alright so there's been a lot of posts and discussion on how to improve tactical battles and make designing, recruiting and using armies more fun, and i agree completely. the system as it is is just crude and lacking in nuance. some things that battles lack that i think most people agree on:
- the lack of importance of maneuvering; being attacked from the rear or flank is currently no worse than being attacked head on. the game has just become a race to make the most attacks as quickly as possible without thinking about positioning
- the lack of importance of terrain. there are no important bottlenecks to control, or great shooting positions.
- the lack of strategic variation in weapons. right now we just have bad and worse quality weapons; weapons have no strategic roll based on their type. we want spears to be good against cavalry, short swords to be better for mobile skirmishers and the such like.
and i agree with all this. the question is how to do it all in a way that is fun and balanced and intuitive. it is for this reason that i want to encourage people to STOP ASKING FOR MORE SPECIAL ABILITIES, because i really don't think they're the best solution. by special abilities i mean stuff like the spells that certain monsters and the such can cast that you select on the bottom menu. these have their place, but the problems with combat would be much better fixed by better mechanics than a plethora of special rules. here's why
- new players will forget to use them. if i have a special ability called shield wall for my spearmen that i have to activate, then a new player coming into the game might not notice it. he'll just make some spearmen send them to attack and wonder why they aren't handing cavalry cans of whoopass. i shouldn't have to use a special ability to inflict the awesome power of a cavalry charge. these things should just happen as a normal part of the gameplay. equipping lances and mounts should be part of mechanics that give charging units a damage bonus.
- they're difficult to balance and confusing to remember. anyone who plays warhammer hates the way that every new unit seems to come with a new, slightly different special rule to describe how "fearless" they are. it results in creep as new features are introduced, and the whole thing would be easier to remember and better handled by simply making the morale system better and more nuanced, and describing them through that.
- they're difficult to retcon and make them work with stuff you add later. say you give spears the ability to always strike first because of their reach. but what happens when you add pikes in an expansion? or a monster with really long arms. do you go back through every unit editing "except against this?" far better surely to give each unit or weapon a "reach" stat and then have the game automatically know what to do when you add content. what if caltrops have a 50% chance to immobilize, but then you add in hovering/flying monsters? far better to say "immobilized on a failed reflex saving throw," and then give your flying creatures good reflex saves. i already run into mobs of spiders who are able to immobilize my sovereign for 100 turns in a row with their OP special ability (despite the fact that when i auto, i walk right over them). the ability has clearly not been balanced or thought through. how much more often will this happen when every unit has one?
- they must be more difficult to program AI for (and i admit this is speculation). if AI has to programmed to tell enemies when to use their phalanx special ability, we'll probably never see it used. if it's part of mechanics it'll happen automatically.
- if they're everywhere they're not special. special abilities are one thing for a monster you fight once a game, but i shouldn't need special abilities to use normal units and fight normal battles against units of men. all the basic strategic differences should be handled by the game's mechanics. give us rules of facing, weapon reach, charge bonuses, lines of sight, varied saving throws, damage resistances.
people don't seem to like numbers for some reason, but i'd rather have a couple of new numbers per unit to familiarize myself with, then 100 new special rules that i see once each per game. if the mechanics are designed well then people won't even need to understand them, because they'll produce the same results as the player's imagination expects.
I have heard the argument many times, and while I don't disagree that flank would increase the meaning of maneuvering, the current mechanics does not have an overall lack of meaning with respect to manuevering. In the simplest of scenarios with very small size armies, movement beyond reaching a unit is not very important. Yet, in larger encounters, manuevering has a much greater meaning, as finding a good vantage for an attack means carefully positioning your troops so as to maximize usuage of available attacking tiles. The only thing flanking would add would be an advantage for getting to certain types of positions, which are already beneficial in the current game. If I have two or thee units carefully positioned around a particular unit, this particular unit will not be able to attack all of the units nor will it have enough counters to adequately defend against their assault.
Frogboy recently stated that they are adding damage types and resistence to FE.
Normally, I would go through a well thought explanation of how additional game mechanics simplifies combat and promotes players gaming the system rather than making really tactical choices. However, there are numerous places where people can read and understand my points, as well as an entire mod were one could simply judge for themselves. To address a couple of your point though, I agree that the term special ability is the wrong term for this. I think we should consider these as normal abilities as they should simply be normal actions associated with the particular weapons. As for your point about the AI being incapable of using these abilities, this is simply not true. The same code that drives the AI to use spells is used for abilities, and thus since even the earliest version of Updated Weapons, the AI has used these abilities. Lastly, I understand your point about being able to balance these abilities with future abilities, but this is a problem for every game mechanism and is unfair to state that abilities are somehow worse than any other mechanism.
I agree with you completely. To add to some of your points, introducing special abilities also makes it harder to design the AI like you mentioned. Each special ability has its advantages and disadvantages in different situations. The circumstances under which a special ability may be good or bad is relatively easy to identify if you are the player. For the AI however, special abilities introduce a "special case" which must be programmed in advance and look for those situations where the use of the ability would be optimal.
What you say would be true if E:WoM were released in 1990. It is 2011 and the standards for strategic gameplay have risen. I am pretty sure that the current mechanics do indeed lack meaning w/ respect to manoever when positioning multiple units around another one is the extent of strategic depth in the game.
sorry to isolate just this one part, but it's quite late here. i think the AI is really bad at knowing which spells to cast in comparison to a player. while i'm sure we'd see special abilities used occassionally, the example of spell AI does not fill me with hope.
