Editorial Gareth Davies - Treatise on Combat to Pink Floyd

[Saint_Proverbius]

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

I think you mean, "tactics", but that's just the pedant in me. Combat in CRPGs is tactical, by nature, not strategic. More on this later.

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...)

Right, the goal is definately, assuredly that the character's stats determine most everything. The stronger he is, the more powerful his strikes are. The faster he is, the more strikes he gets. This is a good thing.

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.

Actually, this is the wrong answer. The common analogy is that strategy is knowing what bridge to take. Tactics is how the bridge is taken.

In terms of a CRPG, and what you're talking about, is seeing a kobold camp near something important and deciding they need to be removed. Now, if the computer controls the combat, once you point out to your character that the camp needs erradication.. That's the end of the player's involvement. It becomes nothing more than a movie to the player, because the computer is handling the tactics.

Tactics being what the fighter choses to attack, what spell the mage is going to cast and on what. Whom the priest blesses or heals. All of that falls under tactical moves.

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. )

So, basically, you've just gone from controlling your characters to passively watching them. I fail to see how this is an improvement, because you're talking about moving from having an interactive experience to a passive one.

There are gobs of games like this. All of the Infinity Engine games are like this when you use scripts. Fallout Tactics was like that. Dungeon Siege was like that.

The end result is that you march your minions around the map with little to no involvement with them beyond, "You go here."

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

That's kind of why I like turn based. I don't like twitch, but I still like to be involved. If I wanted to watch, I'd fire up PowerDVD.

 

[thathmew]

Nice article,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?

Darklands had a system similar to this, it was sort of pause-able realtime, but you could assign characters several different attack modes, i.e. defensive, normal, offensive, retreat, etc... and they executed those "orders" to the best of their ability continuously. In some circumstances the AI would occassionally over-ride, i.e. get really low on HP and the characters would tend to go into defensive/parry mode, sometimes their morale would break and they'd flee, etc...
It had a pretty good system combining hitpoints and replenishing stamina for each battle as well. It also did a good job with display, it was fairly readily apparent what you're characters were doing/experiencing. Rarely was there the awful sensation of suddenly getting surprised that someone is dead because you weren't paying enough attention.
It could be pretty nail-biting, and many situations were winnable only by using intelligent tactics, i.e. using characters to distract powerful enemies by parrying until they could be helped by the others, etc...
-mat

 

[Sharpei_Diem]

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?

i'll elaborate..

The V4V series encompassed some of the key battles in world war 2; there was one for utah beach, one for gold/juno/sword beach, one for market garden, and one for russia(velikye luki) and one focused in North Africa.

The scale was operational(you control battalions and companies), and each side was limited to resources in-theater: maybe 100+ units/side. Only ground combat/artillery units were on the map. Air/naval power was abstracted somewhat: each side had air strike/naval bombardment missions you could ask for(you could ask for any number of them, the likelyhood of you getting any was inversely proportional to the number you asked for), but the chance of getting any varied from turn to turn based on things like weather, enemy interception, condition of the fleet, etc.

Combat was very detailed(handled by the engine), but very simple to plan and co-ordinate. There was strategic movement(only really good on road or rails), tactical movement, and assaults. Assaults could take one of three forms, a regular assault, a feint, and a heavy assault. Only units in the same command structure(same divisional HQ) could attack a single target in the same round(this is a reality/difficulty setting, but i always had it on). When you scheduled an attack, there'd be a 'combat computer' on your right hand side that would tell you roughly what you could expect from the attack based on the information you have. Numbers less than 1.00 equated with an expected heavy loss, numbers greater anticipated a victory. By making additional clicks beyond the square targeted for attack (up to your movement limit), you planned for movement immediately after the battle(assuming all went well). You could even call up a map during your turn to show you which units you had moved, and where they'd all hypothetically be at the end of the combat round.

You learned about a unit, it's condition and capabilities, the longer your units stayed beside it. Initially it would be displayed as a gray box, maybe with an infantry/armor symbol. Later you would get detailed information about it's order of battle(who it belonged to ie 2nd SS Panzer), and things like its morale and fatigue. The game handled this exceptionally well: the information you had on any unit was rarely exact(including your own). The more damaged, discouraged or fatigued your troops got, the worse the information you got from them(including their own state). When they were particularly beaten, you lost any effective control over them: you COULD order them, but they likely wouldn't do what you wanted, and almost certainly not in a timely fashion (until they were rested and repaired). There was really three different information states: what you thought you knew about yourself and your enemy, what your enemy thought they knew about you and itself, and the truth(known only to the pc).

You also had to plan/coordinate supply. Each turn represented 4 hours, and at the end of every day you allocated from your existing supplies(what came in the previous 24 hours) to your divisions. Their combat rating depended on their supply state and unless you wanted to blow your stockpile, you never had enough for all units to go on offensive operations(i think their were 5 supply states: attack(bonus modifier to all stats), regular, defensive(attack stats were halved), minimal and none(couldn't order none for a unit). You couldn't change supply after you set it really set the tone for the next 5 turns: like setting a supposedly quiet division to minimal supply so that you could put 2 divisions in another area to attack supply, only to find the enemy had other plans for that quiet division...

anways, enough rambling on public space...if you want to check out their website, go to http://www.atomic.com/new/page/victory.htm

 

[Falcore19]

Opinari, your idea is good. I've never seen a RPG with a Street fighter combat system, it would be really fun. Not to mention the rest of the system is pretty solid.

You should make a game with it, seriously. I'll be a beta tester

 

[aweigh]

Opinari, your idea is good. I've never seen a RPG with a Street fighter combat system, it would be really fun. Not to mention the rest of the system is pretty solid.

You should make a game with it, seriously. I'll be a beta tester

There were a few RPG's for the NES/SNES that featured two ninja brothers, one coloured red and on coloured blue, who fought their random battles in a seperate side-scrolling Final Fight-esque plane. A second player could also assume control of the second hero whenever they wanted.

However, when you reached a boss battle the game changed to turn-based.

Super Ninja Boy

 

[Astromarine]

FOUR YEARS AGO YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

 

[aweigh]

Hahaha... I hadn't noticed the dates. I did find it odd how everyone was so jovial and engaged in stimulating conversation, compared to the current state of malevolance and bitter hatred present in every post now.

 

[Falcore19]

Yeah sorry. But it's still very relevent today.

 

[LlamaGod]

haha, for a second I thought Section8 was doing something useful for once.

timestamps saved the day

 

[catfood]

I am bumping this epic article in these dark times when the filthy RTWPfags are running amok, spreading their vile heresies in our fair Codexia.

https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=21