I know that you don't want a combat simulator, but for the LOVE OF GOD, can we please get some sort of flanking bonus? Even if it's just a 15% buff to the attack or a greater likelihood that we hit. Please?
Also, the new snapshot is looking even better. Why did the mounted hero go away? I loved her...
I think the drain crystal spell isn't working as intended. I got the mana, the crystal remained, and then eventually gained all of its life back. Not much of a sacrifice...(besides the doomsday counter being added to).
Regarding flanking:
actually AoW3 was a game were i got so so frustrated with flanking. I would have my unit 3 tiles away from an enemy unit facing it, then the enemy would move around and attack me from "flank". It was so absurd - why would my unit not turn and defend itself? it takes like 7 tiles before enemy makes it to the flank - , all the more that you cannot even choose direction of facing of your unit ...
For me flanking has a sense if the unit you are attacking is busy fighting with someone already. Thus, I think swarm mechanic is good, clean and simple solution.
(in Aow3 you actually can choose the direction your unit is facing, both when performing a move and when standing still a turn)
1. About tactical battles being a test for your units and spells/skills/equip you've aqired: there are games where this is true, namely Dominions and Endless Legends. Played have very limited control and units just clash into each other, "testing" their powers. I see no reason tactical battles to be "testing" in the presence of full manual control.
2. Battles already have pretty neat mechanics to become interesting: initiative, swarming, passage blocking. These should be leveraged to achive satisfying battle experience.
2. There are two things which will not add significant duration to battles, but will enchance them a lot. One: slow units down. At least, make speed trinkets very hard to aquire and limit soveriegn bonuses to global map. Two: make units overwatch instead of defensive stance. That is, unit will attack(once) anybody, who will to act within range(range is one sqare for melee and whole battlefield for archers/mages). With this change player will be able to position his/her units in spaces he/she like without actually loosing the turn entirely. It will help with setting up swarms and blocking paths, for example. Also it will give defending army more bonuses. And it will actually speed up battles a little bit.
3. Some additional stuff, that i'd like to be there: weather, terrain, LoS-like mechanic,
4. Some additional stuff, that better not to be there, imo: ranges, flanks, day/night.
geniusisme, 1. I like the dominions comparison... but dominions does have unit scripting and positioning, which actually makes combat much more tactical even if it's instant (only watching the replay takes any time).
2. I'd love for movement speed to come down... but I like slower paced games. Mostly it's the tactical movement speed that's the problem not strategic (Even the medium maps feel very big atm).
3. I agree but see 4.4. What issue do you have with ranges? (If you like LOS surely implementing that would also limit range indirectly?) Personally I prefer soft-caps to hard caps. So no 'archers can shoot between 1-5 squares' but 'archers do max damage in the range 1-5 squares' etc.
I think I'd be tempted to group weather and day/night too... both are odd situational global battlefield effects. I think if you did the mechanics for one the other would be easy to do too. So I'm wondering what it is about one specifically that you like and the other you dislike. I'm curious. (I quite like fighting in the dark in dominions because: I'm deep underwater, in a cave, someone has blotted out/stolen/eaten the sun etc.)
Regarding movement speed, do you mean how many tiles they can move in 1 turn?
Regarding ranges, I personally would like to see some sort of range penalty to encourage units to get in closer. I'm just not sure how much impact we want to have this have or whether it's worth doing if it's not going to have a significant impact.
In game design we have a couple of key questions we have to ask ourselves
If the answer to any of these questions is no, then it becomes suspect.
Re material effects on gameplay: If the suggested mechanic doesn't really have much impact, then it's basically just noise. There are lots of strategy games that give the illusion of depth because they are full of mechanics that don't really matter. We had this problem a lot in War of Magic where we had tons and tons of little stats for units that ultimately didn't matter (piercing damage vs blunt damage for example which made no real difference).
In Sorcerer King, we do have Cold, Poison, and Fire damage because we are making it so that entire factions have this kind of damage and thus if you end p having to go against them, you'll want to prepare for that. Once we balance the minor factions, hopefully these differentiations will matter a lot more.
This is why I don't like terrain bonuses. Unless terrain matters a lot, then it's going to make players feel like they have to micro manage every battle because obviously the AI will never play nearly as well as the human and auto-resolving battles will never be very good.
