So the game seems to favor "Glass Cannons"... (commentary and suggestions)

from Elemental Forums

I'm sure this has been discussed elsewhere, so please forgive me. But the forums are a little crazy right now, and I wanted to discuss something productive.

 

I used to be dismayed when I saw the AI with some high hitpoint uber-unit that did like 5 million damage a shot. Until I realized that unit is only dangerous if it actually gets to *hit* you. The combat system gives the clear advantage to the attacker, and its movements are very predictable. Building a squad of veteran heavily armored units with powerful hammers is very expensive and time intensive.  Building a squad with nothing but the most powerful weapon you have is considerably shorter, cheaper, and gives you a one hit wonder, but thats all you'll need to kill those units.

If you one-hit on first strike, you suffer no retaliation.  From that point, the enemy movement is so predictable, you can easily out maneuver them, or kill them one at a time letting them move their two spaces up to you, hit, and fade. Or you can then move your expensive armored units into position for the weaker units to flail away at.  An enemy squad of archers can be problematic, but a magic using hero can counter them, and even if they then kill your glass cannons after the glass cannons have taken out the dangerous unit, it doesn't bother you as much, because you can build them for much cheaper.

On the one hand, you could argue there is a good reason to have a mix of high damage or high defense troops, but you can't really build  troops that have a high enough defense that will keep the unit from losing members vs the high attack scores of some of the monsters, while on the other hand, it is much easier to pump up offense to be able to one shot them.

 

 

There are lots of complex ways you can rework the combat system to account for this, and to enforce the value of armor and survivability, and diminish the advantage of the attacker, but there are some simple things, too:

 

 

1)  Mix up enemy combat speeds.   Enemy movement is far too predictable.  For the most part, most of them move two squares, and it is easy to move into position where they can't attack you that turn, but you can kill many of them the next turn without risk of counter attack, or kill one at a time, and move to repeat the process. Mixing up enemy groups with move speeds of 3 and 1 will make it far more difficult to anticipate and effectively counter their movements to where you're killing multiple units every turn without retaliation.

 

2)  Make "tough" enemies that are supposed to be "hard to kill" , hard to kill by virtue of more hit points and less defense.  More units will be able to hit them, but fewer will be able to one shot them without suffering a counterattack.  The defense scores can get pretty annoying anyways, with your entire army completely unable to hit a creature for damage.  Having your entire army have to focus fire for multiple turns to bring something down, but still able to actually *hit* the thing, seems just as epic to me, and less frustrating.

 

3) Units act in order of highest combat speed, tie goes to the attacking side.  Make the -speed drawback to those powerful blunt weapons really hurt. With every unit having a default combat speed of 2 now, the intended drawback to those weapons isnt really functioning. You can still move and hit, or hit multiple targets fairly easily. Glass cannons with heavy hammers are in much more danger if enemy archers act before them.

 

4)  Special, unpredictable enemy movement movement abilities, like teleport and leap. I know you are already working on abilities like this.

 

5)  An "initiative" system. Slightly more complex, yes, but you can serve multiple purposes with this. Both armies have to roll an initiative check to see who acts first.  The initiative check is modified by the highest level hero's "leadership score", which also affects morale. (armies should really require a hero unit to lead them around the map, but that is another thread). The leadership score is influenced by...Charisma...giving more value to that stat.  This isn't an "easy" balancing fix, but something like it would keep people from being able to abuse the attacker advantage so much. Archer squads and enemy spell casters become much more dangerous if they can act first.

 

 

Anyways, I'm sure these and many better ideas have been discussed previously, so please accept my apologies.

elemental
36,782 views 45 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

yeah i feel like this pretty much sums up elemental's combat.  i personally vote for more depth, but this may not be what the designers intended.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Some good ideas. :)

 

I agree about the glass cannons. A lot of it is because defense is too random and HP values are too low. If defense was more reliable (and less random) and HP values were a bit higher, you wouldn't see so many units die in one hit and they'd get to retaliate. At that point your goon squad is going to be nowhere near as effective because with no defense they'll get destroyed.

