This hasn't been discussed in awhile but I figured I'd let you know how things are being implemented:
All weapons have four values:
1. Attack Rating
2. Damage Type
3. Range Value
4. Combat Speed Modifier
Examples:
Wrote this for another thread but almost fits here better. So i'll repeat myself
The best counters aren't weapon types, as mentioned above.
One of my favorite systems is skirmish and shield wall formation. With some extra training a unit type can change their formation either coming closer together and slowing down or spreading out and speeding up. Spread out units would have a increased chance to dodge arrows and naturally helping with area dmg spells. Tight formation would have lower speed and increased defense, a charge bonus due to tight ranks works too.
Unit types you created with skirmish would naturally be good at chasing down archers while tight formations could protect themselves somewhat but would never catch them. This way a unit's training and weapons effects its role in combat.
Another good tool is weight. Heavier armor and weapons would weigh down a unit making it move slower. This creates roles for different armor types and cavalry who would be able to move in the heaviest armor but not as fast as light cavalry.
Oh, and flanking is always good for strategic depth, gives a good reason for stealth units
Lots of interesting discussion, but ultimately if you put in too much complexity you face two important risks.
1) The AI cannot handle it and makes poor decisions on both the design front and the tactics front.
2) The auto-resolve cannot mimic the outcomes in a remotely reasonable way.
now #2 may not really matter that much to most people, but #1 is going to be a major PITA if it winds up borking the AI.
It's great to think of all kinds of cool ideas, but at the end of the day the question will be how well do they actually translate into game play. For my money, Elemental is NOT about tactical battles, though they are going be a part of the game, important part even. The question to Brad is how well he thinks he can develop a highly moddable system which isn't going to wind up breaking the AIs ability to remain competitive (by whatever standard one wants to call competitive).
I love the Dom3 combat system, but, it has a MAJOR advantage AI wise. Namely that player control over the battle is reduced to issuing a list of up to 5 scripted orders, but the player has NO control once the battle starts, thus the playing field against the AI (though Dom3 is really more MP than SP) is easily leveled. Now I'm not suggesting that Elemental go that route, because most of us actually want interactive tactical battles, but some amount of care need be taken not to make them meaningless, and in that case, not to make the autoresolve unmatched to controlled outcomes.
Illwinter never cared about the AI actually. Doms3 is supposed to be a MP game. They've stated this many times when the game was released.
Which has nothing to do with what I said, because I was talking about the tactical AI. Which the player is forced to use, whether against the computer or another player.
It was a side note from me, because ->
The combat scripting is part of AI actually [from the computer player's perspective]. The AI players are not able to counter the human player's combat scripts.
I see. Still, far easier to only have to worry about scripting 5 actions. In any case, it's not as though you know what the opposition is planning anyway, and the AI was able to script counters once it saw that you had started using a specific combo, though they were still more likely to simply script their own combos.
Largely this only mattered for large conflicts anyway, and (as you know) the scripting is rather crude and doesn't allow for conditional actions, so you're still rather at the mercy of the tactical AI once anything starts to go wrong.
That would be pretty awesome! Also what RikazeMA said. In addition to magic complexity I'd really like to see same kind of thing from weapons. For example, your staff-wielding unit is attacking someone. He hits them, and his staff breaks! I'm not saying that there should necessarily be some numeral value for condition of equipment, but maybe some % chance for them to break, depending on the material. This would then simply remove the equipment from use, and decrease stats accordingly. Then (I'm not sure if this is possible, haven't played the beta long enough yet) they could continue attacking with their fists for little blunt damage!
Also special attacks depending on the attributes of the creature in question, as was discussed here previously. This doesn't have to be overtly complex and difficult, but could add a nice extra layer to combat. For example, in my favourite game "Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic", some units like hydra who has many heads, have this "spread attack" ability to strike at all opponents around them. Or and orc warlord can swing its sword around in frenzy and hit those around him. Some strong opponents can strange enemies to hurt and stun them, fliers can grasp and throw units around. Maybe some backstabbing ability for rogueish characters etc. The possibilities are endless!
However, with all this said, sometimes it's just better to keep things simple. I think that if I were a game developer, I'd pretty quickly notice that many of my ideas just aren't feasible To return to AoW: SM, the AI in that game is horrible. It can't deal with the complexities of tactical combat very well at all. I'm sure Stardock can do better, but there are limits for everyone.
P.S A little off topic, but when I still remember it, I have to ask that please, don't make the same mistake with combat that AoW: SM did. There in multiplayer all players can see the combat when anyone is fighting. Meaning that if you want to have a tactical combat, everyone will know what kind of army you have the moment your first battle begins. A horrible, horrible feature
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