Editorial Gareth Davies - Treatise on Combat to Pink Floyd

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Gareth Davies; Micro Forte

Gareth Davies, aka Section8, an artist/designer at Micro Forte has well as an instructor at The Academy of Interactive Entertainment, has written up a rather interesting and lengthy summary of the combat systems employed by CRPGs.

No matter what type of Role-Playing Game (RPG) you are playing, you can be 95% sure it involves killing things. Many so called RPGs provide no gameplay beyond hacking away and leaving swaths of dead monsters, sans any material possessions, and others might allow you to avoid combat situations altogether. However regardless of design philosophies, combat usually comprises the core gameplay, and so it's essential that it is well thought out and executed, but more importantly it has to be enjoyable and challenging for the player.​

Thanks heaps, Gareth! I hope you didn't wear out your keyboard on it!

 

[Chadeo]

If we judge a book by the quality of reading it provides, then we should judge a game by the quality of interactivity it provides.

Great article, and a great quote. In fact I think this is why many real time games seem so dull while others are a blast.

In BG and clones, combat is dull for me because I spend the vast majority of my time waiting for things to finish happening. This is one reason why I play spell casters in these games, at least then I am making a choice (even a simple one) most every "round".

In diablo and clones I do not have to wait for things to get done that much. I can not just say "attack" and sit back and watch. I have to say "attack, attack, attack, move, attack, etc”. It just feels like I am actually interacting with the game, not sitting back and watching combat.

I need to spend some more time thinking over your "we-go" idea, but it does sound like it has a lot of promise.

All in all a wonderfully detailed, and very enjoyable article. Double thumbs up!

 

[JJ86]

Most excellent treatise S8! I especially like the concepts of 'phase-based' combat. I guess an added problem with TB is that you have nothing happening to you as your turn progresses. Each combatants turn is separate which gives a feeling of detachment from the action.

My concept of a phase-based system is similar that you can set up your actions while time is frozen. You choose as many shots you want to take or how far you want to run/walk. Also whether you want to run zig-zag, shoot while running to lay down cover fire or whatever combination of actions you'd like. Then when you hit <enter> to play the turn you have defined, the computer will respond and move the enemies to counter those actions. At any time you can stop the action to revise the battle plan based on changing conditions. Perhaps you can set up some AI responses for your character to handle varying circumstances as in Fallout's NPC controls. This way you will have to confront immediate responses to your combat strategies. Real combat situations such as cover fire and taking advantage of cover can be accounted for. HTH and melee can be handled by defining a ruleset for your character's actions and then playing it out without human control. For example, left-feint-left-left-kick and run for cover if HP is less than 20.

Maybe to counter the "pause every second" possibility, you can set the rule for minimum turn-length as 5 seconds or some such limit. There wouldn't be a problem with 2 characters occupying the same space because you have mapped out your move beforehand and the computer responds to that mapped set of actions. You should be able to choose varying movement speeds for your character to take advantage of his agility if it is higher so he can outrun slower enemies if need be. He can run a fast zig-zag to lessen the chances of getting hit by a low-perception but heavily gunned enemy.

I think it offers so much more than the turn-based play of pnp and Fallout yet still maintains a strategic control over the combat.

 

[Rosh]

JJ86, what you describe is just about the nearly non-interactivity of the Inbred Engine's style of combat. You just set things up and watch as it happens, depending upon scripts you can modify and what actions you tell it to do. "Autopilot combat" is boring as hell, because you don't have any direct control over it.

I'd also invite you to do some perusal of Prelude to Darkness' style of TB combat.

 

[Section8]

The TB combat in Prelude to Darkness is good. I like the re-evaluation of sequence/initiative after every turn. In fact, I think it would even be quite viable for multiplayer, something I didn't want to get into with this article, but it definitely keeps periods of non-interaction short and sweet.

 

[Chadeo]

As long as we are bringing up cool TBS styles, how about the old x-com style? You only saw movement that was close to you, and there was the ability to take shots of opportunity during the other guys turn. Not sure how well this would work in a fantasy setting with hand-to-hand combat, but in a modern setting it seemed to work great.

