Dragon Age-style Tactics and other non-pause combat interfaces?

[Shades]

I always wiped all the tactics options from my companions so that they wouldn't start doing something other than what I wanted at a critical moment. Maybe it's because I got my start at party-based, tactical combat in fully turn-based games, but I usually dislike not having complete control over what my chess pieces are doing. It works sometimes if it's a character quirk, like when Buzz would occasionally get bloodthirsty and go full-auto on everyone in JA2, but in as a general rule, I want to be the one in control of the troops.

 

Still, it takes all kinds, so if you guys want such a system, it's inclusion wouldn't bother me since I won't have to use it (assuming it's toggleable like in the IE and DA games).

 

I did the same thing, for me the tactics just meant when I wanted to use an ability or item chances were the character had already used/wasted said ability/item because of their tactics. When I am in complete control it means I choose when they use this or that thing, I can figure out what they should be focusing on or do first depending on the type of enemy, etc. I like knowing exactly what my characters are doing, otherwise you might as well have a system like NWN1 but with the tactic slots added. This is a party-based game, so I want to control my whole party.

 

I just... Don't see the fun in letting the battles automate themselves for you. To me the fun of these games is micro-managing the battles and yes, pausing often to do so. I can't stand playing games that don't let me pause. To me not being able to pause isn't fun, it's stressful.

 

But if things like game speed and tactics slots could be added in without impacting on other ways of playing the game then I don't see a problem with them.

[Uomoz]

I liked DAO tactics system very much and I'd love its implementation in PE. Sometimes you just want to unpause and watch the fireworks

[Umberlin]

I played DA:O I thought it was terribly flawed, despite some interesting ideas here and there. It's tactical combat, and I laugh to call it that, was not one of their interesting ideas. Outside of the Origins, I don't know why people bring up the game. It did so many things so badly, or, even worse, in such a mediocre or forgetable way . . . I don't get it. Don't even mention the spell combinations, spell combos were not a new thing no matter their dippy marketing that bordered on lies.

 

Spiritual successor to the BG series? What rubbish . . . DA2 was by far worse, but DA:O was just . . . shallow. Shallow customization. Shallow classes. Shallow skills and abilities. Choices that didn't matter a dull story that didn't even benefit from being original. Logan was the best thing about the story but it still managed to scoot around flat on its nose midway to nearly the end dear . . . whatever . . . why do people think this is something you want PE to be anything like? Why would you want to pull anything from this game when plenty of 'actually' good RPGs do it better?

 

I can't believe I'm reading that people actually thought that was tactical . . . how . . . low our expectation of challenging gameplay in modern RPGs (most of which don't even deserve to be called RPGs) have sunk for 'that' to be considered tactical.

Edited October 8, 2012 by Umberlin

[kenup]

The vanilla tactics system of DAO were, to say the least, very limited. The Advanced Tactics(in addition to Combat Tweaks) mod was essential, and quite awesome I might add!

 

I would prefer something like KotoR 2's system, but a bit more expanded.

[Grimlorn]

I played DA:O I thought it was terribly flawed, despite some interesting ideas here and there. It's tactical combat, and I laugh to call it that, was not one of their interesting ideas. Outside of the Origins, I don't know why people bring up the game. It did so many things so badly, or, even worse, in such a mediocre or forgetable way . . . I don't get it. Don't even mention the spell combinations, spell combos were not a new thing no matter their dippy marketing that bordered on lies.

I think it was just because people were starved for a good party based RPG so even though DAO came out so flawed, people forgave it because they had something and something is better than nothing. A lot of people weren't aware of Knights of the Chalice which was released the same year. Had turn based combat, but the encounters were really great and varied too. It's more combat focused. There is little dialogue and no party dialogue. It does combat great though which is rare in a lot of RPGs these days.

 

Seems like we get RPGs that either have really great combat, or really great story, characters, settings. We don't really get RPGs that do both well.

 

I really hope to see KotC 2 kickstarted some day. The guy that created KotC needs 100-150k but he's in Great Britain so he can't use kickstarter yet and he doesn't think Indiegogo is popular enough to raise the money. So KotC 2 is on hold for now.

