Tactics, what is the point?

[J1M]

I've been wondering this recently. As much as I enjoy RPGs with tactical movement and control of my characters, I rarely find the encounter design to support it.

Usually, you just have to figure out how to use your party of about 6 characters one way and that will let you sail through 95% of the game's combat. This is boring and time consuming, as many have noted in Expeditions: Cortez.

The promise of tactical combat is that the player will need to make some interesting choices during the battle. This happens so rarely that I'd almost consider it against most game designer's intentions.

So, as the title says, what is the point? Why should we care about any combat system, especially a turn-based one, that is essentially a task in micromanagement and baby-sitting?

I'd love to see a tactics game primarily designed around the feature of allowing players to write scripts for their characters. Certainly allow the player to intervene, but when a 4-line script that remains unchanged for 90% of combat shows up on the lead designer's desk it might push encounter design to a priority.

 

[Sranchammer]

Amateurs study tactics ,geniuses (such as myself) study logistics. In conclusion, supply management should be the prime activity of every strategy/cRPG game on the market.

 

[felipepepe]

That's like playing Mass Effect and asking what's the point of C&C... the fact that most games fail to explore and deliver a solid tactical experience doesn't mean it's impossible to have a good tactical game.

 

[tiagocc0]

Also 6 characters is boring, I usually run away from games that don't let me play with less.
Playing with less characters is more challenging and have a lot less babysitting to do, it's one way to try to fix broken games.

 

[MoLAoS]

The problem is that any player can find one trick to break a static system. So game designers simply cannot account for all the possible game breaking optimal strategies. Your just too smart for most RPG designers and that will never change.

 

[tiagocc0]

Part of the fun can be finding a way to break the system.
What is a no-no is ways to break the system that are too obvious and/or simple to do, this just show the designers were lazy.

 

[Destroid]

Amateurs study tactics ,geniuses (such as myself) study logistics. In conclusion, supply management should be the prime activity of every strategy/cRPG game on the market.

Hence roguelikes are better than RPGs.

 

[Midair]

Are you a fantasy series reader? You might ask what is the point of thousands of pages of light genre fiction, full of uninteresting repetition. The answer is that fantasy and rpgs are hobbies, and like most hobbies, e.g. stamp collecting, gardening, etc. they can be repetitive and dull, but also relaxing and enjoyable if you are into it.

Combat scripts would shift micromanagement from the actual combat to the pre-combat planning stage. I like the idea, though I do not think it fixes, nor that you need to fix micromanagement.

 

[Destroid]

Also, it allows you to use your awesome magic sword to wack stuff.

 

[villain of the story]

The idea is interesting though: Train your troops from nothing to warriors, which includes giving them tactics packages (ie. scripts) and then watch them handle themselves. Survival of the fittest like.

 

[tiagocc0]

watch them handle themselves.

You mean like in any game that is not turn based?

 

[villain of the story]

Different context, different shit. Thanks for joining, though.

 

[tiagocc0]

Nah, I can see how it would be interesting to set your own scripts and have a game more like Majesty.
It would have to come from an indie or we would end up with the different shit anyway.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

Interesting tactical challenges are hard to design without feeling like figuring out a puzzle. That's what killed my interest in Battle Isle: Incubation.

JA2 with the 1.13 mod works quite well. More opposition with many elites, together with suppression fire and overheating, changes the required tactics quite a lot. You can't just give your three best marksmen assault rifles with the greatest range and headshot everything in sight anymore. Massive brute-force options tend to be costly and heavy on the logistic side.

And YES! I've been long dreaming of a tactical RPG with fully scriptable party, as in giving a ton of IF -> THEN settings. And no, writing your own scripts for BG2 doesn't really count, as that's more of a modding thing than actual gameplay, and fairly limited AFAIK.

Slightly off topic:
Most games also handle difficulty settings just by shifting the numerical balance in favor of / against the player, so you don't get any more actual tactics by ramping up the difficulty, just expect to reload/retry more often due to bad dice rolls. High difficulty settings also often include such "dirty" aspects as enemies insta-killing your characters at random, or downright cheating opposition (infinite resources, omniscience) which actually removes strategic and tactical options, and even more emphasis is put on RNG and pure luck.
"Awesome! God, that was hard! Had to reload at least 15 times before I landed a critical on that mage with the Mighty Spell of Immediate Doom." I often see similar comments on modded content, so obviously many players are perfectly happy with such kind of difficulty, so much that they go great lengths to add it manually.

