Gareth Davies on CRPG combat

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Wed Dec 11, 2002 4:00 am

[ -> Editorial]

Gareth Davies of <a href="http://www.microforte.com">Micro Forte</a>, we lub him, has written a long <a href="http://www.rpgcodex.com/content.php?id=21">article</a> on CRPG combat for <A href="http://www.rpgcodex.com">RPG Codex</a> covering the big four types of combat we've seen in CRPGs. Here's a taste:
 
 <blockquote>The first thought that springs to mind is to greatly simplify the interface and in turn, the combat system itself. If the player is only controlling a single avatar, then quite reasonable demands can be placed on the players' manual dexterity, provided there isn't much depth to the system, which in most cases becomes a fairly simple point and click affair with a small selection of hotkeyed actions. However, if we throw back to the initial paragraph of this article, it's very questionable if this is indeed enjoyable and challenging for the player. In most cases this combat in itself isn't, and so it tends to be compensated for with many progression rewards, and needless to say this doesn't capture the imagination of many players. </blockquote>
 
 You have to love that wacky goth!

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Wed Dec 11, 2002 6:15 am

Great article, S8. (Yes, I brought my attention span and read the whole thing. :mrgreen: )

I'm essentially neutral on the TB/RT/RTwP debate, but I will say that the "chunky" nature of TB's movement that allows a player to move from cover, fire and then go back out of LoS is still something that needs to be addressed. While you can rationalize (or rationalise, depending on where you're from) that as an abstration of a player making intelligent use of cover it's still a game element that is too open to exploitation. There are ways of handling it such as the Overwatch function in FoT, but that too has serious weaknesses for what I'm about to address.

I think the biggest problem w/CRPGs -- indeed w/c-games in general -- is still the AI. Sitting at the gaming table a flesh-and-blood GM/DM -- between sips of Mountain Dew, especially is he's me -- can sit down and plot out a believable* plan to be used by the opponent(s) in question. A group of Super Mutants doesn't use the same tactics as a pack of Deathclaws, which are in turn different from those used by a squad of Brotherhood Paladins.

*Note I say "believable" and not "realistic". First, I think it somewhat absurd to speak of "realism" in the context of games that have some of the facets that they do. Secondly, we're talking about drama here, and not "real life". (Too bad you didn't get into drama in the article, btw.)

I've been hard at work w/FoT for about 16 months now and the thing I've discovered is that it is fairly simply to come up w/combinations of tile placement, opponents, AI settings and scripting that make for a decent defensive (from the AI's perspective) action. For instance, you can set up zone and alarm combinations that cause reinforcements to be sent to where the player is attacking; use fairly weak opponents set to "Coward" to lure the player into ambushes, etc., etc., etc.

However, due to lack of cooperation the AI's actions while on the offensive leave a little to be desired. An entire horde of attackers will always make decisions based solely on his/her/its own particular circumstances. There's no "Gee, my buddy just got cut down trying to cross that street. I think I'd better try to flank that MG position before I go sticking my nose out there." In FoT terms that could mean changing between Aggressor and Flank AI, although these settings are a bit too simplistic for what I'm trying to get at. As it stands, you're basically fighting lemmings. This goes for whether you're talking about an advancing enemy or the penchant the AI has for dumping every available gun into an opportunity fire attack.

I guess it comes down to -- as I believe you once put it on the BIS boards -- "having Rain Man for a GM" once you make the transition from a bio-GM to a CGM. But, I think that if the AI could be improved TB's virtues would far outweigh its vices, no questions asked. It would certainly beat the usual solution to the problem of simply making the enemies tougher, which is what is done in both TB as well as RT. (Then you'd just have to convince those niggling fucks in marketing.

)

Again, it was a great article.

Cheers,

OTB

Rosh · Post by **Rosh** » Wed Dec 11, 2002 6:32 am

Check out Prelude to Darkness' way of handling TB. Solves all the arguments against it quite neatly.