Edited October 8, 2012 by Grimlorn

[Ignatius]

Character automation should exist, but be limited. BG had similar AI settings, though fairly watered down compared to DA, regardless, I never used them because combat was too complex, and you ALWAYS wanted to manage your heroes and what they did, or you ended up getting splattered. PE should aspire to that level of complexity.

 

I see the appeal of such automation, (FFXII was pretty neat) but it's got some major downsides in the way combat functions and the level of connection you feel to your heroes and the pride you take in your own success born out of your own ingenuity. For example, knowing the right time to fire off that heal spell isn't quite the same when the computer remembers to do it because you programmed it to 2 hours before. Every decision should be yours and it should be immediate, because it's this that gives it weight. I think this sort of macro management of your characters isn't good for the game.

Edited October 8, 2012 by Ignatius

[Living One]

I'll repeat myself:NO.It was a dumb feature for those who couldn't be arsed to manage their party and it brought several problems I listed in the post above.

 

End of rine.

[aramk]

Well there needs to be basic AI routines and roles. The DA:O system wasn't done very well, but at a basic level you need to be able to set broad melee/ranged behaviour, healing behaviour, and maybe spell behaviour.

 

In all honesty though I would like to see something like the IE engine games where you could write your own scripts...that would be awesome.

[Rabain]

The DAO system at least had customisation that made it at worst exactly like the IE games combat scripts and at best meant you hardly needed to manage your group in certain combats.

 

Scripts don't overwrite your control, you can still pause at any time and tell someone to do something. If you don't want a character using a specific interrupt you could just leave the skill out of the AI script, which meant at any point you felt you could interrupt an enemy, you switch to that character and use the interrupt, at other times you could be commanding another character while the interrupter is still using a basic script to do things.

 

The one good thing over most AI scripts I've seen that DAO has is that scripts can be built per character. One fighter doesn't use his interrupts, the other does. The level of control is yours. You could build a basic combat script that would apply to any character if you want some automation, attack enemy, use potion etc or you could build a detailed script telling which priority to use abilities.

 

The DAO system had default Defender, Scrapper fighter scripts as well as melee/ranged subsets, offensive, defensive, supportive and healing scripts for casters, disabling scripts for rogues and mages.

 

I find it hard how anyone could say DAO scripting was done badly, there was so much variation ranging from Scripts Off to play my game for me and pretty much everything in between. You just had to spend some time getting to know the system to build what you wanted.

[nerevar]

I prefer to do ALL of the actions myself, but YMMV.

 

For instance, see enemy casting mirror image, pause game asap and get someone to try and interrupt the spell during casting.

 

Yeah, same for me. I turn off the scripts and give commands to all characters both in BG series and DA. Otherwise they can cast a spell which is useless against enemies or causing friendly fire, or attack a group of enemies on sight instead i want to use stealth mode.

So, it could be nice to have tactics scripts for those who want to use but which can be turned off for players like us.

[Lady Evenstar]

I'd prefer that PE design movement controls and abilities based on the assumption that the player will want fully to control the party. Layering a few scripts on top of that is fine, but you get very different combat if the presumption becomes that the player is really only controlling one character while the rest are governed by tactics.

 

I also hate hate hate it if tactics ever override my direct orders.

[Rabain]

I'd prefer that PE design movement controls and abilities based on the assumption that the player will want fully to control the party. Layering a few scripts on top of that is fine, but you get very different combat if the presumption becomes that the player is really only controlling one character while the rest are governed by tactics.

 

I also hate hate hate it if tactics ever override my direct orders.

 

In pretty much every rpg with AI scripts the general rule is that you turn scripts on or off and when they are on you have a selection of combat types to choose from ranging from basic "attack the enemy on sight" to "use this ability, then this ability or this if you are low health" etc.

 

I don't think anyone here is asking for a no-option AI script forced on your party members whether you like it or not. That is the type of thing you see in Diablo 3 and everyone complains about it all the time even though the companion hardly matters at all to combat.

[Living One]

 

 

Scripts don't overwrite your control, you can still pause at any time and tell someone to do something.

