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The cave is frightening

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The cave is frightening

from JoeUser Forums

Full Cave (Still not porn)

The monsters under the bed had to breed somewhere.

32,885 views 35 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sir_Linque, reply 22

Quoting Cruxador, reply 21Uh... So you're saying "it's often just fluff, and that's bad" and then saying "I don't need crunch". So what the hell do you want?

Are you misunderstanding on purpose? I say the gameplay adjustment of having height differences is meaningless to me, and the AI would have a hard time with it. So I don't feel there's any point in wasting resources to do it.

Were you being confusing on purpose? If that's what you meant, you should have said it instead of whatever the hell you were trying to say about fluff. Personally, while I agree it's not a huge addition, that doesn't mean it shouldn't go in. "Tactical" battles need a hell of a lot of help before they can be actually tactical. Right now, positioning amounts to "melee units go next to the enemy, ranged units go far away from the enemy" and that's pretty much it.

Quoting Gandhialf, reply 24
1 Complexity.
Quoting Cruxador, reply 21Look at the post again. He wants some super basic stuff. It's not a new dimension, it's a small addition that, together with a lot more, could make tactical battles worth caring about. As far as reach weapons, well, we should have some concept of that already. That we don't just reveals how bland tactical battles really are.

For me ideal tactical game has fairly simple mechanics and a broad spectrum of choices within this simple mechanics. Maybe you are right and the three layers can be done without spoiling the simplicity of basic mechanics of tactical combat, but I doubt it. I would add flying units instead of this. It's more simple (only two layers and no strange weapon modifiers, just ranged/non-ranged) and fun.
It sounds like you want to play Pokemon. That's fine, it's a good game and I enjoy it as well. But Elemental bills itself as having tactical battles. That means Elemental should have tactical battles in it.

I think we need flying units also. But flying units would also need altitude-based weapon modifiers (although they'd hardly be "strange", just as the ones for elevation wouldn't be). And that, like this, is just one more small step towards having good tactical gameplay. Although a well-implemented height system would be a bigger step then just fliers.


2. Graphical representation.
Quoting Cruxador, reply 21The two examples that came immediately to mind that do this pretty well are Lords of Magic and Final Fantasy Tactics. The latter is isometric, and has pretty much exactly what Climber describes. It works very well. Lords of Magic has deformed terrain, with non-incremental elevation. Speed on a slope is decreased, and you get combat bonuses for being elevated. City walls also use this; they have stairs in the back for defending missile units to ascend but otherwise can't be scaled normally, and thus you must use flying or missile units to clear the walls, or destroy the gate and go up the stairs. That's a lot simpler than a good siege system in Elemental should be, but it illustrates the value of height well enough.

Final Fantasy Tactics is too far from FE in terms of graphics and style. This is that I meant by Minecraft style (I know there are no ramps in Minecraft, but still). Please no!

I more like Lords of Magic's tactical battles. No odd cliffs, just hills, slopes, etc. And this could work: player would gain attack and/or defense bonus if on higher ground (like Obi Wan  ), just like you said. But imo it should be done more nicely (less blocky, without those ramps) and still readable. (Like in Alpha Centauri?) But no different "reaches" of weapons, please.
Well certainly it would look more like LoM than FFT. I agree that FFT looks blocky and graphically is pretty dated. I mentioned it because it uses altitude well and its maps are very good examples of how verticality can be used very well in map designs, as well as because it's an example most would be familiar with. I do think we should have cliffs (albeit not "odd" ones) because some of the new wildland features include cliff formations, as do certain less dominant map features, and walls are essentially man-made cliffs.

Quoting Sir_Linque, reply 25
I've played plenty of FFT and Disgaea. They have a battle system completely built around height differences. They are both games that revolve completely around the tactical battles. If you say those kinds of systems are easy to implement, you are out of your mind. Both games use custom made unique tactical battle maps that are designed with very specific battles in mind. You can't just take the system from those games and slap it on another game with random encounters and a wide variety of units and think it'll magically work.
"Easily implemented" is relative, of course. But I'm not saying we should go to that extreme with verticality.

I never found myself thinking "man FFT and Disgaea are really good games because they have height differences!". It's not a requirement for a good tactical battle system.
Yeah, but if they took place on a featureless flat plain, I can guarantee you they wouldn't have been much good. Just because you don't think about a feature doesn't mean it's not important. It means it's been implemented well.

You also really need to understand that it requires a lot more than you think to implement your ideas. Requiring the AI to do fast pathfinding, line of sight calculations and proper decision making based on those variables is a crazy challenge. To give some perspective, Forgboy mentioned that having a line of sight system in tactical battle might be too much for the AI to handle properly.
That's a hurdle that Stardock will have to get past if they want tactical battles to be worth playing in their own right - and they seem to want to.