Section8 · Post by **Section8** » Wed Dec 11, 2002 1:00 pm

While you can rationalize (or rationalise, depending on where you're from) that as an abstration of a player making intelligent use of cover it's still a game element that is too open to exploitation. There are ways of handling it such as the Overwatch function in FoT, but that too has serious weaknesses for what I'm about to address.

There are better ways around this. Prelude to Darkness's dynamic initiative handles it exceedingly well, and I have been exploring the possibilities of user defined interupt circumstances, for instance, if the player knows an enemy is hiding behind a wall, they can specify a condition such as "If [small radius] centred by player at the point the enemy is expected to pop out from is occupied, interupt."

This makes overwatch/interupts much more predictable, and adds a layer of tactical double guessing to the combat. If I know that my enemy knows I'm hiding around a corner and he's likely to be watching it, I might not pop out, I might get another one of my characters to pop out from elsewhere. It makes overwatch more focused, and less ueber, which makes approaching a stationary enemy a little easier.

I think the biggest problem w/CRPGs -- indeed w/c-games in general -- is still the AI. Sitting at the gaming table a flesh-and-blood GM/DM -- between sips of Mountain Dew, especially if he's me -- can sit down and plot out a believable* plan to be used by the opponent(s) in question. A group of Super Mutants doesn't use the same tactics as a pack of Deathclaws, which are in turn different from those used by a squad of Brotherhood Paladins.

I agree that AI is definitely something that needs a great deal of improvement. If only those genius programmers out there weren't so fixated on visual effect. Given time, there's no real difficulty in making various different opponents behave in different and interesting ways, but AI seems to be neglected by too many developers, along with pathfinding.

I've been hard at work w/FoT for about 16 months now and the thing I've discovered is that it is fairly simply to come up w/combinations of tile placement, opponents, AI settings and scripting that make for a decent defensive (from the AI's perspective) action. For instance, you can set up zone and alarm combinations that cause reinforcements to be sent to where the player is attacking; use fairly weak opponents set to "Coward" to lure the player into ambushes, etc., etc., etc.

That's exactly our take on the AI. Once we'd pinned down where the game worked well it became clear that the best thing enemies could do tactically was to defend. So that area of the AI was given a good deal of time and effort to make sure that defense was the strong point, and missions were scripted favouring the assault of fortified positions. Patrolling still leaves a little to be desired, because generally the enemy won't do anything too intelligent once he's spotted you unless he's a coward, like you said, with some explicitly scripted circumstances tied into an alarm.

However, due to lack of cooperation the AI's actions while on the offensive leave a little to be desired. An entire horde of attackers will always make decisions based solely on his/her/its own particular circumstances. There's no "Gee, my buddy just got cut down trying to cross that street. I think I'd better try to flank that MG position before I go sticking my nose out there." In FoT terms that could mean changing between Aggressor and Flank AI, although these settings are a bit too simplistic for what I'm trying to get at. As it stands, you're basically fighting lemmings. This goes for whether you're talking about an advancing enemy or the penchant the AI has for dumping every available gun into an opportunity fire attack.

This was something I knew all about. I did most of the scripting for Quincy and Kansas City, both of which involved enemy assaults, and both were pretty nightmarish, because the AI only really likes to follow waypoints when it's not in combat, so once it reached a certain point, it simply became chaos. The smartest thing an offensive AI character would do was to lie down, but it rarely sought anything to lie down behind. Flank AI was slightly better, but was pretty simple, and prone to doing some dumb things. Still, even with their faults, it was pretty important to have some missions that didn't involve taking down a bunch of stationary and fortified enemies.

I guess it comes down to -- as I believe you once put it on the BIS boards -- "having Rain Man for a GM" once you make the transition from a bio-GM to a CGM. But, I think that if the AI could be improved TB's virtues would far outweigh its vices, no questions asked. It would certainly beat the usual solution to the problem of simply making the enemies tougher, which is what is done in both TB as well as RT. (Then you'd just have to convince those niggling fucks in marketing.