That's not the point*:the problem with DAO is that (as I wrote above) it took compromises to accomodate that playstyle.Of course PE might not take such compromises but in that case why waste resources to implement a system that's not a viable gameplay option?

 

*and neither is the quality of the options DAO offered:it was the pretense to make that system a valid alternative.In this case offering just a handful of options(as mentioned by others) would be better because there would be no attempts to make such system so useful.

[Rabain]

I really don't understand what you are trying to say, in every way the DAO system works exactly like the IE system if you want it to OR you can make is as complicated as you want or you can turn it off completely. If you ask me that is a great system to have at your disposal.

 

Where are the compromises? The fact that you could let the game play itself with a complicated enough script? That only really works if the combat encounters are not challenging and that has nothing to do with scripts but with encounter design.

 

Managing your party yourself is always a much better system if you want the maximum benefit from all abilities of the entire party. The scripts don't interact with each other for example, if one fighter is chugging a potion, a healer could already be casting a heal and it is wasted, stuns aren't chained for maximum effect. However there are many combats where you don't really care about detailed management, killing a few dogs in a corridor, a guard or two in a room, some bandits on the road. You don't need to micro manage everything for that and can let the scripts run along while only controlling one character.

 

Personally I found in DAO that on most boss fights I ended up managing the healer mostly, while letting the others do their thing. On some fights I would turn off the AI completely and control everything, I usually did this on boss fights where the boss had some minor monsters to help him. I needed to use stuns and control spells etc to limit the incoming damage but once only the boss was left I switched to controlling the healer and reactivating the AI for the others so they wouldn't just stand around if the boss went out of range etc.

 

I don't see how a system that allows various levels of control even so far as total control (script off) implies any kind of compromise.

[Bill Gates' Son]

I played DA:O I thought it was terribly flawed, despite some interesting ideas here and there. It's tactical combat, and I laugh to call it that, was not one of their interesting ideas. Outside of the Origins, I don't know why people bring up the game. It did so many things so badly, or, even worse, in such a mediocre or forgetable way . . . I don't get it. Don't even mention the spell combinations, spell combos were not a new thing no matter their dippy marketing that bordered on lies.

 

Spiritual successor to the BG series? What rubbish . . . DA2 was by far worse, but DA:O was just . . . shallow. Shallow customization. Shallow classes. Shallow skills and abilities. Choices that didn't matter a dull story that didn't even benefit from being original. Logan was the best thing about the story but it still managed to scoot around flat on its nose midway to nearly the end dear . . . whatever . . . why do people think this is something you want PE to be anything like? Why would you want to pull anything from this game when plenty of 'actually' good RPGs do it better?

 

I can't believe I'm reading that people actually thought that was tactical . . . how . . . low our expectation of challenging gameplay in modern RPGs (most of which don't even deserve to be called RPGs) have sunk for 'that' to be considered tactical.

 

I honestly don't see what this rant has to do with the topic.

[Lady Evenstar]

I really don't understand what you are trying to say, in every way the DAO system works exactly like the IE system if you want it to OR you can make is as complicated as you want or you can turn it off completely. If you ask me that is a great system to have at your disposal.

 

Where are the compromises? The fact that you could let the game play itself with a complicated enough script? That only really works if the combat encounters are not challenging and that has nothing to do with scripts but with encounter design.

 

Managing your party yourself is always a much better system if you want the maximum benefit from all abilities of the entire party. The scripts don't interact with each other for example, if one fighter is chugging a potion, a healer could already be casting a heal and it is wasted, stuns aren't chained for maximum effect. However there are many combats where you don't really care about detailed management, killing a few dogs in a corridor, a guard or two in a room, some bandits on the road. You don't need to micro manage everything for that and can let the scripts run along while only controlling one character.

 

Personally I found in DAO that on most boss fights I ended up managing the healer mostly, while letting the others do their thing. On some fights I would turn off the AI completely and control everything, I usually did this on boss fights where the boss had some minor monsters to help him. I needed to use stuns and control spells etc to limit the incoming damage but once only the boss was left I switched to controlling the healer and reactivating the AI for the others so they wouldn't just stand around if the boss went out of range etc.