 

[JJ86]

JJ86, what you describe is just about the nearly non-interactivity of the Inbred Engine's style of combat. You just set things up and watch as it happens, depending upon scripts you can modify and what actions you tell it to do. "Autopilot combat" is boring as hell, because you don't have any direct control over it.

I'd also invite you to do some perusal of Prelude to Darkness' style of TB combat.

Yet in Fallout that is exactly what you do as soon as your turn is up and you wait for up to a dozen enemies to take their turns. You just sit and watch them chew your PC up or just make ineffective shots. As Gareth pointed out, with the computer being able to handle more control of the enemy characters than a human GM could, it is pointless to watch the computer go through the paces. You may as well watch it happen in real time to make it more realistic.

I think that you could have as much control as with TB and maybe even more. There are only a few options in combat; fight or run. With this method you can do either just as effectively. You can choose weapons, targets, movements, or a combination to put in a simplistic script or even in a simpler graphical interface. It could be as simple as drawing a freeform line to designate your path and dots on that line to represent points where you do an action. Very similar to the NPC triggers that you can do with the FOT editor. And at any point during the RT combat if the situation evolves differently you can stop to re-evaluate and edit your strategy.

Next week I should be getting DSL hooked up so I will download Prelude to Darkness then.

 

[Rosh]

Yet in Fallout that is exactly what you do as soon as your turn is up and you wait for up to a dozen enemies to take their turns. You just sit and watch them chew your PC up or just make ineffective shots.

Not, it isn't and might I suggest Ritalin if your attention span is that short?

As Gareth pointed out, with the computer being able to handle more control of the enemy characters than a human GM could, it is pointless to watch the computer go through the paces. You may as well watch it happen in real time to make it more realistic.

Oh, damn...not the "more realistic" dreck again. Most TB games have an enemy speed slider you can use. I suggest you use it.

I think that you could have as much control as with TB and maybe even more. There are only a few options in combat; fight or run. With this method you can do either just as effectively. You can choose weapons, targets, movements, or a combination to put in a simplistic script or even in a simpler graphical interface. It could be as simple as drawing a freeform line to designate your path and dots on that line to represent points where you do an action. Very similar to the NPC triggers that you can do with the FOT editor. And at any point during the RT combat if the situation evolves differently you can stop to re-evaluate and edit your strategy.

There is a difference between doing the actions and watching it go on autopilot. Yes, you can plot it all out, which is what I was saying before, yet your method isn't too much different from the Inbred Engine (in fact, it could be considered a clone of it), except that you could pre-queue actions. You're still going to be pretty much pausing and setting the actions, then sitting back and watching as things go along, rather than taking a more involved role. You can put in specifications on what to do when in the AI script in the IE games. It would still feel a lot more like a slideshow RTS game than something you're more involved in. Hence, why JA2's style of combat is still favored by a lot of people, as opposed to "pause, click, unpause, and watch".

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The TB combat in Prelude to Darkness is good. I like the re-evaluation of sequence/initiative after every turn. In fact, I think it would even be quite viable for multiplayer, something I didn't want to get into with this article, but it definitely keeps periods of non-interaction short and sweet.

That's okay, Gareth. If you want to write another one, I'm sure we have enough disk space for it. :D

 

[Spazmo]

As long as we are bringing up cool TBS styles, how about the old x-com style? You only saw movement that was close to you, and there was the ability to take shots of opportunity during the other guys turn. Not sure how well this would work in a fantasy setting with hand-to-hand combat, but in a modern setting it seemed to work great.

D&D 3E has pretty detailed rules for Attacks of Opportunity, and they work pretty well. Essentially, if someone within melee range moves in front of you or does something that would provoke an attack of opportunity (i.e., cast a spell), you get one extra melee attack.

 

[Ap_Jolly]

Action points! Talk about action points and how they they ruined urban warfare in Fallout!

No more action points in TB games!

