up all the loose ends I've left open during the first two parts.

Buckle up your seat belts, and be prepared to take everything with a grain of salt. I'll be going to use a bit of exaggeration to drive home my points. But remember - it's not meant to be an offense or an insult!
------------------------------------------------------

Now that we have found out that it's really those mental skills that do matter - and that those mouse-hand twitch skills are only secondary - it's time to take a closer look at computer RPGs.

When talking about roleplaying before - whether it was child's play/make-believe or pen&paper roleplaying games - we were always clearly on the mental side of things. So does this change for computer RPGs? No, it doesn't.

Planning which of your characters stats to rise, which skills and spells to take and learning the right combinations of these skills and spells to use to beat differnt types of enemies/monsters with different weaknesses is pure strategy - and surely a mental skill.

More generally speaking the mental skills most centrally required in any game are to learn and get a deeper understanding of the game mechanics (including the combat mechanics). To learn how to play the game, to make best use of those mechanics, to find and use to your advantage hidden, inherent synergies of the mechanics, to know all the strengths and weaknesses of the different actions you can perform during the game;

Now the deeper and more complex the mechanics of a given game are, the more there is to learn about them. And I hope we can agree that roleplaying games feature some of the deepest, most complex gameplay mechanics out there. Not all of them make good use of that - but games staying behind their potential is an entirely different topic.

So do RPGs require player skills? Yes they do. At least in the mental skill department.

So when we talk about "Character Stats vs. Player Skills" - that "Player Skills" has to refer to physical twitch skills. Because if it would be about mental skills, the comparison would make no sense. Those stat-based RPGs require at least the same amount of mental player skills than twitch based games do. So we are talking purely about twitch skills here - just if they were the only type of player skill in existence.
But we alreay know that they are not. There are cerebral player skills too, and - as pointed out before - those cerebral skills are more important even in most twitch based games, since they are an important part of that learning curve, whilst those physical skills are just carried over from some other game.

So what about RPGs and physical twitch skills?

Some RPGs do need those skills too. If you play a sorceress in Diablo2, being able to always cast your firewalls at the perfect angle can more than double your effective damage output. If you play the Witcher 2 oder the Gothic series, you can aim almost like in a shooter, and you can use attack combos and blocks, a little bit like in Street Fighter or other fighting games.
If on the other hand you play a non-action-oriented RPG you'll probably need less physical twitch skills. If you play a round-based RPG, you'll need none of them at all - just like with chess.

So what's the big difference to twitch-based games?

In a shooter, your physical skills come first. You need to be able to aim and shoot long before you can get the taste of more cerebral team strategies and stuff. To soften that a bit there's those aiming helps commonly employed in many modern shooters, which effectively reduce the amount of physical skills required.
In an RPG the mental skills clearly come first and with more weight, while the phsyical skills - if they do exists - are not required to play the game. You can instead just grind some level ups and get strong enough to play on that way - without having to learn the finer intricacies of action oriented combat. Physical skills in RPGs are optional - or even not present at all.

So, if player skills are not the real factor - what is this "Character Stats vs. Player Skills" discussion really about?

"Player skill" is like a cult. People belive in it, people worship it, and whenever they bring it up, it happens along the lines of: "My game needs player skill, yours does not - that's why my game is better than yours!". It's nothing but a try to claim superiority over non twitch-based forms of gameplay, but it's argument's aren't very grounded and don't hold up closer inspection. There simply is nothing to it.

What people mentioning "Character Stats vs. Player Skills" really are concerned about is competitive gameplay vs. non-competitive gameplay. That's the whole point there is to it.

RPGs suck at competitive gameplay. No matter how much some may laud their PvP - it never can be anywhere close to twitch based games. The reason is quite simple: In an RPG you have a class, a level, items and you enter a fight carrying those stuff with you. So the fight does not start with a mirrored/symmetrical setup, there's no guarantuee that the there is a fair premise. Also players cannot change their strategy on the fly, because their strategy is manifested within their character. If they loose a round and want to try another strategy next round, they'd need to switch their character.

Competitiveness is what people really want when they talk about that ominous "player skill". And twitch-based games simply are better suited for that, than stats-based games ever will be.

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by Endoperez » Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:08 pm

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo... my huge post was eaten! I press Ctrl+r (refresh) instead of shift+R! :O


You haven't defined "competitive game". "One wins, one loses" works for a race, which by your definition is a sport, not a game. I'd like to argue against your conclusion, but can't, because I don't know what you mean by it.

