Everyone has their own way they love to fight or compete. Asymmetrical Gameplay takes advantage of that. People that love weapons or magical powers that give them faster attack will gladly play that way even if it means having to play with less health.
Game designers often take advantage of this fact and allow complex arrangements of play to take place each giving one player a distinct advantage and weakness over the others. Although one player may be able to quickly kill the other, his speed may be directly affected. People that love to play those slow tanks, will still gladly do so and slowly trug along, knowing if they can get their hands on the opponent, they will easily make up their lost time and mow through the enemy lines.
Asymmetrical gameplay gives everyone what they want. The players can play with a distinct advantage over others while the opponents can try to take advantage of that players inherent weaknesses. In this way, games like League of Legends, Left 4 Dead, and more recently, Primal Carnage, have thrived.
Asymmetry vs Power Creep
Asymmetrical Gameplay solves the ageless problem of Gaming which is power creep. In games that are multiplayer and are constantly played like W.O.W and Starcraft, the developers are always updating the game with new content and are always having to tweak some mechanism, weapon, or object to balance the game.
This is very tedious and sometimes by trying to balance the game you could make a new character the new king and make it very hard to beat that latest character. So how would a developer solve the issue of making characters too powerful over time or accidentally ruining balanced play?
The best way to do that is unbalance the play from the beginning. Allow a number of different weaknesses for each character, and give each character a unique upper hand over the rest. The chaos this seemingly creates causes a very interesting type of harmony.
Although each player is significantly better than the rest, they all each have different weaknesses, and different teams and tactics will be formed to take advantage of these weaknesses. Maybe if a fast character never has enough of a chance to get to the enemy, ranged units can be combined which can pin the enemy down, and then the fast units can go after their pinned foes and easily pick them off.
To defend the other side can try to rally behind 1 tank and break through the ranks of the ranged units trying to then fight 1 on 1 and break up the wall of ranged weapons.
None of this is possible without Asymmetry. Assuming every person was generically good, generically fast, and with generic weapons, you all die around the same period, and it becomes a game about teamwork, rather than tactics using your strengths against their weaknesses.
This explains the Call of Duty crowd, where most anyone has a good enough gun to kill most anyone, at a significant range. This forces people to use Teamwork and tactics based on that teamwork. Although even these games have their level of Asymmetry it’s nowhere near an FPS game like Planetside which gives much stronger advantages to one side over the other.
The other benefit to being able to play Asymmetrically is that we’re all unique. Why try to fit us all into one type of game play style if we like playing differently? There is a friend I will never forget that was the greatest Tank driver I’ve ever seen. He was amazing at helping me get good shots off and trying to avoid the enemy, getting us the best chance at winning the base ahead of us.
He didn’t kill anyone and he didn’t care. He would drive and drive for hours just so a better shooter than him could do the extra damage necessary to succeed and push forward. Games that allow players to really take advantage of their hidden potential are games with staying power and games that won’t easily be forgotten.
Some people really love to fly, and even if they can’t do much damage in the air, the reconnaissance they provide along with the transport can really save the day for their team.
A task I hate myself but that’s essential in every RPG is the healer. I hate being a healer, I can’t stand doing it, but every team dies without one. Every so often I meet a person who is an amazing healer and can really turn the tide in battle.
Symmetrical, boring, generic gameplay would never allow these people to succeed. It’s this uneven type of fighting where each wields powerful influence, that allows these dynamics to kick in and a lot of fun to be had.
I’ve already mentioned a bunch of asymmetrical games above but if you get stuck I’m sure there are a bunch more out there you have yet to find. Find your play type, love the role you play, and kick butt doing it. 
If anything, asymmetrical gameplay may be the way of the future.
At the start of the game, the player takes control over his or her character. Bound and being taken to an unknown location via carriage, the player knows nothing of the circumstances he is in, why he is there, or how he got there to begin with. The player quickly learns that the High King of Skyrim has been murdered, and by none other than the man sitting in the seat beside him, Ulfric Stormcloak, the leader of the Stormcloak rebellion. Over the course of the next few minutes, the player disembarks from the carriage, along with the other prisoners, and is ordered to present himself. This is where the player is allowed to truly create the character he wishes to be in the world of Skyrim. Once that is finished, the player witnesses the execution of a rebel soldier by decapitation, whose fate will soon mirror his own…or will it? Only seconds before the player’s head is no longer acquainted with his body, a frightening and mythological being manifests over the town. Dragons have returned and one is about to decimate everyone and everything within the town. This begins a series of events that will begin to shape the rest of the game. The player is presented with the first of many choices; does he follow the Imperial soldier, who was a participant in his almost untimely death, or does he choose to follow an escaped rebel? This is a choice the player must make with only a split second to decide.
The combat, as you might imagine, is amazing. Whether you want to run into combat swinging a battleaxe or a sword, sneak behind your enemies and kill them with a dagger, kill them from afar with a well placed arrow, or even obliterate them with a fireball, you have the freedom to choose one or ALL of these options. Unlike Oblivion where the player was basically restricted to one type of combat based on his or her decisions, in Skyrim the player can experience all types of combat in one playthrough. One of the main points that Bethesda Game Studios championed during marketing, was that if the player wishes to do something, all he has to do is actually perform that skill and he will get better.
I found myself utilizing stealth kills and archery for the majority of my fights. Stealth remains mainly unchanged from Oblivion, the familiar “eye” is still present to represent when the player is hidden or seen.
The UI and HUD are simple, quick, and easy to use. No longer are the days of searching deep within the menu to find a certain spell or item. Bethesda cleaned up its act and made the menu as simple as it can be. You want a spell? Click to the left. You want to level up? Click up. It is simple and easy to understand, but even still, Bethesda has implemented a “favorite” section which is easily activated at any time, which can allow the player to quickly and seamlessly change gear, armor, weapons etc. on the fly.