 

[Section8]

I tried not to take too much of a stance on any of the particular modes of combat, but I'm going to throw out some opinions.

Interactivity is king. If the system allows you to queue too many actions and then sit back and watch, it's not interactive enough and definitely not providing enough of a challenge. My idea of an ideal phase based system is one that has the player sweating on the last few moments of the execution phase because they really want to wrest back control before something goes horribly wrong.

Conditional actions and scripts should be kept to a minimum to help preserve the interactivity. I like the idea of allowing the player to specify a certain number of interupts based on perception or equivalent. There could be a range of conditions but I'd steer well clear of any automated actions tied to them. If the game threw control back to you as an interupt a la Jagged Alliance when your conditions are met then the game becomes more interactive instead. Of course the conditions would have to be fairly simple and have quite a few restrictions to prevent the game becoming a matter of constant "wait and see"

Realism is the first thing to go by the wayside. If watching all actions simultaneously as opposed to sequentially doesn't provide a decent overview, then it goes. It's more important to be able to effectively see who did what during the course of the execution phase than it is to have a semblance of realism.

Repeated actions should be discouraged as effectively as possible. If your actions this round are identical to last round, then there isn't much flavour to the combat system, or the choices offered are less than equal. One thing that annoyed me in Wizardry 8 was that I regularly used the "repeat last round action." It may seem like a convenient and handy feature, but it's far from interesting. This is also my major gripe with Infinity Engine style combat is that you are expected to give a character an action and let them do that over and over until the circumstances change, 95% of the time meaning that character's target is dead.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Excellent article. You totally speak my language, Gareth. The language of English.

I look forward to seeing your principles of Phase Based combat applied to more games. For one, it'd be cool to watch two characters (you and the enemy) walk into the 'same spot', notice each other, and go into an interrupt. In most cases, one of them would decide to shoot at the other's feet while the other would decide to jump away, and when it played out, he'd avoid getting shot by inches.

As with good turn based games, an action point system would be an extremely necessary implement in a phase based system. A character with poor dexterity may not have the time to aim his shot during an interrupt and would thus be more likely to miss his target, whereas a dextrous character would be able to fire off a whole barrage during an interrupt if he so chose, or increase his aim towards the target.

It'd be funny if both characters decided to shoot each other during an interrupt. It'd be realistic, too, like one of those scenes in a good Western movie where both the hero and his nemesis kill each other by shooting at each other at the same time, neither bothering to dodge.

 

[Deathy]

Action points! Talk about action points and how they they ruined urban warfare in Fallout!

No more action points in TB games!

Didn't interrupts in Jagged Alliance 2 solve this problem?
You'd step out from cover, and if the enemy made a successful interrupt roll, they'd get the chance to shoot back at you, or run, depending on what they chose. There wouldn't be any of that stepping from behind cover, shooting, and then stepping back into cover, which I assume is your problem with Fallout's combat.

Fallout Tactics could have also done this easily, but, for some reason, didn't.
I've always wondered why the developers decided to go with the Overwatch feature rather than using sequence to determine interrupts.

 

[JJ86]

I guess I don't see phase-based as being entirely "sit back and watch". Even during the RT playing of the combat the plans that you made are obviously going to change because the enemies are not going to always do what you anticipate. I see it as analogous to the battlefield commander. He maps out his strategy and informs the officers who carry out the mission. As he sits at his command post on the ridge overlooking the battlefield he stays in communication with the officers so that if the situation changes he can change the tactics. The commander has to pay attention to the combat and be ready to intercede if the attack/defense goes wrong.

When I talk of a game being more realistic, I don't mean that it mimic reality exactly. Realism should be a logical simulation. I guess I'll have to play some more games with different methods of combat like JA2 & Prelude to get a better feel for what they offer.

 

[Dan]

Great read, I just have one question not really concering the article itself:

Keep it real, repr'sent what?

I didn't recognize this lyric/song title, which one is it?

