Hard RPG combat

[someone else]

Epic combat:
From Order Of The Stick:
#456 titled 'Saved Game'

Link if image doesn't work: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html
Redcloak saved game of course.

 

[betamin]

The only difficulty should come from using brian to develop a strategy or tactic, fighting against %s suck, I heavily dislike games where it all twists around chance of success even with the best strategy (like in battle of wesnoth, where you could be at the best position you could have and your chances would be 70%). Dungeon Crawl is successfull because its a game about escaping and not about fighting for the most part (if you want to be really efficient as a player); combat, like Porka said, is just a piece of the whole game, and it all dances together (especially because of the perma death).

 

[circ]

For example, there is a reasonable case to be made that part of the reason JA2 was even better than X-com was because of the increased RPG elements. And considering how good X-com was that's an achievement.

Vanilla JA2 is grossly inferior to X-Com; 1.13 is maybe arguable just because of huge interface improvements. And the stuff that is clearly wrong in X-Com (AI, goofy mechanics like Psi, goofy sighting mechanics in general, interface and feedback) has nothing to do with RPGs.

Are we talking about combat or something else? Because I'm not sure how you consider dropping some bases here and there and then heading out to kill aliens in samey locations with an interface that has a slight case of consolitis and with a squad with no personality that initially get their asses literally blown off - superior to better LOS handling, day and night cycles, mercs with lots of personality, uniqueish maps, lots of armament options, and I could go on for a page or so. Grossy inferior because there's no pew pew? What the fuck.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Are you thinking of a certain well liked game, Mighty Mouse? The answer ( ) is so clear I can't help but think you're gonna pull an All Quiet in the Fereldian Front

 

[Mastermind]

The only difficulty should come from using brian to develop a strategy or tactic,

i don't want this brian developing strategies or tactics for me, that's popamole shit. i'd rather do it myself.

 

[Zomg]

[Are we talking about combat or something else? Because I'm not sure how you consider dropping some bases here and there and then heading out to kill aliens in samey locations with an interface that has a slight case of consolitis and with a squad with no personality that initially get their asses literally blown off - superior to better LOS handling, day and night cycles, mercs with lots of personality, uniqueish maps, lots of armament options, and I could go on for a page or so. Grossy inferior because there's no pew pew? What the fuck.

No faggy quests or incredibly unfunny humor ("personality" is your word I guess), disposable tactical troops that are defined by equipment instead of another terrible RPG party where the most important stat is "level", better strategic layer, quasi-emergent situations with meaningful terrain destruction instead of canned maps, etc. If you aren't looking for gun porn JA2 drops in attraction precipitously - accept that's what it's mostly about. Look at the most obvious and work-intensive game effect of the 1.13 mod made by players that love the game: about twenty times as many guns and gun accessories. And do you really care about parallel rules for AI and player sighting mechanics? It's an easy one player game. The AI will always just flop around pathetically either way.

 

[Daemongar]

Picture this:
The hero is facing a opponent of equal stats.
Both have 10HP, with 50% chance of each winning initiative.
They can attack with a 80% chance to-hit and can do 5-10 points of damage each.

And why exactly the stats are equal? Does every opponent the hero meets mirrors his stats? If so, it is indeed
Stat based combat can be fun as long as player can tinker with hero's stats.

This, and also, a central part of RPGs is mitigating the potential of failure. You quest, buy/sell/trade, and fight to improve your stuff. These are all elements to improve the game and add more to the game. You buy armor that is +10 vs. thrust, and give it up to the oponents with slash, because what you have learned so far is that opponents with thrust are more common.

Maybe I'm missing something, but what game exactly has combat as simplistic as referenced in the OP?

 

[Johnny the Mule]

[Are we talking about combat or something else? Because I'm not sure how you consider dropping some bases here and there and then heading out to kill aliens in samey locations with an interface that has a slight case of consolitis and with a squad with no personality that initially get their asses literally blown off - superior to better LOS handling, day and night cycles, mercs with lots of personality, uniqueish maps, lots of armament options, and I could go on for a page or so. Grossy inferior because there's no pew pew? What the fuck.

No faggy quests or incredibly unfunny humor ("personality" is your word I guess), disposable tactical troops that are defined by equipment instead of another terrible RPG party where the most important stat is "level", better strategic layer, quasi-emergent situations with meaningful terrain destruction instead of canned maps, etc. If you aren't looking for gun porn JA2 drops in attraction precipitously - accept that's what it's mostly about. Look at the most obvious and work-intensive game effect of the 1.13 mod made by players that love the game: about twenty times as many guns and gun accessories. And do you really care about parallel rules for AI and player sighting mechanics? It's an easy one player game. The AI will always just flop around pathetically either way.

Another intersting thing to note is that the AI in XCOM just does random movement or "camps" till they spot you. You have to go get them. The "advanced" AI in JA2 is actually worse in practice since it reacts to your sounds etc and comes looking while you are camping...
In addition to that XCOM throws at you infecting melee units with a big range.

 

[someone else]

Maybe I'm missing something, but what game exactly has combat as simplistic as referenced in the OP?