I recommend you check out Prelude to Darkness. The AI is incredibly simple, it seems to be not a lot more than "Attack closest enemy" but it works pretty damned well due to the dynamic initiative, which prevents you from doing a whole sequence of actions while the enemy remains motionless. Plus, the guys over at Zero Sum don't have a bunch of niggling fucks as you so aptly put it, looking over their shoulder. Being independent definitely has it's upside.

voodoo1man · Post by **voodoo1man** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 4:25 am

I've just beaten Gothic several days ago (lucky me, now I only have to wait three months for the sequel!), and the combat system really impressed me. It really is nothing amazing - a 3d person view beat-em-up, but it's very polished. They've abstracted the combat interface by key combinations (although the trading and weapon selection slot equipping system can be annoying, but that isn't used during combat), and IMO, this is really the only way to make real-time combat fun. Action games have obviously perfected the formula a long time ago, so why not borrow from them?

What makes Gothic really unique in this respect is the clever way that the stat system is tied to the combat system. The two basic abilities in Gothic are strength and dexterity, with each going up to 100 points (well, you can only spend that many XP on it), and each point costing a single experience point. Weapons depend on these stats. There is another two level weapon-class mastery skill that determines the timing between your attacks and the combos you can generate (this is again dependent on the fact that the combat is controlled by key combinations). Besides that the stat system is pretty minimal (ignoring magick here, which is a little different), but it's effects are immediatly apparent because of how the item/stat values scale compared to the damage you cause and the types of creatures you face.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that party-based or axonometric perspective RPGs that require a mouse-based interface are obviously bad models for real time combat, and no amount of hacks or contortions will change that. The control problem has been solved a long time ago in action games, with the ideal solution (now) obviously being single-player keyboard/joystick oriented interface. Gothic shows that with some changes, a role-playing stat system and an involved world (although I wish it were more so, but I hear that Gothic II will satisfy this), can be integrated smoothly with this type of real-time control system. Not only is the act of combat more fun, now you also gain back some of the tactical benefits of turn-based combat (namely environment manipulation). I'd like to see the same thing done in a Crusader-like axonometric perspective game.

Crow of Ill Omen · Post by **Crow of Ill Omen** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 7:01 pm

I've not read the article (for reasons about 7 or 8 people here are aware of) but I would like to comment on the general debate.

I don't see why some people are so partisan. Neither TB or RT are inherently better for RPGs. Both offer different things, which affects their suitability to a given game.

Turn-based encourages tactical decision making. Tactical combat can be very interesting and great to play, but it's not something you can make a minor part of the game. It tends to become the central focus. Combat becomes a bit of a mini-game, and it's one you are confronted with in almost every scene. Characters get built for their combat focus. Any character that developed with the intention of avoiding combat (if successful) reduces the game to a fraction of it's normal playing time.

Real-time combat encourages fast, often frantic, combat that is over quickly. This gives more scope for allowing PCs to find alternative solutions to problems without making it feel like you're side-stepping the main game all the time. A lot of characters still get built with a combat focus, but the game isn't shortened as much for ones who aren't. Real-time combat has a more arcade-style feel to it, so can degenerate into a click-fest if not supported adequately with automation tools.

I don't think this side of RT has been exploited very well by games to date, since the emphasis on real-time has been for entirely the wrong reasons, but that doesn't remove the potential. The well-made RPGs in the past have generally used TB combat, possibly excepting DivDiv (depending on whether you see it as an RPG and whether you think it was well made).

Rosh · Post by **Rosh** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 7:13 pm

Crow of Ill Omen wrote:I've not read the article (for reasons about 7 or 8 people here are aware of)

Let's make sure more know about it.

Namely how, as usual, you were trolling. This time, it wasn't just your trolling at RPGCodex that earned you the ban, it was partially your bullshit here. The thread entitled Your "Saint_Proverbius" and your post therein paints a rather firm picture that even Det0x could see.

Frankly, I'm not even sure why you're still allowed to waste DAC's bandwith.