 

[thathmew]

The TB combat in Prelude to Darkness is good. I like the re-evaluation of sequence/initiative after every turn. In fact, I think it would even be quite viable for multiplayer, something I didn't want to get into with this article, but it definitely keeps periods of non-interaction short and sweet.

Interesting because one of the original design goals was to have the possibility of multi-player in a turn based system without having the excruciating waits of standard "my-entire-turn-your-entire-turn" systems. We ended up dropping any multi-player thoughts early (thank god), but we liked the pace of combat enough to keep the individual initiative system. One thing we thought of in multiplayer was to have a fairly short countdown period for a player to decide what to do with a given character before having AI take over, and alternatively have a kind of speed-chess like counter which counts down while you're moving over the course of a whole turn and then refreshes at the beginning of a turn. Of course that requires a very robust AI system so the player isn't punished too hard if they neglect to act quickly enough.

Anyone who wants to see a near perfect implementation of a phase-based system owes it to themselves to at least play the demo for Combat Missions: Beyon Barbarossa. Addmittedly the goal is slightly different as there's no real "role-playing" but it really captures the feel of giving orders and there's an incredible nail-biting cinematic tension as things play out.

On real-time pause systems I think that one good system that might be a lot more fun would be to rather than have a complete pause do something on the order of Max Payne's bullet-time, i.e. have things slow way down, but not stop completely, and have a limitted amount of these slow-downs available, thus making the decision to pause a more active part of gameplay, make it feel more like giving orders. Also real-time systems have to do away with rounds completely unlike the crop of D&D varients which just mask the rounds rather inneffectively. Weapons and the like should take a certain amount of time to swing, etc... not have a certain number of swings per round, etc.... Regardless I agree that RT systems generally take away from the direct connectedness of a character and lend more to the feeling of a general giving orders.


-m

 

[Sharpei_Diem]

Good article.

I've been a fan of PB systems since the excellent V4V wargame series came out, and have been pretty disappointed that it never started a trend(not only in wargames but in rpgs as well).

One things that PB systems do well is to remove player 'down-time' you're either planning and plotting your movements/actions or you're watching them unfold. I loved fallout, but i have to agree with some of the posters that sometimes combat was a bit of a chore: waiting for countless enemies to move or to fire wasn't an enthusing experience. For those that might recall, SSI did some good work with turn based rpgs (Wizard's crown come to mind), but that was awhile ago...

In terms of interupt, i think V4V handled it well with two distinct movement types(which could be altered for rpg play, but i'll present the concept the way it was written):

Strategic movement; emphasizes movement over combat. Your vehicles/troops are prepared for travel, not combat. If a combat situation occurs casualties will be high, and your troops will seek to move towards their destination rather than fight. If they cannot, they will use their movement points to move away from the combat. This could be altered for rpg play by assuming strategic movement is a run or very fast march.

Tactical movement; emphasizes combat and then movement. Your troops are advancing/moving but are fully prepared for combat. At any point where an enemy is adjacent, they will seek to attack. This could be altered for rpg play by assuming tactical movement is walking with weapon drawn/ready.

The biggest problem i witnessed with pb is not in the combat resolution in these occurances but what happens directly after: after intercepting troops fleeing from battle, you'd rather have your troops pursue them rather than remain stationary or move somewhere else. This didn't happen, and those troops you were close to annihilating often moved far away - and have effectively escaped to repair and fight you again later.

Still, it's a far better system than pausing RT games....which i agree with you on their weaknesses.

 

[Hierophant]

Just as "TB is boring/TB takes too long" is a myth, so too with "RT dictates that the system must be simplistic." Diablo is simplistic because the game design is click, click, click, not because it is RT. Also, it is unfair to dismiss RT entirely because it cannot handle party control well (or, at least, because one hasn't seen anyone come up with a good RT system for handling parties).

Most RT systems are somewhat phase-based, in that you can't attack as quickly as you can mash the buttons. Even Quake forced you to wait a second between rocket volleys. Some RT RP games take this a bit further by upping that phase time to around 3-5 seconds. MMORPGs typically force the player to remain (relatively) stationary for the duration of combat, so moving and attacking at the same time is a non-issue. They allow the interactivity of party-based adventuring. And some are upping the complexity of the combat model by giving the player several interesting choices each round (rather than just attack).