No, most games have odds that favour the player. As for stats, you can assume that is the best or average the player can do, the rest is up to the random number generator and saving and reloading. Even if you make percentages rise by 10% or 20% you are still going to rely on the RNG. One of the things I'm emphasizing is the low room for failure, lost a roll once or twice and you have to reload. Think of it as 5 HP level 1 fighters swinging at each other, or a bunch of high level clerics playing save vs death with no immunity, or X-Com troopers playing initiative and accuracy (yeah X-Com isn't an RPG, but how about Hammer & Sickle) or fighting mechas with instant-death weapons in Gearhead.

I was also thinking of creating a game with simple combat.

 

[Darth Roxor]

No faggy quests or incredibly unfunny humor ("personality" is your word I guess), disposable tactical troops that are defined by equipment instead of another terrible RPG party where the most important stat is "level", better strategic layer, quasi-emergent situations with meaningful terrain destruction instead of canned maps, etc.

Most important stat is 'level', you gotta be shitting me.

And yes, JA2 is in many ways superior to x-com. How about a functional line of sight/weapon range, that disallows supersnipers hitting an alien across the whole map with a plasma pistol? How about actual grenade variety, with frag, smoke, mustard, tear and stun grenades, as opposed to just frag + (useless) smoke? Or does that only count as 'gunporn'? Not to mention actual grenade launchers to hurl them farther than 5 metres.

How about actually working cover mechanisms? Place a merc behind a chest-high wall, and unless he gets fired upon with explosives, his chances of survival are raised dramatically. Place an x-com trooper behind a tree, and you might as well just place him in open field because it doesn't mean shit. The lack of IDDQD-mode superweapons of x-com (blaster launcher, psi) is also to JA2's benefit, as the big guns are faulty and unreliable (LAW, mortar) or rare as shit (rocket rifle).

How about superior AI that knows how to use suppressive fire, hurl grenades when they are the most needed, hide behind cover and not waste turns psi-attacking the same weapon-less soldier over and over again? How about actual map exploration to find new mercs, gear, vehicles and other stuff?

No idea what are those 'quasi-emergent situations' are, and quoting 'meaningful terrain destruction' as x-com's obvious superiority, confirms you've never made any use of explosives in JA2 (but who needs those when all you need is level, amirite).

The "advanced" AI in JA2 is actually worse in practice since it reacts to your sounds etc and comes looking while you are camping...

Not true. Having played JA2 again lately, there were quite many situations where the AI would just camp mercilessly inside an entrenched house, for example, and would refuse to leave at all costs.

 

[Johnny the Mule]

^ I dont wanna argue about it since both games are shitty larping simulators I personally dont give two fucks about but I prefer the erratic and unpredictable xcom crap ai to the crappy predictable ai in ja2. But you are right, I remember now that happening to me, one time only though, where a redshirt just sat in a building and stared at the door.

 

[MikeJahn]

Actually in JA2 on maps with good camping spots the AI does camp and it is a bitch to smoke them out.

Examples: Cambria AA gun station and Alma barracks/recruitment building

 

[someone else]

JA2 Unfinished Business do have frustrating campers, JA2 Gold does have improve AI.

 

[Jaesun]

Pools of Darkness.

I win the thread.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Actually in JA2 on maps with good camping spots the AI does camp and it is a bitch to smoke them out.

Examples: Cambria AA gun station and Alma barracks/recruitment building

And that's why you go blow walls open with RDX instead of charging headfirst

 

[Zomg]

Most important stat is 'level', you gotta be shitting me.

It is. Level is used in a ton of hidden calculations (like how much AP you get for example) and it's the single most important stat by far barring the people with like 20 marksmanship that can't spam headshots (talking about vanilla).

And yes, JA2 is in many ways superior to x-com.

I don't really think X-Com is unambiguously better, but Porka Morka stated as fact that JA2>X-Com so I wanted to do a Hegelian dialectic thing.

How about a functional line of sight/weapon range, that disallows supersnipers hitting an alien across the whole map with a plasma pistol? How about actual grenade variety, with frag, smoke, mustard, tear and stun grenades, as opposed to just frag + (useless) smoke? Or does that only count as 'gunporn'? Not to mention actual grenade launchers to hurl them farther than 5 metres.

Smoke grenades aren't just useful in X-com, they're extremely powerful and key. They cut sight range, and just like in JA2 manipulating sight range is the most powerful thing in the game - JA2 just has easier tools to do it and you can get a hard advantage in sight range over the AI with binoculars, scopes, NVG, etc. In X-Com you have equal sight range at best, half or so at worst.

I don't much use mustard and tear in JA2 but I haven't played vanilla in forever. In the last 1.13 I played they mostly just slow down the "wait out the mad rush of 50 enemies and reinforcements you mow down with your tweaked out guns" phase of a map, and most of the elites have masks. Explosive grenades I only use when the AI packs ten dudes in tight.