Re reinforcement of mechanics: We used to have a concept of unit morale. The idea being that the attacker's morale would go down every round of combat and morale affected all the stats of players. This was an interesting mechanic but was kind of a dangling mechanic that was also very powerful. Morale didn't come up anywhere else in the game except battles so we ultimately took it out.
In Sorcerer King, we've tried to tie everything around a handful of mechanics: Doomsday counter, Magic, Crafting.
Re Communicating it to the player: This is, by far, the most common issue that people ignore when suggesting new game mechanics. If something can't be communicated to the player then it becomes frustrating.
Flanking is a really good example. What should constitute flanking? When a unit has to turn around? When a unit moves X tiles from behind to hit a unit from behind? What's ironic is flanking is a lot tougher idea to implement than say backstab. I think backstabbing would be a lot more fun because then you have to time your attack to when a unit isn't facing you.
RE Compatible with the rest of the gameplay: This is another common issue that comes up with people suggest gameplay features. If you asked certain enthusiast GalCiv players what they'd like to see in GalCiv III they would say that the invasions should be practically a separate game. That ship combat should be basically a separate game. That planet building would effectively be a game unto itself. And so on.
Ultimately, a game can't be all things to all people. Someone who likes Space Empires V may not like GalCiv because they'd consider GalCiv too "shallow". Someone who really likes Dominions might not like Sorcerer King for the same reason.
Sorcerer King's tactical battles aren't supposed to be particularly sophisticated. But they are supposed to be more sophisticated that FE/LH. They aren't there yet. That is why we like talking to you guy -- because this way we can get other ideas.
Hopefully those of you reading this lengthy comment might have a better understanding of the decision making process we go through.
Cheers
To be totally honest, I don't think flanking is necessary. There are bonuses for ganging up on units and that's good enough for me. Same goes for high ground. Everyone longs for the spiritual successor to MoM and and that had pretty straightforward combat. So, I'd keep the combat similar to what it is now with some small tweaks and focus on other areas.
Then how do you explain the swarm mechanic? It is absolutely NOT transparent; it is passive without any sort of iconic indicator or a statistical representation in the unit details; there is no indication anywhere that it is happening as intended or why it is happening; and it is unclear - IN-GAME - how the mechanic is actually affecting tactical combat.
(This thread and 'on tactical battles could really do with being merged)
Frogboy, yes, movement speed as in tiles per turn. Not animation speed.
mqpiffle - I agree that swarming isn't mentioned in any of the damage tooltips. I think Frogboy would argue that as you see the other units move you know that *something* is going on. Though I think what many people assume is that all surrounding units are getting a free attack in.
Concerning range - Heroes of might and magic (even the really really old ones) shows a 'broken arrow symbol'. That plus a description in the tooltip with obviously reduced damage would be fine.
In the 'on tactical battles' thread, mqpiffle mentioned the game Titan. I've never heard of it before today. But here are the rules from the PDF concerning terrain effects (for those who are curious but don't have the time to go hunting for it):
@geniusisme
The overwatch mechanic works really well in a lot of games, but I am unsure how well it would fit in with current combat:
1/ I could see everyone using cheesy tactics and filling their army with mostly archers and mages, and decimating the opposition with overwatch before they got that close.
2/ you would be getting an additional attack in on top of the swarm bonus.
PS: I have been meaning to mention heroes with Maul ability, when they use it all the other units attack as well. So maul for the hero is working at the swarm mechanic level when used. I really think it should just be the unit that has maul that uses the effect.
Dr Franknfurter.
Sorry for skrewed up numbers
- I haven't played many games of Dominions, but from that few I found that you basically line up your troops and issue orders one time Then you "test" them in battles, pretty much with the same position/orders.
-Strategic speed is ok, as I've mentioned above.
- Ranges. I just do not see how can they be important in current maps, and those maps are more or less ok, though I like ones in FE more. Positioning against LoS can be important, though.
- Day/night vs weather. There is this reinforcment issue Frogboy speaks of. They did pretty good job in Dominions, but I can't imagine in SK caves/underwater. Powerful magic, perhaps? I don't know. May be.
obsoletenexus.