 

EDIT: As always, the quote system of Stardock's forums doesn't work.

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

"It sounds like you want to play Pokemon."

Nope. I've played some games with tactical battles based on pretty simple mechanics (Age of Wonders 1 for instance: flat land and air, obstacles, two kinds of weapons, magic, etc.). And these were fun and complex enough. Simple mechanics doesn't necessarily mean simple battles. You can have many interesting and hard choices within a simple framework. Even playing checkers can be hard and varied, you know.

ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

AoW has a hell of a lot more to its battles than Elemental does, first of all. The maps are not flat - there are walls and buildings. There are lots of spells and abilities that alter the map and the way in which units traverse the map. And even with those features, far beyond anything we've seen so far in Elemental, you often end up commanding your soldiers to just walk forward and attack with no need to consider tactics of any kind.

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

Cruxador, the reason why FFT etc wouldn't work on a featureless flat plain is that the game is built around the height differences, just as I said.

There is no reason why a game without height differences couldn't be interesting and deep. So it's not a requirement for FE's tactical battles to have height differences to be interesting.

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Gandhialf, reply 24
1 Complexity.
...
For me ideal tactical game has fairly simple mechanics and a broad spectrum of choices within this simple mechanics. Maybe you are right and the three layers can be done without spoiling the simplicity of basic mechanics of tactical combat, but I doubt it. I would add flying units instead of this. It's more simple (only two layers and no strange weapon modifiers, just ranged/non-ranged) and fun.

Having flying units occupying a 2nd "New" layer probably requires more programming changes than you'll think. It involve adding a z, on top of original x,y.

For my idea, flying unit can be implemented with the same 1 layer. Flyers can be represented by having a height of C (or even D) when the tile it occupy is of height level A.

There is always some abstraction/debate of flyers in tactical battle. But with the concept of Reach and height, melee of flyer in tactical battle can still be somewhat reasonable.

Quoting Gandhialf, reply 24
1 Complexity.
2. Graphical representation.
Final Fantasy Tactics is too far from FE in terms of graphics and style. This is what I meant by Minecraft style (I know there are no ramps in Minecraft, but still). Please no!

I more like Lords of Magic's tactical battles. No odd cliffs, just hills, slopes, etc. And this could work: player would gain attack and/or defense bonus if on higher ground (like Obi Wan ), just like you said. But imo it should be done more nicely (less blocky, without those ramps) and still readable. (Like in Alpha Centauri?) But no different "reaches" of weapons, please.


No, I don't meant to give FE blocky map like FFT. Having 3 (or even 4) different height level still allow smooth looking map.

Quoting Sir_Linque, reply 25
You also really need to understand that it requires a lot more than you think to implement your ideas. Requiring the AI to do fast pathfinding, line of sight calculations and proper decision making based on those variables is a crazy challenge. To give some perspective, Forgboy mentioned that having a line of sight system in tactical battle might be too much for the AI to handle properly.

No, I have not with for line-of-sight. It is completely another feature request. Height is way more important.

Implementing Height allows the following:
1. Weapon Reach mechanics
2. Ranged missle bonus/penalty
3. Implementation of flying/climbing/jumping unit that navigate 'choke' points
4. Riding units charging bonus, when charging from high grounds
5. Possibility for City wall/Castle, or simulation of indoor environment.

Above 4 will needs changes in Unit design & combat rules, but all these should be easily implemented with small code changes & xml edits.

The real work in always very thorough thinking on the detail of the design, and the AI. That's why need development's support of implementing it. Not something modder can do.

I am not asking for complex tactical combat. But from what we've heard, it is still very bland. Maybe Derek will add better unit variety, but this alone with the initiative system, is far from enough.

 

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

Adding different heights to units is not complicated at all, it's just about abilities and immunities. Flying units just need the "Flying" ability, which gives them immunity from strikes from units with the "Walking" ability. That's how it works in AoW. There's no need for different heights on the map for this to work.

AoW has a hell of a lot more to its battles than Elemental does, first of all. The maps are not flat - there are walls and buildings. There are lots of spells and abilities that alter the map and the way in which units traverse the map. And even with those features, far beyond anything we've seen so far in Elemental, you often end up commanding your soldiers to just walk forward and attack with no need to consider tactics of any kind.

This is true (except for sieges where you had a significant advantage as a defender standing on a wall, but there are no sieges in FE.).

I love AoW but that game is all about tactical combat. FE is about empire building. However, there should still be some advantage to controlling your units manually instead of using auto combat...