Here's some examples of things that lead me to disagree with your conclusion:

Magic: The Gathering is competitive game. Each match takes place with a pre-built deck in which a player's whole strategy is manifest. Compare this to a combination of class, skills and items. Having to choose things before a bout doesn't make a game less competitive, as long as there are lots of options available. Some competitive RPGs allow one to change stats easily, cheaply or for free.

Team Fortress 2 is a twitch-based competitive game (or at least could be, usually it's just a silly game). It has classes and different weapon options for each class. Do these make it less competitive than a game without classes?

How is chess not a competitive game?

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by hooby » Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:47 pm

I believe Magic the Gathering is almost as badly suited for competitive play than an RPG is. Spending more money on cards can give you an unfair advantage in a match. That's not as much a game about player skills as much as it is a game about wallet size.

Team Fortress two allows you to freshly choose your class at the very beginning of each round. Every player has identical options to choose from, no player has any advantage. After the round is done, one team wins, the other team looses. The game is reset and the next round starts with wiped stats - everyone gets to choose a class anew. Well suited for competitive play - the existence of classes doesn't have a influence on that.

Chess is a competitive game. To quote myself:
hooby wrote:Chess is fully competitive and fully skill based
(see part 2).
Chess is a competitive game, because each round ends with a winner and a looser, and because each round starts anew with an reset board, with mirrorerd setup - so every player gets identical starting conditions for each single round.

RPGs are not a bad choice for competitive games because they are based on mental skills.
RPGs are not a bad choice for competitive games, because they are stats based.
RPGs are a bad choice for competitive games because you keep your stats, and you start a PvP round with your stats and items, which may give you an unfair advantage. In this case the advantage is based on invested time, unless there's an item shop selling things that boost your combat power, in which case the advantage again is based on invested money, just like in Magic.

Games based on mental skills work very well for competitive play. As I said before, even many shooters put their main focus on mental skills over their (still needed) twitch skill requirement. Good team play can win you a game, even if you aren't as good shots as your opponents.

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by Endoperez » Fri Jun 03, 2011 1:31 am

Okay, now I see. I wouldn't say that those games are less competitive, but the initial and ongoing costs required to become and stay competitive actively discourage people from doing so.

What about RPGs that let you reset your stats for free, or for a very small in-game cost? For example, Guild Wars.

"Take the character creation. How many other games give you the option of starting a character at the maximum level from the get-go? Sure, there are restrictions involved. You'll be restricted to the PvP arena and have a limited selection of the overall skills available, but it means you don't have to spend weeks slogging through the level grind in order to experience the latter side of the game."
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/11 ... rs-review/

Playing in the non-PvP areas gives more choices to your account, and all characters created under that account. You can create a new character for every PvP match if you so want, and you're expected to change your skillset of 8 skills before every match and mission.


What about Dominions 3 (which you probably have never heard), a turn-based strategy game, where each game starts by choosing one of the many different nations, choosing an in-game avatar from one of the many different physical forms with different advantages and disadvantages and costs, and choosing whether to specialize further in any magic path, and choosing whether to take any nation-wide economic bonuses. You're weighted down by a baggage from the beginning of every match, and these choices have a huge effect on the whole game. The amount of choices available makes the game very intimidating for new players. However, it's the amount of choices that makes the game interesting for those players who play it competitively.
It takes time to learn all the options available and even more time to learn about the strategies that those options enable, and that can be contrasted to a time cost included in something like competitive Pokemon battling, or leveling up a new character in a competitive RPG. Does the time cost automatically make the game less suited for a competitive environment? The time cost inherent in learning the optimal gameplay can be considerably larger than the time cost of grinding a few dozen levels. If level grinding is worse for competitiveness because of the time cost, wouldn't that mean any game with a time cost (even if some other area), would be equally bad for competitiveness.

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by hooby » Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:59 am

Endoperez wrote:Okay, now I see. I wouldn't say that those games are less competitive,
Well of course not - people are even holding pissing contests, so if you really want to, ANYTHING can be competitive.

I'm just talking about how well suited something is for competitive play.
RPGs have some disadvantages when it comes to competitive play:
They feature some sort of randomness (dice rolls) which are used instead of player twitch skills - so luck/chance can have an impact on the outcome.
And they allow players to start a match with unequal starting conditions (like not having equally good items) which then isn't completely fair.
Endoperez wrote: What about RPGs that let you reset your stats for free, or for a very small in-game cost? For example, Guild Wars.
That's a very good point! I actually could do another thread (just as long as this one) on that topic. Actually I already did so in the past - in another forum somewhere.