1. Mages and archers will decimate if defending. When they attack, they are not in overwatch stance yet.
2. There is no "additional" attack. You stand in overwatch by not attacking/performing meaningful action except moving, just as with defence now.
Why maul having swarm bonus bothers you? Or is it just an animation issue?
Just the one unit has maul. All the others moving is just animation emphasizing the swarm feature. Unless something has gone wacky recently?!
Don't worry about the numbers. I just forgot to say anything about your (2 part 1) the mention of existing mechanics that could be improved/extended. I certainly think that's an issue. Initiative changes from game to game, and (to me) still doesn't feel quite right:I'd have the initiative bonus from a weapon apply for one turn *after* it's used, not continuously... so a bow doesn't make you walk towards the enemy any more slowly or act last at the start of battle, but you'd still get fewer attacks in during a long battle then using a dagger, which would let you get more stabs in. A few more things that modify initiative within battle would be nice to integrate it better, e.g. swampy terrain slowing both your movement and initiative. Spells having an associated initiative modifier, casting cheap buffing spells could increase your initiative for a turn, allowing you to cast more of them than an offensive spell. Some powerful spells could reduce your initiative after casting (like how archers act less often) or use a set base 20 initiative to stop agile units spamming them, especially those with casting times.
Swarming, I think we all agree needs a good tooltip that explains what it does. (and probably a help menu bit when they get some love).
Blocking terrain - I wouldn't mind some more interesting objects in battle. Some summonable, some destructable, some dangerous, some terrain-linked perhaps generating or modifying the battle in some way. e.g. An ice sculpture that summons an intense blizzard in battle, can be destroyed and is only found in snowy battles. A dragon statue that activates on casting any fire spell... lots of potential to use those battlefield objects to do more than currently.
It's all well and good to say that the tactical battles are not intended to be the focus of the game but... don't they kind of have to be the focus? After all, killing the SK is the only victory condition for the player. Combat is required to win the game!
The main issue that I have with the tactical combat is repetitiveness - To this point in the Beta, the tactical battles can be extremely repetitive. There seem to only be a handful of battlefield layouts available at the moment and they start to repeat pretty quickly. Meanwhile, enemy armies only seem to come in a few configurations. There have been a couple of times where I have attacked (or been attacked by) the same SK army 3 times in a row - well, 3 separate identical armies anyway.
Guess what? All three battles played out EXACTLY the same way, all three times. That was kind of boring.
What is fun about tactical combat? Heroes and their special abilities. Those are fun and I enjoy using them. More of that would be fun! I am sure that many of the minor faction units will incorporate lots of cool special abilities as time goes on.
And flanking? I am in favor of that.
greetings. We had a huge meeting today about all the stuff. I'm on my iPad right now. So I can't really going to much detail. I promise I'll be tell you a lot more about it this week. Most of this was regarding the tackle battles and I think you're going to like what week have come up with.
Great news!
I understand your point, but the way I often like to make a point is to be over-exuberant about it to the extreme.
I actually don't mind the swarm mechanic. I just don't know if it brings any real or interesting tactical choices into play.
@Frogboy Sounds good. ^^
I'm also looking forward to seeing what the team have planned. mqpiffle, I completely agree with you. I think the words you used were entirely justified and show an honest, clearly stated and important issue. Clarity.
With that in mind, and since we're discussing the swarm mechanic, here's a mock-up of how I'd like swarming bonuses (and any bonus for that matter) to be presented:
Two units adjacent, example of a possible bonus (I don't know what the actual bonus is/does). (Edit: added a swarm icon. With friendly and hostile units indicated... could allow for defensive and offensive bonuses).Three units adjacent, example of a possible bonus (I don't know what the actual bonus is/does)
Very excited to hear what you guys discussesd, Frogboy! Glad you and your team are listening!
In no particular order here are things we discussed:
Brad
That's an excellent list. Will we be seeing those changes in Beta 3?
Also, do you plan to have a Beta 3 "snapshot"?
This. I also think spells should have their casting time in 'ticks' rather than 'rounds.'
Careful not to jump the gun. He said they discussed that stuff, not that it had all been agreed to go into the game.
Yea, think of a round as 20 ticks.
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