 

I don't see how a system that allows various levels of control even so far as total control (script off) implies any kind of compromise.

 

DA's dependence on cooldowns is linked at a very basic level to the notion that a good deal of the time the player is only controlling one character. If most party behavior depends on AI, controlling that character needs to keep the player busy and engaged. If controlling one character suffices to keep the player occupied, controlling a full party becomes an absolute pausefest.

[Tale]

I also hate hate hate it if tactics ever override my direct orders.

Did the final battle of Neverwinter Nights 2 last night. It doesn't have a formal AI scripting system, but it was a pain in the behind for this specific reason.

 

Trying to get party members to focus on statues was impossible. They'd take two steps after being told to attack it, then turn right back around and attack the KOS.

 

[lolaldanee]

I also hate hate hate it if tactics ever override my direct orders.

Did the final battle of Neverwinter Nights 2 last night. It doesn't have a formal AI scripting system, but it was a pain in the behind for this specific reason.

 

Trying to get party members to focus on statues was impossible. They'd take two steps after being told to attack it, then turn right back around and attack the KOS.

 

ooooh, don't mention it

if there is one thing i really hate about NWN2 it's that stupid boss fight where half of your guys suddenly would turn against you in that awfuly scripted way

 

OT: i'd like to have DA:O's tactics system, it worked very well, but won't cry if it's not included

[Amentep]

I played DA:O I thought it was terribly flawed, despite some interesting ideas here and there. It's tactical combat, and I laugh to call it that, was not one of their interesting ideas. Outside of the Origins, I don't know why people bring up the game. It did so many things so badly, or, even worse, in such a mediocre or forgetable way . . . I don't get it. Don't even mention the spell combinations, spell combos were not a new thing no matter their dippy marketing that bordered on lies.

 

Spiritual successor to the BG series? What rubbish . . . DA2 was by far worse, but DA:O was just . . . shallow. Shallow customization. Shallow classes. Shallow skills and abilities. Choices that didn't matter a dull story that didn't even benefit from being original. Logan was the best thing about the story but it still managed to scoot around flat on its nose midway to nearly the end dear . . . whatever . . . why do people think this is something you want PE to be anything like? Why would you want to pull anything from this game when plenty of 'actually' good RPGs do it better?

 

I can't believe I'm reading that people actually thought that was tactical . . . how . . . low our expectation of challenging gameplay in modern RPGs (most of which don't even deserve to be called RPGs) have sunk for 'that' to be considered tactical.

 

I honestly don't see what this rant has to do with the topic.

 

At a guess, Umberlin didn't find DAO's tactics or non-pause combat interfaces sufficiently good enough to believe that there is anything within the system worth looking at in regard to PE.

 

At least that's what I got from it, YMMV.

 

And to be honest, given what we know about PE's presentation and what they're going for, I think DAO is a bit too far away from the kind of things I'd want them to look at (and I enjoyed DAO).

[CrazedWeevil]

I don't think Dragon Age's tactics would work with a game based more on the party control system of an IE game, especially if it doesn't use cooldowns for abilities and spells. There were very useful in Dragon Age even though it was, in typical Bioware fashion, gimped due to a poor design choice (limiting the number of slots was just stupid) and being very buggy. But I can't see a good use for the system in an IE based combat engine.

 

I, like many people here have mentioned themselves, controlled all the party at once and pausing to issue orders so I didn't really need to rely on any AI scripts to do anything for me. The only script I ever used was the 'default' script in Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale since the only thing that seemed to do was make a character respond with its basic attack if a hostile was nearby.

 

This is mainly due to the very limited resources you have to play with in combat...I didn't want the AI burning a good spell on the first little thing that gets near it, especially if you can only cast it twice a day for example. It also doesn't help co-ordinate the party as a whole and a lot of encounters need that for you to succeed.

 

I suppose there will be a scripting language that is used by the developers to make the enemy AI that you could also use to control targeting and co-ordination for a party, but it's going to be very complex compared to Dragon Age's do-it-yourself scripts and wouldn't be far off being a full programming language. May be a bit much for Obsidian to make it as easy to use as Dragon Age's.