To sum it up in short:

The one defining factor of RPG, the one thing all those different kinds of RPGs have in common, the essence of a RPG is "character development". Wheter this is done through leveling up or other methods to gradually increase your characters abilities doesn't matter. What exactly you can upgrade about your character doesn't really matter either. The important point is, that you can upgrade your character.

So in any MMO out there - once you reach the level cap and character development stops - you are actually no longer playing an RPG in its truest sense. You are rather playing an Action Game with RPG elements...

Just take a closer look at WoW battlegrounds. You are actually playing capture the flag and dominations matches there, only with swords and spells instead of guns and grenades. It becomes basically a fantasy shooter game.

Otherwise Team Fortress would be a RPG too - since you have to choose a class.
Endoperez wrote: What about Dominions 3 (which you probably have never heard),
Yeah, I never heard about it. But from your description it seems to me that it does feature some elements that do affect competitive play negatively - by allowing players unfair starting advantages.

Games like that could never qualify for any e-sports league, because of that uncompetitive factors.

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Re: Hi, and about "Character Stats Vs. Player Skill"

Post by Endoperez » Fri Jun 03, 2011 9:33 am

hooby wrote:The one defining factor of RPG, the one thing all those different kinds of RPGs have in common, the essence of a RPG is "character development". Wheter this is done through leveling up or other methods to gradually increase your characters abilities doesn't matter. What exactly you can upgrade about your character doesn't really matter either. The important point is, that you can upgrade your character.
Haha, that's fantastic. I went through a hectic week a while ago, trying to find a definition that fits all computer RPGs but doesn't include any adventure games. It isn't an easy task, because there's so many different subgenres of RPGs. Character development alone isn't nearly enough. Tower defense games have XP systems and at least onehas an actual plot, but that doesn't make them RPGs. Roguelikes have all the mechanical character development systems that make an RPG, but they aren't RPGs. God of War is an action game with RPG elements, while Diablo 2 is an RPG with action elements. Final Fantasy games are RPGs, but Zelda games aren't. Oblivion is RPG, but Borderlands isn't. Final Fantasy Tactics is a tactical RPG, Jagged Alliance is a tactical game with RPG elements.

The difference isn't in story - an FPS game can tell a story as well as an RPG. The character upgrading isn't it either, since that's in everything from tower defense games to sport simulators. It's not exploration, or any given single thing. It's a combination of things, and I think at least three things are required for a game to be an RPG, possibly more.

An RPG needs:
1) advancement system: XP, levels, classes, skills that increase when used, or equipment - something that the player can change, in one way or another.
2) combat with some player skill required, in twitch or in tactics
3) dialogue and discussion [a story]

All three must have a big enough presence in the game, for it to be called an RPG.


You claim high-level WoW play has lost its character development axis, so it's no longer an RPG game. I haven't played it, but I don't think so. While the game has lost MOST of that, what with the level cap and all, there's always the possibility of changing the existing things. I don't know if it's possible to change your skill trees in WoW, but it IS possible to change your equipment. So the character can still be developed, adjusted.


Any way, I agree that there are kinds of stat systems that are really bad. The ones that require you to put in extraordinary amounts of time if you wish to try something new with equal starting positions with others. The bad thing in this is the time, NOT the advancement system. The advancement systems aren't always fair, but they can be. MOBA games (Defense of the Ancients, League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth etc) have an advancement system where leveling up takes 15-30 minutes, and is part of the match, and that is completely fair and good for competitive play.
Yes, the class/stat system does allow for asymmetrical matches. However, equal is not the same as symmetrical. In an FPS game, one team might run one more sniper than the other at the expense of one less heavy weapons guy, or whatever. This is unsymmetrical, but fair. Some competitive games thrive on the asymmetric match-ups. Choosing a proper match-up becomes part of the game. While Dominions 3 isn't prime e-sport material, that's because it's turn-based and games take too long. League of Legends, again, is an e-sport that allows for "unfair" starting advantages (many dozen "classes", as well as customizable runes, masteries and two floating spell skills, with up to 5 players on each team). The trick in that one is that you'll get to react to the opponent's picks before they're done with it, and thus can counter-pick their picks. That's similar to the way you know which nations you're playing against in a round of Dominions 3, but not which forms their gods take, or which spells they'll be researching first.

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