The same game design rules apply to RT RP games as to TB: player choices should vary based upon character stats, players should be presented with tough choices, each choice should be valid, and no element of gameplay should be boring.

-Hierophant

 

[nostgard]

This isn't so much oriented towards role playing, but since the article is about combat, I thought I'd mention it.

An idea I've had for a system that I've thought would be really interesting to play with and implement would be one similar to the slow-down real-time idea thatmew mentioned. What you could do is combine Square's "battle timer" type system with this slow-down feature... I don't think that on it's own would be so interesting, but if you took it and combined it with a system where you're not so much completely controlling the characters in the world, but rather giving them suggestions, it could be tons of fun.

The type of situation I see coming out of it is something like the following... you're in the middle of combat, and your last "order" for one of your characters was to move up an alley and across, while firing at enemies down at the other end of the alley. He's in mid-jump across the alley when his battle timer hits zero. The world slows down to a snail's pace and you get some time to influence his actions if you'd like. One of your other characters is injured, so you tell him to go give the victim some medical attention. The game speeds back up and he finishes his dive, continues shooting, but starts making his way around to the injured character.

I've always enjoyed the combat systems with a timer per character for turns, but I've never liked the static scenes that they are usually associated with ... I think that by combining them with a more interactive/real-time type of an environment, you could create a system that gives you the ability for strategic prediction and analysis (to a point) while also providing the faster pace and excitement of action games.

 

[Section8]

I didn't recognize this lyric/song title, which one is it?

That was me not being able to find a Floyd quote I liked that revolved around real, so it's a Kool Keith quote. I might look at changing it given the title of the article.

An idea I've had for a system that I've thought would be really interesting to play with and implement would be one similar to the slow-down real-time idea thatmew mentioned. What you could do is combine Square's "battle timer" type system with this slow-down feature... I don't think that on it's own would be so interesting, but if you took it and combined it with a system where you're not so much completely controlling the characters in the world, but rather giving them suggestions, it could be tons of fun.

There's still a bit of difficulty in the complexity of orders you can give in this system although I can definitely see it working with a level of control that specifies actions only and movement is handled by AI. The slowdown would be great on a visual level and factoring those points into account, it would work quite well in a console RPG, and it's definitely an improvement over the standard model of "The 3 of us will stand here, you guys stand just over there and we'll trade blows" that is seen. I'd have reservations about seeing it implemented in a hardcore PC CRPG though.

I've been a fan of PB systems since the excellent V4V wargame series came out, and have been pretty disappointed that it never started a trend(not only in wargames but in rpgs as well).

I'm curious about this. From the way you describe it, it seems as though you have a fairly high-level control over a large number of units who are fairly automated. How many units are you in control of, and how much control do you have over them?

Interesting because one of the original design goals was to have the possibility of multi-player in a turn based system without having the excruciating waits of standard "my-entire-turn-your-entire-turn" systems. We ended up dropping any multi-player thoughts early (thank god), but we liked the pace of combat enough to keep the individual initiative system.

I think it works exceedingly well, and it evens out disparities in APs fairly well. It's very difficult to take any action that might seem like an exploit.

Also real-time systems have to do away with rounds completely unlike the crop of D&D varients which just mask the rounds rather inneffectively. Weapons and the like should take a certain amount of time to swing, etc... not have a certain number of swings per round, etc.... Regardless I agree that RT systems generally take away from the direct connectedness of a character and lend more to the feeling of a general giving orders.

It's good to see some people out there who share some of the design philosophies I find important. One of the biggest mistakes we made with Fallout Tactics was to try and abstract Action Points into RT. The way we approached it meant that a fast character would get a few shots in the space of a second or two, and only then would they slow down and start attacking at a timed rate. The ugliest thing about the whole system is that we are using APs, which are an abstraction of time, when in a RT system there's no need to do so. We're dealing with time, so there's no reason why actions shouldn't just have a duration rather than an AP cost.