[MattH]

That was not an achievement of Bioware's "great" Dragon Age, but they carried it over from the D&D games and some basic practical thinking. It's an interface, and not much of a tactical system by itself.

Edited October 8, 2012 by MattH

[Living One]

I really don't understand what you are trying to say, in every way the DAO system works exactly like the IE system if you want it to OR you can make is as complicated as you want or you can turn it off completely. If you ask me that is a great system to have at your disposal.

 

Where are the compromises? The fact that you could let the game play itself with a complicated enough script? That only really works if the combat encounters are not challenging and that has nothing to do with scripts but with encounter design.

 

Managing your party yourself is always a much better system if you want the maximum benefit from all abilities of the entire party. The scripts don't interact with each other for example, if one fighter is chugging a potion, a healer could already be casting a heal and it is wasted, stuns aren't chained for maximum effect. However there are many combats where you don't really care about detailed management, killing a few dogs in a corridor, a guard or two in a room, some bandits on the road. You don't need to micro manage everything for that and can let the scripts run along while only controlling one character.

 

Personally I found in DAO that on most boss fights I ended up managing the healer mostly, while letting the others do their thing. On some fights I would turn off the AI completely and control everything, I usually did this on boss fights where the boss had some minor monsters to help him. I needed to use stuns and control spells etc to limit the incoming damage but once only the boss was left I switched to controlling the healer and reactivating the AI for the others so they wouldn't just stand around if the boss went out of range etc.

 

I don't see how a system that allows various levels of control even so far as total control (script off) implies any kind of compromise.

This is getting tiresome because I've already addressed all your points previously and more than once.So this is the last time I'll explain why it's either a bad idea or a waste of time to implement this feature.

 

1-"Where are the compromises? The fact that you could let the game play itself with a complicated enough script? That only really works if the combat encounters are not challenging and that has nothing to do with scripts but with encounter design."

 

I've already explained that the quality of the encounters is low BECAUSE of that feature.You said it yourself:"Managing your party yourself is always a much better system if you want the maximum benefit from all abilities of the entire party."The problem stems from the fact that DAO had to dumb down its own encounters to make itself playable for people who wanted to solve battles with a system that's much less precise(by your own admission).And no matter how good the script is it won't be as good as managing the party yourself.

And if encounters aren't dumbed down to make so viable such a gameplay option?If they are variefied(they have already confirmed their commitment in this regard) then the players will have to constantly change the scripts wich means that the ''''advantage'''' of not needing to manage the battle goes down the toilet since you'll spend a lot of time in more clumsier menus,going back and forth between various slots rather than simply selecting the needed ability during battle.If encounters are good,then tactics slots won't be enough to win(or at least you'll performe much worse making death more likely later on).With good encounters the scripts might be nice only if they complement active management(thus they should be quite limited)not if they try to be an alternative(like in DAO).

Basically you either create an option (DAO-like scripts here)and make it viable with all the attached consequences(wich,as explained,are bad in this case) or you create the option but don't make it as viable as it could be avoiding all negative consequences(but in this case why waste dev time creating it then?)

 

2-" However there are many combats where you don't really care about detailed management, killing a few dogs in a corridor, a guard or two in a room, some bandits on the road. You don't need to micro manage everything for that and can let the scripts run along while only controlling one character."

 

In these cases encounters are so simple that you need very little managing anyway.This, combined with the fact that such encounters shouldn't be 'many',makes the implementation of such a feature an even bigger waste of time for developers.

 

Is that clear now?That feature is at best a waste of resources/time for devs or at worst it'll simplify the game.

Edited October 8, 2012 by Living One

[Dostro89]

I also really liked the fact that you could set conditions for possible events that could happen pre battle in DAO. It just took a little of the micromanagement of the team out. Didnt have to tell them to drink a health potion or cast a certain spell that realy were just common sense

[Silver6986]

I really don't understand what you are trying to say, in every way the DAO system works exactly like the IE system if you want it to OR you can make is as complicated as you want or you can turn it off completely. If you ask me that is a great system to have at your disposal.

 

Where are the compromises? The fact that you could let the game play itself with a complicated enough script? That only really works if the combat encounters are not challenging and that has nothing to do with scripts but with encounter design.