There's been a number of threads about it, but it's always good to have more ideas. :)

Make sure you take a look at the suggestions forum, lots of good discussion on these issues over there.

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Stmorpheus, reply 1
yeah i feel like this pretty much sums up elemental's combat.  i personally vote for more depth, but this may not be what the designers intended.

The said thing is I think your right, they have no intention of creating depth to the combat. Oh well guess can wait for another 10 years make age of wonders 3

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

-- Once a unit attacks, it can't move anymore for that round.

This would solve the kiting exploit, it's easy(-ish) to implement and, iirc, that's pretty much how it worked in every other fantasy tactical game.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

They might not put any depth into this game, but hopefully someone will make a mod that increases the depth. 

I totataly agree with this.  Also because this is all it takes to defeat the enemy it makes many researches, equipment, and units useless.  My army only consists of two types of units.  Ranged, and damage dealers.  Everything else serves no purpose as far as I can tell.

If they were to add a paper-rock-scissors element or even special abilities for generic units it would make tactical combat much more fun.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

The OP's ideas are all good ones.

As for what they intend to do with tactical battles, I do think they plan to improve them. I get the sense though they want to make them more fun and engaging without adding in unecessarily complex mechanics. That's one of the reasons I like the OP's suggestions, they are all simple changes that will make the battles more interesting without being more complicated.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, I was just thinking of a short-term solution to the problem but you're right that special abilities would make combat more interesting. They could link some to weapons and equipement (first strike for polearms, shield bash etc...), creature skill (somewhat already there) and adventurer-companion types (assassin gets an inate poison blowgun - low damage over time, thief can hamstring the opponent -short term slowdown or immobilize, warriors could defend adjacent unit -take some of their damage, etc...)

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

While a lot of mechanical rules tweaking would help, what they really need is a combat AI that actually understands the mechanical dynamics outlined by the OP.  If a defending AI army would maneuver to force you into absorbing the first strike, for example, the game would get much more interesting.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Wouldn't it devolve in a staring contest, now with both sides waiting for the other to get in range?  :zzz:

 

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Zorglon, reply 9
Wouldn't it devolve in a staring contest, now with both sides waiting for the other to get in range? 

 

But isn't ranged combat pretty weak right now, especially magic?  So getting pelted by arrows/magic would force you to move forward with your melee troops, thus initiating combat.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Meh, just make it so both units attack at the same time so even if you kill it you still take a full counter attack.

 

Then you can even have first strike abilites for heroes or something!

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Friezo, reply 11
Meh, just make it so both units attack at the same time so even if you kill it you still take a full counter attack.

 

Then you can even have first strike abilites for heroes or something!

I'm not sold on this.  First of all, what I *wasn't* after with this post was to make all units the same. I don't think every unit you make should have to be homogeneous highest armor/ highest damage possible, like Gal Civ, which they would have to be if every unit has to pay for every shot with subsequent damage.  I think there should be different roles, and different viable unit types in combat.

Both high damage, high defense, and high combat speed units should have a place. I think there *is* tactical value in letting players in letting players determine the best attack at any given time, by attacking the target that has the least chance of counter attacking you.  It's just that right now, there are a number of factors ( especially combat speed, which Im getting ready to make another post on) that are diminishing the appeal of one over the other, and making everything sort of "samey".

Perhaps, as you say, a special ability is one way to go about doing this. Certainly, there need to be more special abilities built into the unit design process. But I would rather see something in the basic combat mechanics that does a better job at encouraging battlefield diversity.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Special abilities tied to weapon types (and shields too!) are the way to go IMHO.  This game lacks on the creative unit type I think (when you compare to, say HoMM army types) but it does so well on the "equip your own armies" front that I think it's a good area to capitalize on.

