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Real-time grid-based dungeon blobbers - a solution to the 'dance' problem found?

Unkillable Cat

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The ultimate desire for role-playing games has always been to be as immersive as possible. The first-person perspective, the steps towards full and free movement within a 3D environment, the pursuit of real-time interactions, improved graphics and sound, the constantly shrinking UI and the ever-growing viewscreen, all these and more are all part of the 'immershun'. Due to technological limitations CRPGs had to contend with temporary solutions or scaled-down approaches to try to find alternate ways towards the goal, but as computer hardware and software have strengthened, the goal has steadily gotten closer.

But the steps towards that goal have been interesting, to say the least. Abstract game design meeting ingenious workarounds have created some very enjoyable RPGs along the way. One of the sub-(sub)-genres is the one best known as 'real-time grid-based dungeon blobbers'. They're best described by naming the games that count amongst them: Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Bloodwych, Captive, Lands of Lore (1), Hired Guns, Stonekeep, Anvil of Dawn, Legend of Grimrock, Vaporum and many more. They offer a desirable experience because they give players the feeling of both 'being there' and them doing in-game things themselves. Your character isn't pushing that button, you are as you click on it with the mouse. The player decides the flow and pace of the battle, not the game, and its outcome is determined by the player's reflexes. Even the description below will demonstrate this as I keep talking of the player performing in-game actions, and not the game character(s).

But these games all come with a downside: When dealing with monsters there's a simple method of making combat almost a breeze... The Sidestep Mambo. A quick and clever player would abuse a 2x2 space of squares to constantly keep circling about to prevent monsters from attacking, while constantly raining down attacks upon them. (A variation of this was the Backstep Mambo, where the player constantly moves backwards through a hallway, denying the monster its opportunity to attack.) This made most combat encounters very trivial (which is a shame since 95% of these game revolve entirely around killing monsters in grid-based dungeons) but clever developers have been trying to counter this since at least 1991, with varied results. Short of making the monsters smarter and have them use specialized counter-attacks against the Mambo, none of the other methods have really worked... except that hyper-fast monster in Captive that could keep up with even the fastest players, but the challenge it presented is just too high and therefore only suitable for the endgame.

One of the attempted solutions (especially in recent years) is to pin down the player somehow, either by penalizing him for moving out of the square he currently occupies, or outright denying him the option of leaving it until combat has been fully resolved. The former approach can work if done properly, but the latter one only shows that the responsible dev completely misses the point of these games: The immersion factor.

I was thinking about something else entirely when a possible solution to this popped up in my head: What if a player can't move from a square until all of the player's weapon (and spell) cooldown timers have run down? I pondered this a bit and found it to be too restrictive to the movement, and then came to an even better solution: What if the cooldown timer doesn't run down unless the player stands still? These games have had weapon cooldown timers since the start, so why not put them to better use?

The best way to implement this would be to force the player to stand in the same square for at least a second before cooldown timers start running down. This means that the Sidestep Mambo is still possible, but the player will either be making themselves more vulnerable to attacks by having to stand still before making another attack, or be forced to use a larger space to 'dance' in to give them time to recover before the monster reaches them. At the very least this eliminates the usage of 2x2 squares for Sidestep Mambos, I'd reckon.

Opinions?
 

V_K

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What if the cooldown timer doesn't run down unless the player stands still?
Arguably, this would just draw the battles out. Instead of 2x2 dance, you'll be getting 8x8 dance.
I think LoG2 made some steps in the right directions by a) introducing some enemies with irregular attack patterns and b) introducing special attacks which require a charge-up. Generally, I think if you replace cooldowns with charge-ups, the party would be forced to take some hits anyway, problem solved.
 

Dorateen

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Fall of the Dungeon Guardians is real time that allows the player to pause during combat.

Demise:Ascension also included the option for tactical pause in an environment where the action plays out in real time and the player is otherwise free to move about at will.
 

Viata

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If anything, the best solution would be to make monsters being able to hit you on diagonal or make them insta-attack as soon as you get near them(aka attack of oppurtunity, as said above). Obviously, different monster will have different AoO and if they are in group, you can expand it and so on.
 

d1nolore

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As said above; side stepping around an enermy gives them an attack of opportunity.
 