 

Managing your party yourself is always a much better system if you want the maximum benefit from all abilities of the entire party. The scripts don't interact with each other for example, if one fighter is chugging a potion, a healer could already be casting a heal and it is wasted, stuns aren't chained for maximum effect. However there are many combats where you don't really care about detailed management, killing a few dogs in a corridor, a guard or two in a room, some bandits on the road. You don't need to micro manage everything for that and can let the scripts run along while only controlling one character.

 

Personally I found in DAO that on most boss fights I ended up managing the healer mostly, while letting the others do their thing. On some fights I would turn off the AI completely and control everything, I usually did this on boss fights where the boss had some minor monsters to help him. I needed to use stuns and control spells etc to limit the incoming damage but once only the boss was left I switched to controlling the healer and reactivating the AI for the others so they wouldn't just stand around if the boss went out of range etc.

 

I don't see how a system that allows various levels of control even so far as total control (script off) implies any kind of compromise.

This is getting tiresome because I've already addressed all your points previously and more than once.So this is the last time I'll explain why it's either a bad idea or a waste of time to implement this feature.

 

1-"Where are the compromises? The fact that you could let the game play itself with a complicated enough script? That only really works if the combat encounters are not challenging and that has nothing to do with scripts but with encounter design."

 

I've already explained that the quality of the encounters is low BECAUSE of that feature.You said it yourself:"Managing your party yourself is always a much better system if you want the maximum benefit from all abilities of the entire party."The problem stems from the fact that DAO had to dumb down its own encounters to make itself playable for people who wanted to solve battles with a system that's much less precise(by your own admission).And no matter how good the script is it won't be as good as managing the party yourself.

And if encounters aren't dumbed down to make so viable such a gameplay option?If they are variefied(they have already confirmed their commitment in this regard) then the players will have to constantly change the scripts wich means that the ''''advantage'''' of not needing to manage the battle goes down the toilet since you'll spend a lot of time in more clumsier menus,going back and forth between various slots rather than simply selecting the needed ability during battle.If encounters are good,then tactics slots won't be enough to win(or at least you'll performe much worse making death more likely later on).With good encounters the scripts might be nice only if they complement active management(thus they should be quite limited)not if they try to be an alternative(like in DAO).

Basically you either create an option (DAO-like scripts here)and make it viable with all the attached consequences(wich,as explained,are bad in this case) or you create the option but don't make it as viable as it could be avoiding all negative consequences(but in this case why waste dev time creating it then?)

 

2-" However there are many combats where you don't really care about detailed management, killing a few dogs in a corridor, a guard or two in a room, some bandits on the road. You don't need to micro manage everything for that and can let the scripts run along while only controlling one character."

 

In these cases encounters are so simple that you need very little managing anyway.This, combined with the fact that such encounters shouldn't be 'many',makes the implementation of such a feature an even bigger waste of time for developers.

 

Is that clear now?That feature is at best a waste of resources/time for devs or at worst it'll simplify the game.

 

Err.. look the devs have already mentioned that there will be modding for this game made available to us (available on Nexus) and the devs will be releasing as much of the data as possible required in order for modding to happen, I also know that there were a number of Mods made for BG1 & 2 in relation to scripting NPC actions (or reactions to situational cercumstances) for people who wish to utilise such a feature, as the original scripts were, if I am honest, woeful and as such I never used them!

 

Look it would be nice as a feature for those who want it, as some of the modifications for BG were VERY specific and complex, but if it really is too much work for the devs to sort out, then don't worry, just wait for a modder to do it for you and then THANK THEM for all their hard work.

 

I would be very surprised if someone doesn't come up with such a feature down the track if the devs don't implement one (a very sophisticated one anyways).

[Silver6986]

Yeah I would also like to mention that tbh DA:O, whilst it could have been a spiritual successor to BG, I DO NOT FEEL IT WAS, as such this includes combat mechanics or subsequently the lack of due to design by Bioware. So I agree with Living One.

 

There is just a lot less options to combat with DA:O, it gets really hilarious with DA2 if you consider that some of us wanted the game to further the original concept, not flip it and spit all over it...