 

[Destroid]

Kaucukovnik

I suppose any tactical situation that allows you to reset and try again will devolve into a puzzle-like feeling.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

The basic problem is that usually the scripters don't have enough time to master the scripting and create interesting battles.
Having zillions of encounters and deadlines doesn't help too.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

I suppose any tactical situation that allows you to reset and try again will devolve into a puzzle-like feeling.

Not if there is some emergent tactics present, and not just scenarios designed for specific approach/using certain abilities etc. Something like this:
Correct: "Now we shall see how you can deal with ranged enemies"
Wrong: "Now is the time to use your 'Deflect Arrows' skill"

Hell, Tetris has more actual tactics than most "tactical" RPGs. As I think of it...it also has no reloading, so you may have a point.
Of course you do have a point, even if only because with no retry/reload, retreating becomes an integral part of tactics. That's among the things I like about modded JA2 - retreating and regrouping when the time is due, and being prepared to do so, pays off. Covering retreat paths (and getting ambushed/flanked doing so) brings me great joy lately.

That's what I hated about Incubation, there was not much of "screw this one up, but carry on". It devolved into trying again and again until you figured out the proper sequence of turns. I really liked the game's style, the team development, different pieces of equipment with pros and cons, the combat system. But the missions were made for someone else than me.

There is a rather small "sweet spot" between:
a) tactical options that don't matter much, or at all (beyond character builds and party/army composition)
b) options you have to figure out exactly (or near exactly) in order to proceed, those usually downright count on your ability to retry
This sweet spot grows larger with more meaningful options offering various combinations and interactions.

And there is the problem with single-player games, where the only meaningful winner is that one player. In anything MP, either side can win and the game is finished in more or less satisfying manner.


On another note: many games tend to totally ignore certain aspects of tactics that would otherwise be perfectly viable within their mechanics. Like pretty much all newer (BG onwards) D&D games having your mage/sorcerer/bard chars pummeled due to them being the "talkers" of their parties, thus HAVING TO BE IN THE FRONT TO INITIATE CONVERSATIONS. Nobody has ever had bodyguards IN FRONT of them, right? Well, NPC mages usually do, and they have no problem talking for themselves.
Or randomly positioning your chars on area transition. This infuriated me especially in ToEE - reloading only to switch characters, because a certain character slot gets positioned in the front, despite being a rear one. What is your armored frontline good for when the game decides your fragile mage rushed in?

 

[tuluse]

Like pretty much all newer (BG onwards) D&D games having your mage/sorcerer/bard chars pummeled due to them being the "talkers" of their parties, thus HAVING TO BE IN THE FRONT TO INITIATE CONVERSATIONS.

All the IE games had multiple formations, some of which did not have #1 character in the front. There was one that was #1 in the middle with the rest in a ring around them.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

Sure, but there were plenty of encounters where you needed your diplomat in front for the conversation to trigger for that particular character. If your dumb and ugly fighter stood in front of your sorcerer, he was the one leading the conversation. That introduces artificial vulnerability.

 

[Baron]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...a-tactical-single-player-dungeon-crawl.83013/

Most here dismissed it, but Dungeoneers was a little gem of a game that I hope gets expanded. It uses simple little hex based caverns but it's monsters are great, particularly on higher levels. For such a simple system there is a good tactical system in place, blocking paths, avoiding monsters, choosing who to attack.

I take out a firebug to block an ettin forcing him to walk around pits from which a monster might emerge and attack him. Regardless, I'll get off some shots with my bow before he gets to me. In the meantime I advance on an archer to crowd him then I turn and shoot a distant gas spore which explodes and disrupts a conjuring wizard's fireball spell. Seeing there is only a scroll in this cave anyway, I cut down the archer, grab the scroll and make it out the other exit before the wizard casts again and the ettin thumps me.

It's not perfect but it's a great little tactical game, choosing who to fight, if to fight at all. Not many games have that. It's usually kill absolutely everything because I'm lawful good and you might have coins on you.

http://www.dungeoneers.com/

 

[tuluse]

The promise of tactical combat is that the player will need to make some interesting choices during the battle. This happens so rarely that I'd almost consider it against most game designer's intentions.

I think that's a happy side effect. The premise is that you'll have to think for a moment to come up with the best solution to the problem in front of you.

In Chess there is frequently a "best move" to a situation. The fun is in finding this move, not necessarily making a choice between two good or bad moves.

 

[RK47]

Shut up and play blood bowl.

 

[Karmapowered]

Amateurs study tactics ,geniuses (such as myself) study logistics. In conclusion, supply management should be the prime activity of every strategy/cRPG game on the market.