I disagree completely, special abilities would bring many improvements to the game and make combat much more interesting. To be honest I was surprised the first time I played Elemental one of the first things I noticed was the distinct lack of special abilities in combat.
Not to say things like flanking/terrain/ect are not good additions too, but I'd rather have interesting units with differing abilities than flanking any day.
I agree with the OP completely. Plus his AI point is very good - programming AI tactics is much easier for abilities that are "always on" rather than things that have to be used and then recharged, unless they are so good that it is always best to use the ability immediately. But if that's the case, then it's a pretty stupid ability to give them since it's not really a tactical CHOICE, just a tactical power up.
The point about AI was probably the weakest from above for one very good reason. If programming good AI tactics with respect to abilities were some how required only for their implementation on standard units, adding abilities would be far more questionable. However, this is simply not the case. Whether or not standard units get such abilties, programming AI tactics with respect to abilities is used for both AI spellcasting and the abilities already found on many monsters. Thus, there is no additional implementation beyond the abilties themselves. Yet, with respect to something like flanking, entire mechanisms would need to be implemented, balanced, and tested, requiring more of the limited development resources for a fairly minor improvement.
kenata, even though the AI can use the special abilities, it's a different thing to use them effectively.
A simple example:
AI has two units, one has low defense and hp, but a huge attack. A so called glass cannon. The other one is more balanced.
I have two units, otherwise similar, but one has First Strike ability.
AI should be hitting the normal unit with their glass cannon as it would be destroyed without accomplishing anything if it attacks the First Strike unit.
That said, I'm all for special abilities. Bring 'em on!
i agree with the OP completely.
Have to agree.
Good post. I would like to emphasize the part about 'special' abilities being special. Their best role is to provide small surprises as the player discovers the game. Like... "Whaoh that thing is immune to all my weapons! Run away!".
What it really boils down to is simple. Can the AI use the Special Abilities effectively? It is seen in game now with the specials that have been modded in. They are great for the player who know when to use them based on various criteria, such as lenght, recharge etc. What is seen alot by the AI is just a "use" of them because they have them, not a use to best effect.
A perfect example is the "REST" special. Almost every AI unit that aquires it uses it stupidly, when based on what it is actually meant for.
First battle Turn. AI's goes. 10 spaces between armies.
AIunit1 "REST, advance 1 Tile" AIunit2 "REST, advance 1 Tile" AIunit3 "REST, advance 1 Tile" AIunit4 "REST, advance 1 Tile" AIunit5 "REST, advance 1 Tile" your Turn.
DOH! Another is windup. Duration is shorter than the time to reach the enemy but it is activated first AI Turn, another DOH! moment.
Might as well give a 2-handed sword to a 1-armed man...
So, Specials are wonderful, great and awesome, but unless both sides used them in an effective and coherent manner, they simply become a detrement to the over-all tactical balance within the game proper.
I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy, but I thought that's what the spell sub classes was for. So they can tell the AI how to use the spells. For instance, the Rest ability has the subclass_heal ...subclass. So, I don't imagine it would take much to tell the AI to only use the heal abilities/spells when you need to restore hitpoints. Remember, they just added the tags in, they haven't done anything with them yet in regards to the AI. With the subclass tags, I can see the AI being pretty damn good with spells/abilities. Really, with a basic set of rules, the AI could be improved a lot with those tags.
I mainly agree with the OP.
That said, I would just change his STOP ASKING FOR MORE SPECIAL ABILITIES into STOP ASKING FOR MORE THAN A FEW SPECIAL ABILITIES.
The Age of Wonders series being the exemple, a few special abilities are good. However, it can be noticed that the more exotic the creature the more chance for having a special ability.
With humans, a lot of abilities are passive ones (= always turned on) like Charge (for cavalry) and Block (for pikeman). The priest, like with other races, has a special one as Heal. By comparison, elve or lizardmen units have more, and strange ones: Charm, Swallow.
So, yes to a few, otherwise it's better to have a ton of passive ones as in Dom3 (Awe, Poison resistant, Fearless, Luck, ...).
1) It's not "fairly minor", it's essential for a TACTICAL combat, and other games have it so no big deal. Enough of reading "Too difficult to do! Be happy to have a dumbed down game!"!
2) If Stardock has so limited development resources then why do they divide them between making FE and updating WoM, and divide them further by making MP different from SP?
i believe the short answer to that is if i am patching, i have 5000 dollars to pay for work hours but if i am making an expansion/ new game feature development/ new game i have 75000 dollars to pay for work hours. So in the case of Elemental i would take the 75000 dollars, i just wish their vision for the game fit better with the capabilities of the new game engine within the allocated span of time - I am someone who always underestimates how much time something ill take to get it right so i have gotten into the habbit of estimating time the way i think it should take, then adding X many days for the things i don't think of.
That being said, of course you have to teach the ai how to use things when you put in new abilites - that is not the point. How else will the ai know the difference betwen a fireball spell and a healing spell? How else will the ai know this is my tanking attacker and this is my damage attacker? The dev's know their business. I'm sure there is a lot about what they wanted to do with the original game engine that they simply couldn't. That's part of the problem when you have a vision and you invent. So i see Fallen enchantress as there way of dealing with the problem of that initial vision.
Without more special abilities, spells and features im stuck playing Battle of Wesnoth. I tried playing it for a week. I grew so bored of it i wanted to poke out my eyeballs and began to look fondly again at age of wonders - poor age of wonders air sniffle~~
Now i am off to figure out Dominion 3 until elemental gets fixed because i really like what the game can potentially do.
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