This is one of the reasons I think Diablo's combat system is far superior to anything Bioware/Black Isle have churned out in recent years because its trying to be RT, and has been designed to do exactly that. The Infiinity Engine games and NWN are dirty RT systems trying to emulate a TB P&P system. The fail to account for the fact the the P&P system they are based off is exceedingly simple so as to not get in the way of RP, and trying to emulate TB in RT is an uphill battle.

 

[opinari]

interesting

good article, the prose was questionable lol, but it was a nice overview of the problems inherent in traditional rpgs.

Bottom Line: this is a very fragmented expose. I do not agree with all the author's points in the essay. It appeared that while all his points were valid what he dealt with in the deficiencies of rpg systems were often secondary effects over emphasized rather than the primary objective of those systems. Real time is fun, because it is real time. Execution and planning are simultaneous. Turn based is fun, becasue turn base allows for adequate planning. My goal is to integrate the two to the fullest extent without compromising either too much. The system outlined below is a rough sketch, and misses the infinitude of details that is necessary to tweak this system to work. however, it presents one possible alternative. If you have any questions, complaints, or critiques, I am completely open.


Back in eighth grade, I was actually mulling over these exact same problems and devised my own system, (ironically also phase-based although at that time I just thought it was new). I loved the pause-based system in BG, thought Diablo fun in the short term, and marveled over Ogre Tactics based system, but I still thought a better system could be made. Truth to tell I have been more of a console gamer than pc, but I have always found PC rpgs more deep combat wise.

So here I go, my original idea:

What is needed is a phased base system that is inherently real time, but whose speed is controllable by the player at whim. The speed in the game is limited to a reasonable speed interval.

Everyone moves at the same time at this adjustable speed.

There are two major "bars", hp, stamina. Both are interconnected. certain attacks will deplete not only hp, but stamina as well. Stamina is used to perform actions, acting w/o stamina will reduce amount of actions possible and seep away from hp.

Stamina naturally replenishes through turns, but a special rest option is also there.

Turns come in sequence corresponding to both a random factor and character's stats. At a given character's turn, the action freezes and the interface pops up (this is made for a console) and one chooses the appropriate action. The character then begins to perform the action in slow real time.

The nature of the action is final fantasy tactics like and in scope. Although more sophisticated freedom to the actions should be implemented.

During the relay of the execution, interrupt options should be available but when they are available is dependent upon character stats. Utilizing an interrupt for a specific character takes stamina away from actions.

For example, a fast character with low constitution will have the interrupt option sooner, but will be hesitant to use it to escape loss of stamina.

The interrupt will then allow redirection of action before the character's turn naturally comes up again.

number of interrupts per character can be changed by ability, equipment or int.

one can assign "huge" actions, but if the character's turn comes up before the action is completed, one has the choice of choosing new action, or continuing.

The computer has similar options, although they will be slightly altered, so the player will not have to see all the menus of the comp.

Every action will have the option of devoting more stamina to complete. Increasing stamina in speed will have a character moving faster in order to chase someone persay, or decreasing stamina to a bow and arrow, will make the arrow fly shorter.

At any given time, but w/o pausing action, unless a turn is being chosen, the player can bring up a overlay of all actions being made (like a super-imposed map of actions)

When actual battle begins, there will be conventional and non-conventional combat. I would describe this, but it would take way too long, so I will give an abbreviated account. Conventional combat takes place when two charcters occupy different spaces. For example, an archer shoots an arrow. It either hits or misses. Unconventional combat takes place when a character "collides" with another character. The camera will pan and zoom in on the two characters. Who ever chose to attack gains a timelimit. The time limit is dependent upon character stats. For the duration of the attack, the game shifts to real time combat, street fighter style . The opposing player choose to use stamina to defend, or counterattack or if they want to abolish the time limit. However, because they werent' attacking or ready for it, they have a massive stamina penalty to combat actions though will cost far more stamina to use. If both players were attacking on the field screen, then they both fight until one character attempts to retreat. Altercations can be made to this through gained skills. One character with some ability like "ready to fight" can have the condition that if the attacking character is in line of sight, they can suffer a smaller stamina penalty.

