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Community The New World Design Poll #1: Assuming Control

Infinitron

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Tags: Iron Tower Studio; The New World; Vince D. Weller

Vault Dweller is looking for some input from the community. Since The New World is a party-based game, it's going to have larger battles than Age of Decadence did, especially when it comes to factional warfare. If you remember Adytum from Fallout, you know that turn-based battles involving large numbers of characters who aren't under your control can be painful. Vince has come up with a few solutions to this problem, but he'd like to know your opinion on the matter. Here's his explanation over at the Iron Tower Studio forums:

Now that we're slowly implementing things, different design issues start popping up, so we might as well discuss them openly and get some feedback.

Imagine a situation where you're helping a group of armed men (Jonas and his thugs) to attack another group of armed men (Braxton and his Regulators). Let's say that Braxton has less men but they're better armed and trained (aka quality) and Jonas has more men but they're poorly armed and trained thugs (aka quantity). Let's say 8 Regulators vs 12 thugs plus your party, so it's 8 vs 14-15 avg and the Regulators have the advantage of properly fortified headquarters.

If you control only your own party (which could be just you if you're playing solo) and you have to wait until 20 guys take turns shooting at each other, it will get boring very fast. We can reduce the Regulators to 4-5 and Jonas men to 5-6 but it won't solve the problem but make the fight less interesting. Thus it seems that the best solution is to let the player assume control over all allies and have a bit of fun, instead of waiting.

Basically, it's like attacking Antidas and his men in AoD but controlling not only your own characters but the Imperial Guards as well.

Let's take it a step further though:

To make it more manageable I think we should split the attackers in two waves (the first wave will soften up the Regulators and the second wave will go in for the kill) and let you control the first wave (the suicidal thugs destined to die) as well, trying to inflict as much damage as possible before your party and the remaining allies go in.

If you're having trouble visualizing the scenario, there was a somewhat similar situation in AoD in the thieves questline, where you recruit Rusty and some local scum, pump them full of drugs, and send them to soften up the assassins hiding in some house, before you finish them off. In AoD you're told of the outcome of this attack and then you go in. Imagine taking full control of Rusty and his crew and overseeing the attack personally. Basically, having fun instead of being told about other people having fun while you're waiting for your turn.

Other examples of such control would be attacking several targets simultaneously (your party attacks target #1, your allies attack target #2, then combine forces) or splitting your party to lead different groups.

I know that this design is definitely not for everyone, so we want to hear what you have to say before we start designing fights.
Do you want to control allies in combat? You can respond to the poll over there, or right here in our own Iron Tower Studio subforum.
 

*-*/\--/\~

Cipher
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So... I guess simultaneous actions of larger chunks of enemies are not possible? ;x
 
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All in all it comes down to whether the combat is enjoyable or not. If combats are boring and painful, controlling more NPCs will be a drag.
 

amurath

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Nov 2, 2006
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I only play turn-based games with the CheatEngine speedhack these days. 2x-5x game speed makes replaying Fallout, etc a lot more enjoyable when you don't have to watch hoboes shuffling along for several minutes at a time in the Den, for example. Personally, I'm fine with large-scale battles in RPGs even if you only control one character or a small party - for example, the Avernum series. I say make one control system for the game and use it throughout rather than switch between different systems for small scale and large scale combat encounters.
 

Iznaliu

Arbiter
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Apr 28, 2016
Messages
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Controlling allies kind of feels slightly disconcerting to me to be honest; it makes the game feel less like an RPG where the focus is on a single character or a party and more like some sort of ersatz tactical game.
 

deuxhero

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I like Temple of Elemental Evil's option to make enemies with adjacent initiative decide their actions at the same time and think it needs to be in just about every turn based game past a certain scale. In-game fast-forward option is also good.
 

tindrli

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i believe that controlling everybody is definitely a way to go over waiting 15 or even 6 AI do their things
 

tindrli

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thinking of it again if possible maybe joining 3 or four to one unit could make interesting choices with different skills and abilities and could make combat really interesting
 

Saduj

Arcane
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Aug 26, 2012
Messages
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I'm too turn-based autistic to be bored by NPCs/enemies trading blows while I wait. The big fight during the Kemnebi quest in AOD never bothered me, for example.
 

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