 

As to the whole "no penalty for standing there".  When you are on the attack, the game is supposed to be draining your morale every turn.  So if you sit there are do not advance, theoretically your troops should eventually all run away.  I haven't seen morale come into the forefront much in any of my games yet, but I'll keep watching.  Maybe mods can tweak the morale system to have a bit more impact on battles, and have some more cool hooks in gameplay where players can play with it.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

as a general principle, i'd really rather they fix the basic stats and mechanics, and reflect unit diversity through these, rather than adding in a huge amount of special abilities. otherwise the mundane units that make up the core of the game will become redundant. anyone whose played warhammer (or any roleplaying game) can tell you that a plethora of special rules are no substitute for a well designed basic rules set. special abilities are also far more difficult to balance.

 

fundamentally:

- battle movement speed needs to be totally separated from combat speed. units that can make a lot of attacks are not the same as units that can travel quickly. both of these should not be something that you can just add to like any other stat. they should be fundamental and only affected by things like mounts, spells and characters levelling. i've no idea whether increasing strength or combat speed is better for increasing combat performance, but i'm sure that it would be a ridiculous difference if you crunched the numbers. this is confusing, unnecesarry and just another place for people to go wrong. it should be obvious what people should improve if they want to become better at attacking. ditch manual improvement of combat speed and either, tie it to level or make it some sort of optional bonus for fighter specialists (maybe make it a spell that never needs to be cast?)

- charge bonuses are needed to simulate the shock and power of fast, hard hitting cavalry

- a magic resistance stat is needed. even if it's just something simple like adding 1 to defense against spells.

 

i would rather have to read a few extra numbers to read than the descriptions of 20 special abilities.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

I made a rather substantial (sorry) post on a related issue, and how I think making better use of combat speed is key to a lot of issues, including this one.  Special abilities are important, and i expect they will be added in time.  But that is down the road. The game needs more tactical polish on a basic level, not just waiting around for special abilities to become available. It should work with basic units, as well as ones with special abilities. Combat speed and equipment speed penalties (or lack thereof) is something that is in the game right now, and needs to be adjusted to have a bearing on this and other issues.

If you are particularly masochistic, I suppose you could read it.

Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top

Err...

There is a very simple way to fix the "glass canon" problem. Just make it so that the attack and the retaliation are done at the same time. So even if the unit is destroyed, it still inflict damages on the attacker. I don't see the need to add another layer of complicated mechanisms when a very basic solution exists.

It's actually the system already used by MoM a long time ago, by the way.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Akka, reply 16
Err...

There is a very simple way to fix the "glass canon" problem. Just make it so that the attack and the retaliation are done at the same time. So even if the unit is destroyed, it still inflict damages on the attacker. I don't see the need to add another layer of complicated mechanisms when a very basic solution exists.

It's actually the system already used by MoM a long time ago, by the way.

 

Addressed above.  Few other tactical games do this, for good reason, IMO.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

I think giving the attackers the first attack/movement is reasonable and justified.  But, as the OP suggests, the game should not favor such an obvious exploit.  The AI needs to understand movement better and not walk into a haymaker the way they do.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

i'm not sure if i even agree with the principle that a unit should be able to strike back as many times in a turn as it gets attacked tbh.

Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Spyndel, reply 17


Addressed above.  Few other tactical games do this, for good reason, IMO.

Damn, sorry. I parsed through the thread to see if the point had been already made, but obviously missed it. Doh, and I hate when others do it :-/

That being said, after reading your reply, I really don't agree with your point. I don't see how not using the "attack and retaliation at the same time" has any link with high-attack/high-defense/etc. having a place or not. If you actually want a glass canon or if you want to kill without risking retaliation, just use a ranged unit, or use units that have abilities specially dedicated to it (like "first strike" in MoM). If you want to use high attack units without defense, well then they will kill, but die too. That's also a strategic choice - making cheap units that do a lot of damage but aren't durable, kind of "living missiles".

Not to add that it also feels just more logical to have mélée (hand to hand fighting, where you have to get close and fight directly) being simultaneous for both the attacker and the defender.