Crow of Ill Omen · Post by **Crow of Ill Omen** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 7:48 pm

I don't want to drag DAC in RPGCodex's problems, so lets not discuss it here. I don't like flaming or any other kind of useless strife. Anyone who reads my posts can judge for themselves what type of person I am.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 8:38 pm

Well you should still be able to read the article and you should because it goes beyond just TB vs RT. Gareth did a pretty good job being objective about all of the combat systems in CRPG's.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 9:19 pm

Crow of Ill Omen wrote:I don't want to drag DAC in RPGCodex's problems, so lets not discuss it here. I don't like flaming or any other kind of useless strife. Anyone who reads my posts can judge for themselves what type of person I am.

Heh, heh.

Crow of Ill Omen · Post by **Crow of Ill Omen** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 9:42 pm

I would be interested in reading the article, Jimmyjay but I won't be able to do that unless someone C&Ps it here for me. It would certainly be nice to see someone trying to do a good job of covering a subject objectively, rather than just using it as a vehicle for a personal agenda. Congratualtions to Section8 if he has managed to do that on the loaded subject of TB vs RT.

Deathy · Post by **Deathy** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 10:51 pm

CONTENT THIEF!

Really, it's pretty immoral to copy an exclusive article from a site, and post it on another, even if it is a forum post.

NOTE: The above part refers to JimmyJay's post of the article.

Furthermore, Crow Of Ill Omen, aka Sheriff Fatman, has proved that he is not capable of acting in a reasonable fashion on my site, so he was banned from the site.

In fact, the way he goes around bitching about the site proves to me that he doesn't deserve to read its content.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 11:09 pm

Well I hope you're not going to be stripping all of the other articles I've posted on this site or you'll be deleting for the next several days.....

Whatever.

Deathy · Post by **Deathy** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 11:18 pm

How can you expect anyone to just shrug of the theft of their content?
We (The staff at RPG Codex) all work hard on that site, and to see our work being stolen by some ignorant punk is an insult.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 11:26 pm

Understood and it would be valid if I posted it on my website. But this is a forum and in the interest of fairness maybe Crow should be allowed to read it if he so chooses. Its not content theft to post it here. At the very least I should have included the link. Is he banned from even viewing it there? That seems kinda silly.

Deathy · Post by **Deathy** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 11:33 pm

Don't stick your nose into the situation with Crow/Fatman.
It's none of your business.

But for the sake of fairness, I'll tell you why I don't want him reading our content.

He constantly bitches about RPG Codex. He says that we are a site dedicated to the personal agenda's of Saint Proverbius and Rosh (Who isn't even a staff member). He has been warned several times about trolling on our site, and yet continued to do it.
He makes posts in these forums designed to scare readers away from the site, in what looks to be an attempt to cause us harm.
The simple fact of the matter is that if he does this, and expects us to welcome him with open arms, he is sorely mistaken, so we ban him from the boards, which has the nice effect of banning him from the front page, since they are integrated.

He had his chance, he had many chances.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 11:43 pm

Deathy wrote:Don't stick your nose into the situation with Crow/Fatman.
It's none of your business.

Oh my! Slap me and call me Sally. Sorry I didn't check with you first, what was I thinking.....

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 11:44 pm

http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=471

There. That was the final straw. Even after he was warned several times, and posted bullshit on this forum.

Deathy · Post by **Deathy** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 11:48 pm

Don't be an idiot, JimmyJay.

It isn't any of your business. It's a matter between RPG Codex and Crow/Fatman.

The only reason I've been trying to justify the actions of the site is because I don't want to lose any readers.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Fri Dec 13, 2002 11:57 pm

I just find it immature when any forum admin goes overboard on personal differences. Of course people should be banned from posting if all they do is post insults or attempt hacking but that's as far as it should go. I'm not much of a web fascist!

Hell I don't take it personally that you accuse me of content theft and call me ignorant. You seem to be misguided, that doesn't make you an idiot.

Duck and Cover

Gareth Davies on CRPG combat

Gareth Davies on CRPG combat

I think it's a matter of perspective