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Magog_AoW, reply 31
Adding different heights to units is not complicated at all, it's just about abilities and immunities. Flying units just need the "Flying" ability, which gives them immunity from strikes from units with the "Walking" ability. That's how it works in AoW. There's no need for different heights on the map for this to work.

You are right. Well, maybe it's a little more complicated in terms of graphics (3D engine).

Quoting Magog_AoW, reply 31
I love AoW but that game is all about tactical combat. FE is about empire building. However, there should still be some advantage to controlling your units manually instead of using auto combat...

This is very important point. The basis for E:FA (and E:WOM) is not some tactical game, but Civilization (4X game). In Civilizations I to IV there is one huge issue: the stack of doom and it's consequences (almost no tactics at all). I know two ways to overcome it: (1) one unit per tile (Jon Shafer :grin: ), (2) tactical mini-game. The first option puts tactics on the world map, the second puts tactics on a mini-map. Tactical combat is not the core of this (or any) 4X game. It's just a way to deal with the stack of doom imo.

BTW, tactical battle should not distract from the main game. Oh, I forgot I have a kingdom to run. Player thought after a very long and hard tactical battle.  ;P

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Gandhialf, reply 32
This is very important point. The basis for E:FA (and E:WOM) is not some tactical game, but Civilization (4X game). In Civilizations I to IV there is one huge issue: the stack of doom and it's consequences (almost no tactics at all). I know two ways to overcome it: (1) one unit per tile (Jon Shafer ), (2) tactical mini-game. The first option puts tactics on the world map, the second puts tactics on a mini-map. Tactical combat is not the core of this (or any) 4X game. It's just a way to deal with the stack of doom imo.

BTW, tactical battle should not distract from the main game. Oh, I forgot I have a kingdom to run. Player thought after a very long and hard tactical battle.

Except that FE is also part RPG. Without tactical combat there would be no point to over half the spells in the game, 90%of monsters, 80% of items, customizing troops, Elemental Lords, etc. Elemental is more based off HoMM or other TBS games that do have tactical combat then Civ. You can't just take out tactical combat, the entire game is based around it. Even auto-calc still has tactical combat you just don't see it. Besides having tactical combat doesn't prevent people from making stacks of doom. It's all I ever did in HoMM and Elemental. Good game mechanics prevent stacking regardless of the presence of tactical combat.

Having multiple levels of land is not the same thing as flying units at all. Although I would love to see flying units I don't see the point in talking about adding multiple levels to tactical combat like in FF:Tactics. It would be a completely ridiculous amount of work for very questionable gain. It stands no chance of being implemented, sorry. That said you can see in the Iteration thread that the game supports hills in tactical combat. Since in WoM there were tiles that boosted defense on the tactical map there is a really good chance that standing on Hills in FE will already give you a bonus! If they don't I imagine it will be easy to mod in.

Quoting Magog_AoW, reply 31
This is true (except for sieges where you had a significant advantage as a defender standing on a wall, but there are no sieges in FE.).

I hope some sort of siege mechanic makes it in to FE... The mechanics already exist to make a poor man's version. Just give the defender a tactical map with a choke point and some defense boosting tiles. it would be a lot better then nothing especially after spending so much time building a wall for your city.

Reply #34 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting DsRaider, reply 33
Except that FE is also part RPG. Without tactical combat there would be no point to over half the spells in the game, 90%of monsters, 80% of items, customizing troops, Elemental Lords, etc. Elemental is more based off HoMM or other TBS games that do have tactical combat then Civ. You can't just take out tactical combat, the entire game is based around it. Even auto-calc still has tactical combat you just don't see it. Besides having tactical combat doesn't prevent people from making stacks of doom. It's all I ever did in HoMM and Elemental. Good game mechanics prevent stacking regardless of the presence of tactical combat.

Maybe you are right about FE being based more on HoMM than Civ. But I still can imagine FE with one unit per tile mechanics (like in Civ V). I think almost 100% spells, monsters, items etc. could stay.

Reply #35 from Elemental Forums Top

Beside the additional AI work, implementing height is just about adding its related rules, as the FE graphic engine did support that according to the video posted by developers.

It does not matter whether this is a 4X game that it has emphasis is on empire building. If tactical comabt (TC) is there, and it is badly done (non-fun), all the games review will write about it. Given its effect of word-of-mouth and sales, this part of game is crucial.

To Gandhialf, According to recent development screenshoot, we have a maximum of 9 units per tile (in strategic map & tactical map). It seem to be a good choice as it make a good balance btn stack choices, while avoiding stack of doom problem.