asymmetrical-mechanics
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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Asymmetry in superhero PvP
If you stop and think about it, the fact that we've never really had good PvP in a superhero game is pretty darn weird. This is a genre in which heroes fight villains, villains also fight villains, and every few hours some misunderstanding crops up and the heroes wind up coming to blows as well. Even in games without player-controlled villains, there's plenty of room for good PvP, and in games where players can take a walk on the dark side there's even more reason for tussles to work out well. Sadly, that hasn't been the case. But today, I come here not to roast games but to talk about how this could be made to work well. Which bespeaks a certain asymmetry. I've mentioned before that heroes and villains have fundamentally different approaches to the world: The former are reactive and the latter are proactive. When it comes to pure PvP scenarios, this should be more true than anywhere else. Instead, most PvP matches wind up being slugfests, something that doesn't really match up with how things work in comics.
