I’m using “concurrent” to mean “roughly real-time play.” You can come up with numerous examples of turn based card games (especially poker) otherwise. Though I am interested in why turn based games seem to allow it more often.
It was too long to fit in the thread title, but I’m also only including games with some decently popular pro scene.
So what’s keeping us from having 3-way soccer. Even some e-sports that theoretically support an FFA mode – like certain fighting or strategy video games (Smash Bros, Starcraft) never seem to use it in the competitive scene. I’ve seen some MOBA style maps that had 3 or 4 teams, but they never took off. It seems to be reserved for exhibition matches or fun, there’s no real serious 1v1v1v1 (or 2v2v2 or whatever) scene or tournaments.
The only one I can really think of is racing – and in most racing the players don’t really interact so it’s only incidentally concurrent. Obviously there are exceptions and formats that involve track control, getting in front of your opponent, mind games, and so on. But I can’t really think of any big sports like Battle Royale Fencing, five team handball, or hexagonal six-team tennis. Why isn’t Four Square in the Olympics?
Okay, obviously those examples aren’t entirely serious. Don’t pick one of those out and ask “how would that even work?” because modifying an existing sport to support multiple teams is a bad idea, it was just for illustration, but the general question remains: why are major, real-time competitive games so focused on team vs team or person vs person? What keeps them from developing good, solid three or four team games? Does the metagame just become too complex when you have to consider a third team messing up your carefully executed engagement?
That, and they’re also hugely dependent on politics. Sure, it’s eventually every man for himself, but meanwhile, you’re going to have alliances, tit-for-tat, and so on. If the two weaker teams gang up to put the strongest team out of commission, before turning on each other for the ultimate spoils, is that good sportsmanship? Is is fun? And what happens when the managers explicitly negotiate such things before the game?
if pre-game negotiations are banned, regardless of the number of sides and alliances made in the match itself, it would eventually settle into a 3-way stalemate. (provided the teams are playing to win instead of settling for second place.) while the turtling stalemate is boring; the maneuvering, tit-for-tats, diplomacy and alliances made before that could actually be quite interesting.
But as for turtling, there’s always anti-turtling measures. From the simple “if you don’t take action, you lose points. If you have negative points, you can’t win, even if your score is higher than everyone else – it will at best be a tie”, to events affecting random teams that require them to move out or suffer consequences.
how would you fairly implement this? let’s try Starcraft from your OP. what would prevent me from taking a few low-risk skirmishes in lieu of taking no action? random events seem to be grossly unfair for a tightly-balanced stalemate.
It seems to me that turtling works well when it’s a “last man standing” scenario. But what if it’s a “score the most points” scenario? In that case, turtling would be deadly: the other two teams would be busy scoring off each other while you get nothing.
I don’t see that at all. The #3 team might figure they at least have a chance against the #2 team, but they probably don’t (or at least, a smaller one) against the #1 team, so even if second place is regarded as first loser, #3 and #2 will still gang up on #1.
Bicycle road-racing (Tour deFrance style) is very very much about the players interacting (having someone in front of you to cut the wind is a huge huge advantage). So much so that the only hope of winning a big race is to have a team behind you. A lot of the racing is about when two teams cooperate to keep a third team from breaking away, or similar situations.
if #2 and #3 gang up on #1, eventually #1 will fall to third place, and the current number two will have to decide when to break off the alliance with the current number one. if all sides are perfect logicians, the equilibrium may go on indefinitely.
That assumes that all players are perfect logicians, that everyone can agree unambiguously what the relative strengths of all teams are, and that shifts in strength happen slowly enough to allow for human reaction. I don’t think any of those is necessarily a given.
you’re right. it’s much easier to stalemate with slow or turned-based games. so it’s like Survivor then? where the dominant alliance picks off the weaker ones until the backstabbing begins? where it’s difficult for the “strongest” player, the one who wins the most challenges or is the most likeable, to win?