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theSavant

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What if the cooldown timer doesn't run down unless the player stands still?

This could actually work and be one of the best solutions.

Pausing the cooldown also makes sense, because when the player is running around he cannot make himself battle-ready at the same time. He has to catch breath first to be battle-ready again.

Trying to "dance around" would delay the cooldown so much, players would give up on this tactic. The only reason to move would be to flee the battle - just as it's supposed to be.
 
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theSavant

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Arguably, this would just draw the battles out. Instead of 2x2 dance, you'll be getting 8x8 dance.

I thought about this as well, but think about this:

There's this cooldown... and whenever you step around, the running cooldown itself will be paused again. And the cooldown only continues when standing still. So when you move around from square to square the cooldown has a hard time to actually finish cooling down. This would make stepping around almost useless - or at least so annoying you'll automatically prefer to "stand ground" in combat.
 
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V_K

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Arguably, this would just draw the battles out. Instead of 2x2 dance, you'll be getting 8x8 dance.

I thought about this as well, but when it's done the following way it could work:

There's this cooldown... and whenever you step around, the running cooldown itself has to be paused as well. And the cooldown only continues when standing still. So when you move around from square to square the cooldown has a hard time to actually finish cooling down. This would make stepping around almost useless - or at least so annoying you automatically decide to "stand ground" in combat.
The 2-step dance basically works only if the party is faster than the monsters. And if that is the case, nothing's stopping the party from running 8 squares away, hide in some nook, and wait there for the cooldown to end. It inconveniences the dancing, sure, but it doesn't make it impossible - and such solutions are almost universally hated. The players will still dance, but then they will get on the forums or Steam reviews and complain endlessly about how combat sucks in the game. And they will actually be right, because it doesn't make combat mechanics deeper or more interesting - the dancing is still the best tactic to use, you just have to put up with more annoyances now.

Though to be completely and honest, I really don't understand why the RT blobbers get singled out for this dancing when kiting/hit-and-run tactics is a cornerstone of every single real-time RPG except the ones where enemies die too fast for it to be useful. In Souls-likes you have rolling, in DM-likes you have 2-step dancing, and I'll never be able to comprehend why one is considered a paragon of action-RPG combat, while the other, a problem.
 

Whisper

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Grimrock 2 solved "square dance" problem. You cant 2-step anyone reliably except slowest enemies (but this is intended for them).
 
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theSavant

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nothing's stopping the party from running 8 squares away, hide in some nook, and wait there for the cooldown to end. It inconveniences the dancing, sure, but it doesn't make it impossible - and such solutions are almost universally hated. The players will still dance, but then they will get on the forums or Steam reviews and complain endlessly about how combat sucks in the game.

Though to be completely and honest, I really don't understand why the RT blobbers get singled out for this dancing when kiting/hit-and-run tactics is a cornerstone of every single real-time RPG except the ones where enemies die too fast for it to be useful. In Souls-likes you have rolling, in DM-likes you have 2-step dancing, and I'll never be able to comprehend why one is considered a paragon of action-RPG combat, while the other, a problem.

Ah ok... I get it. When a game is played in realtime, playyers naturally want to act in realtime, which includes dancing around to their advantage. Any way of impeding this will make them complain. That seriously makes me doubt, if there's any solution at all. Maybe dancing around should indeed be accepted as a feature. And it's true, that moving around is performed in every other realtime RPG as well.
 
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V_K

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Any way of impeding this will make them complain.
Not necessarily. But the problem with what Unkillable Cat proposes is that it only affects how long it takes to execute the dance. In terms of resource management or attack efficiency, dancing remains the best strategy - it's just made more inconvenient. If 2-step dance is to be properly impeded, the penalty should be mechanical, like depleting some sort of resource. Or, alternatively we could think of giving the player incentive to stand in one place instead - like giving a damage bonus of uninterrupted chain of attacks or something.
 

Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
In Souls-likes you have rolling, in DM-likes you have 2-step dancing, and I'll never be able to comprehend why one is considered a paragon of action-RPG combat, while the other, a problem.
The former is usually somewhat challenging, the latter usually isn't.

Citation: I often find it challenging to fight a single solitary Dark Souls enemy, but that's not usually the case with enemies that can be square-danced around in RT blobbers. Hand on heart.
 