Amateurs study tactics, genuises (like you claim to be) study logistics, and gods like me study strategy, which is why I only play wargames.

Seriously though, a game with interesting logistics screams strategy/war game to me. Current and past cRPGs (except maybe a couple of "survivalist" type games) have never been good at it.

Logistics suppose healthy economics and a robust supply/demand system. I always finish playing cRPGs with more than enough expendables like potions, arrows, mana or gold in my inventory than I'd ever have needed : even the Gothics had containers overflowing with loot.

According to the recent PE thread, gear attrition and limited inventory seems to be a major no-no for most here. If people ask for a true z-axis (climbing, jumping, swimming), horses/mounts or different terrain types, heights and their effects, they want those systems to be the least punishing possible : see Oblivion & co, where one can jump down from a mountain to negligble damage, cross a river in heavy armor faster than driving on a highway lane, and carry gear as effectively on foot in deep snow than on horseback during a sunny day. In the same way, most people don't want to mess with eating, drinking or sleeping, let alone wounding mechanics.

Either logistics is not something that appeals to people, or they don't fully realize what it entails.

I've been wondering this recently. As much as I enjoy RPGs with tactical movement and control of my characters, I rarely find the encounter design to support it.

The answer is give the game a good AI, and you'll have your interesting tactical layer.

Probably more to your immediate interest, there are good tactical cRPGs worth mentioning. On PC, JA2, Mount & Blade, Wizardry 8, or Age of Decadence, plenty more on consoles : the SMTs (Devil Survivor, Nocturne), Fire Emblem, Langrisser, Tactical Ogre, FF:Tactics, the Disgaea's, Jeanne d'Arc, Valkyria Chronicles, etc.

Usually, you just have to figure out how to use your party of about 6 characters one way and that will let you sail through 95% of the game's combat. This is boring and time consuming, as many have noted in Expeditions: Cortez.

Yup, see above for a solution.

Unfortunately, games with combat that remains interesting don't seem to be a priority of the current generation of gamers. People don't seem to mind the grinding, luring, kiting, fireballing, blocking/geometry abuses we've seen for ages now.

We will have to keep our fingers crossed, and wait for the next one.

The promise of tactical combat is that the player will need to make some interesting choices during the battle. This happens so rarely that I'd almost consider it against most game designer's intentions.

No argument here. To their defence though, for 1 player out of 10 that expects a more intricate and rewarding battle system in new games, there are 3 demanding for more romantic interests and 6 for better graphics.

So, as the title says, what is the point? Why should we care about any combat system, especially a turn-based one, that is essentially a task in micromanagement and baby-sitting?

Micro-managing can be fun, if it's not repetitive succession of the "same", disguised by different graphics and handful of stat changes.

I'd love to see a tactics game primarily designed around the feature of allowing players to write scripts for their characters. Certainly allow the player to intervene, but when a 4-line script that remains unchanged for 90% of combat shows up on the lead designer's desk it might push encounter design to a priority.

No offence, but anything like what you describe sounds extremely silly to me. DA:O did an attempt at such a system, and it scored a legendary fail at it. Even if it had worked as designed, why would you want a game that essentially plays for itself, while watching the visual effects and listening to the music of your battles ?

 

[RK47]

Honestly there's a lot of good tactical games, but you'll hardly find it when facing structured AI.
I find facing humans a hell lot more interesting and tactically fun.
I.E Bloodbowl.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Seriously though, a game with interesting logistics screams strategy/war game to me. Current and past cRPGs (except maybe a couple of "survivalist" type games) have never been good at it.

Logistics suppose healthy economics and a robust supply/demand system. I always finish playing cRPGs with more than enough expendables like potions, arrows, mana or gold in my inventory than I'd ever have needed : even the Gothics had containers overflowing with loot.

According to the recent PE thread, gear attrition and limited inventory seems to be a major no-no for most here. If people ask for a true z-axis (climbing, jumping, swimming), horses/mounts or different terrain types, heights and their effects, they want those systems to be the least punishing possible : see Oblivion & co, where one can jump down from a mountain to negligble damage, cross a river in heavy armor faster than driving on a highway lane, and carry gear as effectively on foot in deep snow than on horseback during a sunny day. In the same way, most people don't want to mess with eating, drinking or sleeping, let alone wounding mechanics.

Either logistics is not something that appeals to people, or they don't fully realize what it entails.

Damn, it would be nice to have a good cRPG with lovely, lovely logistics and believable exploration and combat. Alas, it probably won't happen . Everything is shit.