In the end, the simpler system is just more logical and easier to work with. It allows at least as much tactical choice (weakening a unit before entering in mélée against) and strategic choice (high-cost vs high-effectiveness) than the other methods, all the while preventing most exploits and being simple and easy to understand and manage. From my experience, complexity is nearly always worse than elegant simplicity.

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sethai, reply 19
i'm not sure if i even agree with the principle that a unit should be able to strike back as many times in a turn as it gets attacked tbh.

 

I considered whether it might be good to limit the counter attacks based on combat speed, or perhaps  simply force the unit to burn their AP for the next turn to counter attack.  It makes sense that a fast character would be able to nimbly defend against multiple attacks or attackers, but they probably couldn't do much else.  Haven't given it much thought in a broader sense, though...been focused mainly on my combat speed post.

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Akka, reply 20

Quoting Spyndel, reply 17

Addressed above.  Few other tactical games do this, for good reason, IMO.
Damn, sorry. I parsed through the thread to see if the point had been already made, but obviously missed it. Doh, and I hate when others do it :-/

That being said, after reading your reply, I really don't agree with your point. I don't see how not using the "attack and retaliation at the same time" has any link with high-attack/high-defense/etc. having a place or not. If you actually want a glass canon or if you want to kill without risking retaliation, just use a ranged unit, or use units that have abilities specially dedicated to it (like "first strike" in MoM). If you want to use high attack units without defense, well then they will kill, but die too. That's also a strategic choice - making cheap units that do a lot of damage but aren't durable, kind of "living missiles".

 

I think having them attack at the same time actually removes more tactical depth than it adds.  Most tactical combat games that do Tac combat well well don't do this.  There *should* be opportunities for the player to make good decisions about who should move in and take that shot. Tac combat is all *about* target selection with minimal retaliation.  There are speed and balance issues in elemental that skew it out of proportion, though.

 

It would also tend to make all melee units homogeneous, which is not what I want.  If you are guaranteed to take a hit with every melee hit, then we are back to building all melee units the same...you'll want max damage and defense for every unit, in order to survive dishing out hits. It doesn't reward you for thinking *tactically*, and doesn't encourage melee units with different roles, like some built for max damage, some built for defense, some built for speed, etc., a concept I outlined much better in this thread.  It becomes simple attrition like in Gal Civ 2, and not tactical combat.

 

Only my opinion, of course, but play a game like Kings Bounty that does Tac combat pretty well, and you'll see why they don't do that, I think.

Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top

I still disagree with your reasoning. Basically you are saying that tactics and variety hang on the fact that a unit can enter mélée without armor and come out unscathed. This simply doesn't compute.

I think that, on the contrary, tactics enter more in the equation when you have to take this into account - and it allows the game to be more logical, seriously, who would expect to fight toe-to-toe without defense and still survive ? - and to actually maneuver in order to minimize the damage of retaliation, and use all the methods to weaken an enemy before contact with the "glass canon".

And I don't see how it has any link with homogeneization, again. You want max damage and defense for any unit, that feels rather logical. The point is, the game simply need to have drawbacks - cost, speed and the like. This has nothing to do with the ability to kill a unit in mélée before it can retaliate. In fact, this entire thread exists BECAUSE of the "kill before it can react" effect exists, and is easily abused. The method you defend is actually much more prone to exploits and homogeneization than the other.

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

They should have just copied the master of magic system.

Armor counted for a lot in that, against weaker units.

(waits for the inevitable"but this isnt MOM" response)

Reply #25 from Elemental Forums Top

The AI's units also need to be able to change target focus more readily. I can and have ran a 500hp unit around the board that was focused on 1 unit while a cpl of "heroes" with longbows slowly whittled them down. It took a while but I was able to defeat them. I can also guarantee with 95% certainty that the attacking mobs will exclusively target my summoned bear, making it easy to use it to lead attackers around by the nose. The only time they don't, is if another of my units has been badly damaged. Simply put ..the AI is none too bright.