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Unkillable Cat

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I get the feeling most of the people replying didn't read the last paragraph of the opening post.

Attack of oppurtunity?

It's been done in various ways through the years, most of them badly. The fishmen in Legend of Grimrock 2 would do a jump-attack at you if you backed away from them, for example. (Most people didn't notice this because the fishmen are such weak enemies that people normally didn't bother dancing with them.) The outright worst one gave every monster a free attack with bonus damage against the player if he tried to move out of combat with them (can't remember the name of the title, but it was something released 2015+).

Fall of the Dungeon Guardians is real time that allows the player to pause during combat.

Demise:Ascension also included the option for tactical pause in an environment where the action plays out in real time and the player is otherwise free to move about at will.

That's not real-time, that's turn-based sailing under a false flag. A surprising amount of turn-based RPGs have pulled shenanigans through the years to pretend to be real-time.

What if the cooldown timer doesn't run down unless the player stands still?
Arguably, this would just draw the battles out. Instead of 2x2 dance, you'll be getting 8x8 dance.

The suggestion that I put forth on how to best implement my idea outright eliminates the worst form(s) of Sidestep Mambo, but nothing is ever gonna stop a munchkin player from abusing the game mechanics. The trick is to balance the game and monsters so that the Mambo is not considered the best (or only) solution. When fighting Ogres and Juggernauts in Grimrock it was a very bad idea to stand still as they would come charging at you, but it was a good idea to sidestep them as they charged past, and bonus points if you got an attack or two in while they did so.

I think LoG2 made some steps in the right directions by a) introducing some enemies with irregular attack patterns and b) introducing special attacks which require a charge-up.

Legend of Grimrock (2) took some very creative steps towards trying to stop the Mambo, but they did not succeed. In fact they outright encouraged it by having monsters that kill you really quickly if you stand still in front of them (Legionaires and Ratmen early on, Wights towards the endgame). Most of their ideas are also just variations on the basic Mambo counter that first appeared in Eye of the Beholder 2 in 1991 - allowing the monsters to sidestep as well.

Generally, I think if you replace cooldowns with charge-ups, the party would be forced to take some hits anyway, problem solved.

No - you do both. Cooldowns and charge-ups. Make those special attacks special.
 

ManuTOO

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What if the cooldown timer doesn't run down unless the player stands still?

The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians (my game), released in 2015, resets the attack casts when moving, but only for the spells & ranged attacks (ie: not for the melee attacks).

Moreover, the enemies do no stop after each square moved nor after have turned, and thus follow you nearly instantly, plus they can hit you while running and can range-attack diagonally, so dance-square is mostly useless.


That's not real-time, that's turn-based sailing under a false flag. A surprising amount of turn-based RPGs have pulled shenanigans through the years to pretend to be real-time.

In lower difficulty levels, you can play without pausing the game, making it 100% real-time (or you can slow down the time a bit if it's too fast for you :) ).

And globally the engine isn't based on turns, but on continuous-time & cooldowns. However, there's an optional helper that feels like a simultaneous turn mode.
 
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AdolfSatan

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The solution is getting rid of the grid altogether, there are no hardware restrictions to justify them on RT combat anymore.

Also, why would you ever play RT blobbers to begin with
 
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The problem with players running away, waiting for the cooldown to end and getting back can be easily solved. Instead of stopping cooldown for movement add negative cooldown after movement. After moving around the party needs to "ready their weapons" or "get into positions" or something which means that they can start attacking after 1-2 seconds of standing still. That means that it will be more beneficial to find a good spot and wait for monsters to come rather than dance around them.
 
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As the dev posted above, I don't remember fall of the dungeon guardians having this problem. It has been a while since I played, so I can't remember exactly why it didn't.
 
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theSavant

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add negative cooldown after movement. After moving around the party needs to "ready their weapons" or "get into positions" or something which means that they can start attacking after 1-2 seconds of standing still.

That's even worse than paused cooldowns, because it already happens when first engaging an enemy:

-> Negative cooldowns: You stay in a safe spot, then run to an enemy - but because of the negative cooldown have to wait 1-2 seconds before even doing an attack. People would complain about why they have to wait.

-> Paused cooldowns: You can stay in a safe spot until all cooldowns are finished, then run to an enemy and immediately attack.
 

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