This idea is not fully fleshed out, but in the very least the battle system will include minor non chance and statistic based abilities to change the probability of success aka SM rpg style.

In turn-based battles, close chases are impossible, but in this system they are possible. If one chooses to chase a character for ex. they will chase the character, not the spot they are standing upon. Or if they choose the command chase and hit when within range, one can specify to try whenever possible, or only when in a certain range etc.

Range attackers, target a player, not the space she's at. If she starts moving and the range attacker attempts to hit, he may have a harder time hitting.

Every mechanic of this system is alterable through in game abilities.



That is the system I thought of a long time ago, but it has numerous flaws, however I don't think I said everything that's in it. Criticism and questions are welcome.

Notes:
This system was meant generally to have a Final Fantasy T appearance, but mixing Vandal Hearts real time, with the complexity and interactivity of SF games. It really is a hosh posh, but it also addresses many of the concerns, and I see less flaws.

 

[Bart_Massey]

Nice article, but you left out my favorite: automated tactics, real-time strategy.

The goal here, presumably, is to allow the character's skills, strength, and reflexes to decide combat outcomes, rather than the player's. (This brings up the eternal puzzle of how a character's "IQ" attribute might be successfully handled in an RPG, but I digress...)

The right answer, IMHO, is for the player to control the character's strategy, and the computer to control the character's tactics. This is still real-time, but properly constructed, it would not require massive skill or twitch: just slowly cranking sliders based on combat progress.

For example, give the player sliders labeled "attack/defense", "stand/flee", and "skill moves/strength moves",. Then let the character implement these in terms of swinging a sword. The better the character's training, the better the character is able to carry out the slider's instructions, and the better the chance of success. But if done properly, the player should have no motivation to jerk those three sliders around at a rapid pace.

Comments? What CRPGs have implemented this sort of system? (One example that comes to mind, oddly, is Zork: the combat system there consists of telling the character whether to attack or flee, then phases of actual combat occur according to the result. )

This is what it would take to bring me back to CRPGs; I'm getting old, and just have no patience with twitch.

 

[Nagling]

short note:
There was also this adventure-(rpg) game that had this feature as an option. Quest for Glory IV if memory serves. The problem is, for me at the least, that I want to take a little more active hand in combat. I dont want to rely on my own keyboard dex, but at the same time I do not want it to be a fully automated simulation. Why? The lacks a sense of tactic and to me that part increases the fund with combat and often frustrating. The other is just plain and simple boring, it creates a feeling of the passive observer rahter than the ..oops I am fight for my life...
The goal as I see it, is to create combat systems that mostly relies on you characters stats but still lets the player play out the moves. Instead of moving sliderbars, do the attack click. This is of course purely subjective…

 

[Rosh]

Well, the AI or "programmed" combat is well...no offense...still a bit of a niche thing, if viable at all. In most games, the complexity is suitable enough to really discount any consideration of such a system, as it's about as deprecated as exp tables based upon level/level equasions.

Such an AI combat is suitable for games like Origin's Omega, and other games where you can handle some aspect of the "AI" through scripts or pre-set settings with a bit of change on the fly if it's implemented. Again, you run into the problem of the scripts not being able to work in every situation. In modern games, it's not too feasable. Take, for example, Baldur's Gate, and the Infinity Engine games. You can alter the scripts beyond the stupid as hell "mage walks up to the enemy to cast a fireball, or casts a fireball at point-blank". It is, however, a lesson in patience to actually expect to play the game relying on the scripts and the crappy AI/pathfinding. It's also quite promoting of narcoleptic tendencies, and if you expect any of the kiddies to pay it any attention, forget that. Pretty much why games like Colobot will always be sleepers.

Hence why I like Turn-Based. Does not rely on the reflexes of the user, is involving, and is suitable for every situation.