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

[Gangrelrumbler]

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.

The point is that there's no reason to stay in the safe spot and running to the enemy, since camping on the enemy's path and waiting for them to engage you is better since you can just wait for them to come to you. Then you can hit attack the monsters with your entire party before they have a chance to attack you since now they are the ones who need to prepare.

 

[theSavant]

I disagree. Always having to wait for enemies to come at you is annoying. While I did some combat in blobbers this way, I often ran up to them to engage them actively (think of trash mobs you want to get over with quickly). Also in blobbers you often run fast, and that means you run fast into enemies. And then it's bad, when you can't attack right away. Or when you run around the corner and - boom - there's enemy standing there (and you can't attack right away). Happens often enough in these mazes. Or another example is, when enemies having their backs turned at you, and you want to take advantage of this by running up and backstabbing them. Again, you can't because of the negative cooldowns.

 

[V_K]

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.

There's a principal difference here: negative cooldowns (which are basically automatic charge-ups) only trigger once, when you move into a square. If you stand still, they don't trigger anymore, so you can attack more often. They also don't have to be "hard" charge-ups; you could for example allow the player to attack before the charge-up has filled at a reduced accuracy/damage (and reset the cooldown in the process, so that they player wouldn't just suck up the penalty and continued dancing) and/or make such an attack use a lot more stamina.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

I disagree. Always having to wait for enemies to come at you is annoying. While I did some combat in blobbers this way, I often ran up to them to engage them actively (think of trash mobs you want to get over with quickly). Also in blobbers you often run fast, and that means you run fast into enemies. And then it's bad, when you can't attack right away. Or when you run around the corner and - boom - there's enemy standing there (and you can't attack right away). Happens often enough in these mazes. Or another example is, when enemies having their backs turned at you, and you want to take advantage of this by running up and backstabbing them. Again, you can't because of the negative cooldowns.

If your priority is to run through the dungeon as fast as possible and also dispose of monsters as fast as possible then there is no need to throw-away the combat dance since it actually supports this type of gameplay by forcing the payer to be more mobile.
Regarding the particular scenarios:
>Dealing with the shitmob: if it's a shitmob you can just bit the bullet and let them have the first strike, they will miss most of their attacks anyway. Waiting additional second or two wont significantly prolong the battle.
>Bumping into monsters: why would you run full-speed through the dungeon, you can run into monsters which sucks no matter if cooldowns are there or not, you can run into a trap which may potentially kill your entire party and you miss important the clues along the way.
>Backstabbing monsters: if the players are supposed to backstab the monsters they should be able to just dance as they please and be rewarded for skillful evasion with backstab opportunities. I was supposed to write that you can give thieves and such a special attack that can be executed without a cooldown, but then I realized that people would just roll a full thief part and run around the monsters as usual.

 

[V_K]

>Backstabbing monsters: if the players are supposed to backstab the monsters they should be able to just dance as they please and be rewarded for skillful evasion with backstab opportunities. I was supposed to write that you can give thieves and such a special attack that can be executed without a cooldown, but then I realized that people would just roll a full thief part and run around the monsters as usual.

Or you could just have a proper stealth system, where you actually have to approach the enemies undetected to backstab.

 

[Infinitron]

I suspect that historically the problem with some of these games has been that your characters were inherently fragile and you simply didn't have much ability to create a tank who could stand up and fight for long. I noticed that in Grimrock 2 my front-line characters seemed to be more durable than in the first game, although it's possible that I was playing the first game wrong.

 

[Darth Canoli]

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.

I think you're all missing the real point.

Why do players want to dance around in RT blobbers ?
Because the combat system is so terrible they'll try anything to ease that painful part, they're not here for the combat but for the loot/exploration/level-ups ...

That is if these parts are interesting enough; otherwise, there's no players at all.

 

[Serus]

Opinions?

Realtime blobbers are trash and their death won't be missed.

That's why the awswer has already been posted: make all blobbers turn based.

 

[theSavant]

then there is no need to throw-away the combat dance

Yeah. This is what I realized in #13, which is that any attempt to impede the player in his realtime actions would make him complain. Basically we have to leave realtime blobbers as they are.

 

[Nyast]

I think a simple solution would be to make the monster turn around itself faster than the player can 2-step around it. Unless the monster is very slow ( like a turtle ), there's no reason a monster would take more time to just turn around, than for the player to move by many meters. If the monster is facing you after you finish 2-stepping, it could attack you instantly, which would defeat the purpose of 2-step dancing.

 

[luj1]

If you're gonna play a realtime blobber the point is to dance and test *player* skill. IF that's your thing.

So this accomplishes nothing, you're putting unnecessary hindrances on player skill. Either choose a TB blobber or leave it as is.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

I think you're all missing the real point.
Why do players want to dance around in RT blobbers ?
Because the combat system is so terrible they'll try anything to ease that painful part, they're not here for the combat but for the loot/exploration/level-ups ...
That is if these parts are interesting enough; otherwise, there's no players at all.

I do it because it works. In fact this is the first thing I try in every game game with FPS melee combat. You don't have to hate the game to dance around enemies. It's basic logic? How do I stay alive? By avoiding getting hit by the enemy. How do I do that? By not standing directly in front of them when he's doing his attack animation.

Yeah. This is what I realized in #13, which is that any attempt to impede the player in his realtime actions would make him complain. Basically we have to leave realtime blobbers as they are.

If you want blobers to not impede players realtime actions then you should throw the entire genre in the garbage bin and make normal action RPGs like Ultima Underworld did. Since being a blob and having to walk full squares are also arbitrary restrictions.

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

The problem is boring combat, not dancing. Dancing adds some spice to the combat in what is otherwise be a simple algorithm of clicking all the attacks and than waiting for them to go off cool down so you can do it all over again.
There are many ways to change the game so that dancing won't happen (stamina is the easiest one), but that doesn't solve the boring combat problem. Instead you fight against the player's utilizing the few mechanics that are unique to the game (real time grid based movement), and add nothing in return. That's not how you improve a game. To solve it you either need to remove the mechanics that make the game boring, or embrace them and push them further until they are interesting:

1. Embrace dancing as the main combat mechanic. Make the movement patterns dictate the attacks the party unleashes, so that if you move in a straight line forward you get one attack, while moving in a zigzag results in a spell. Items / skills dictate patterns.

2. Change combat to be more like a rhythm game with complex attacks patterns that grow in strength. The problem right now is that players don't have any reason not blow everything in one second and then start dancing until they have everything off cool down. Changing it to be like a rhythm game with patterns that take time to execute would mean that dancing becomes more integrated into the combat. Do I complete a pattern for a strong attack or do I take cover? Should I try to take cover mid pattern and risk messing it up?

3. Embrace real time combat by emulating action games, where you bait the enemy to attack and than circle it and attack it from the back. Give monsters complex attack patterns that require the player to dance to avoid them. I don't like this solution because once you do that you might as well play an actual action game. Some games did this, but it never worked and doesn't utilize the grid in a meaningful way.

4. Make it about stealth instead of pure combat. I think this has the most potential, if only because very few games use grid based stealth, and stealth benefits from a real time component.

5. Remove the real time combat and go for turn based.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Might and Magic VI to VIII tried to do something like that (make the combat more actiony), but in the end the game was balanced around the turn-based mode and the real time combat was only used for wiping easy opponents and making a quick escape. However a similar game balanced around a real-time combat could also be made.