How about actually working cover mechanisms? Place a merc behind a chest-high wall, and unless he gets fired upon with explosives, his chances of survival are raised dramatically. Place an x-com trooper behind a tree, and you might as well just place him in open field because it doesn't mean shit. The lack of IDDQD-mode superweapons of x-com (blaster launcher, psi) is also to JA2's benefit, as the big guns are faulty and unreliable (LAW, mortar) or rare as shit (rocket rifle).

Mortar is just as retarded as blaster bombs, and they both come in the silly lame endgame mechanics phase of either game. And alien blaster bombers are horribly dangerous in X-Com as a bonus, I think the AI in JA2 (again I can't remember vanilla too well) just seems not to use them more than 1/20 opportunities even when they could easily throw one from the other end of the map.

How about superior AI that knows how to use suppressive fire, hurl grenades when they are the most needed, hide behind cover and not waste turns psi-attacking the same weapon-less soldier over and over again? How about actual map exploration to find new mercs, gear, vehicles and other stuff?

Superior AI that knows how to use suppressive fire and hurl grenades usefully huh? Suppression was broken in vanilla, the HAM suppression thing makes them use it much better though. And at least in the last version of 1.13 I played they still love to throw a normal smoke grenade on your dude they have dead to rights to accidentally save him.

No idea what are those 'quasi-emergent situations' are, and quoting 'meaningful terrain destruction' as x-com's obvious superiority, confirms you've never made any use of explosives in JA2 (but who needs those when all you need is level, amirite).

Emergent situations like having one of the map tiles in a terror mission be a three-level building that cuts the lines of sight/fire in the level for example, or hills in jungle maps etc. Or base design. JA2 hardly even does stuff that sophisticated with premade maps, just the same 1-floor shacks and flat ground everywhere. And that's a lot of the reason why terrain destruction doesn't matter in JA2 - I mostly just use it to "beat" ambushes that I memorized from previous games, like the last dude that's always waiting to machine gun the first person that comes through a door in the Cambria hospital or the central AAA spot.

Actually in JA2 on maps with good camping spots the AI does camp and it is a bitch to smoke them out.

The worst one in the entire game is that triangle of trees in some farmland on the road west of Cambria, that guy is very hidden and his LOS is pretty short so he only reacts when you step right in front of him. Then he always gets first turn and unloads all his AP in a full auto burst to hamburgerize one dude. I might be able to name the ten or so deadly ass camping spots in the game if I thought about it.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Properly done 'simple' combat, like what is seen in blobbers, is more about resource management overthe course of the dungeon than individually surviving fights. Jrpgs tend to fail this because they A: Give you a nigh unlimited supply of healing items at trivial cost, making resource management irrelevant, and B: Forewarn you about every significant obstacle, including the boss, so you never entire a battle unprepared. Oh and C: Let you save inside fucking dungeons, usually right before the boss.

Although you can say the RNG is a factor within a single 3-4 round fight, a boss fight is usually 10-30 rounds, which makes the RNG factor a lot less important, barring stupid AI routines (5% chance to cast a spell that really rapes the party each turn) and if the odds are stacked in your favour enough to expect you to slog through 15-20 fights before reaching the boss, again, the RNG there isn't relevant, how effectively you rationed your spells and chose your party/equipment will determine whether you've got enough gas left for a big fight.

Obviously excluding movement from the equations reduces battle tactics somewhat, but movement itself isn't some holy grail of tactical amazement. Sometimes you get shit like stabbing a radscorpion with a stick then walking backward further than it can follow. Or a dozen poorly armed morons shuffling from perfect headshot kill range to.... slightly closer perfect headshot kill range. The tradeoff for not having movement is that battles go faster (Both for not wasting time moving and for faster selection of targets), which means you can have more trivial battles without aggravating the player, allowing attrition to be a factor. Elimination of attrition from the equation only works if the battles are long enough for attrition to occur within them, which is difficult to pull off without expendable party members. And having assloads of trivial fights to cause attrition in a game that requires tactical movement and micromanagement (I.E. infinity engine games) results in very horrible tedious combat against umpteen kobolds every third corridor. Obviously it lets you have better 'important' fights, but it isn't strictly better in all cases. If I'm going to wipe out 20 kobolds with a volley of arrows while suffering trivial damage because I built my party to efficient deal with such encounters, I'd prefer to do it in 10 seconds, not 200 as I search through every kobold to find the casters and prioritze them and the ones closing to melee range and keep everyone moving the right way... all to save a few hp that might matter when I run into the damned trolls later on.

 

[MikeJahn]

Actually in JA2 on maps with good camping spots the AI does camp and it is a bitch to smoke them out.

Examples: Cambria AA gun station and Alma barracks/recruitment building

And that's why you go blow walls open with RDX instead of charging headfirst

One of the great things about JA2 is that there are some actual choices. Using the explosive might be a good way to get to them but if you want to use the building for a last stand later you just made it harder to defend. You can also gain entry through a smoke/flashbang or you can simply suit a merc up with EOD and charge forth.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Challenging by the conventional definition, but in reality just tedious and boring. Not fun. Like Dragon Age.

Thats if you dont take advantage of the balance issues