Duck and Sidestep/ Synchronized Foe-Herding

[Lephys]

This was an idea in the "Small Suggestions..." thread, and it was growing a bit big there, so I decided to move it here.

 

The idea is for the game interface to allow the player to utilize inter-character teamwork (in some form) to pull off things like friendly-fire-avoiding AOE abilities, or any other ability in which an ally's position would detriment the effectiveness of an attack. The initial idea was callouts, much like the "grenade out!" in a lot of shooters (as such things are actually used in military group tactics so that no one inadvertently charges into a grenade zone or something, etc).

 

I realize now that what I'm after may be achieved through various implementations (not simply callouts). BUT, maybe the callouts are codewords (like I said, so the enemy remains unawares), and maybe they, at the very least, give your allies who are within the blast zone a bonus modifier to defense/evasion, since they know it's coming?

 

I guess it just seems silly to me that there's almost NO synergy there in avoiding friendly fire. It's like 1000% of the control for even very simple AOE scenarios comes down to the player. It almost feels, in most games, as though you need to meta-game your way around things, so that everyone will be in the desired position, and your spell/ability will go off at the desired time. Almost...

 

What if we simply had more positional control? As in, maybe your Fighter (or other melee combatant) who is engaged in direct melee combat with an enemy can "Push back" to a targetable location (short-range) at the cost of defense/attack effectiveness? So you can feasibly get enemies into better positions for simple, small-scale AOE's, without it simply being a matter of "Welp... friendlies are in the cone. Do I hurt them, or do I just stand here like an idiot because I can't really do anything else...?"

 

The type of character cooperation/capability I'm after makes more sense if thought of in terms of non-magic abilities, like ducking melee arc-swings or side-stepping arrows from archers, etc.

 

There's a huge difference between the player selecting a character and saying "You there... you STOP fighting and move 3 feet to the right!", and letting that character know that another character needs them out of the way for an attack or ability to land, and having that character be able to time a sidestep in the midst of combat.

 

*Le shruggles*

 

 

EDIT:

 

Just realized that the Wizard's Familiar enables additional positional control over spell "aiming." I just didn't really think of that before. That's along the lines of what I'd like to see, rather than a Wizard who has to run around for 10 minutes like he's trying to get a good spot at a concert. Hehe.

Edited February 26, 2013 by Lephys

[maggotheart]

So I can set my fighter to be 'paying attention to the wizard' at the cost of some (AC?) and when my wizard casts a fireball he'll automatically dive out of the blast radius? I like it, maybe I can set my Cleric to be 'paying attention to the fighter' to keep her within a certain radius of him no matter where I send him and cast healing if his health gets too low. You could have two characters set to fight back to back and they move as one unit.

[Lephys]

^ I actually hadn't thought of modal behavior settings like that, but yeah, that's the right idea!

 

Like I said, it's not exactly a single mechanic idea. So, I'm very much open to any and all thoughts on the matter.

 

And, to clarify, I'm not looking to eliminate the risk of friendly-fire, or the very existence of situations in which you simply cannot have line of sight or an ally-free AOE zone without an equal (if not greater) cost than the friendly-fire. There should definitely be plenty of times when AOE or ranged attacks are just a bad choice, or are going to be REALLLLLY tricky to pull off without being a bad choice, etc.

 

I've just played a lot of RPGs in which it was a constant chore to get clear AOE shots and whatnot, even in simple situations.

[maggotheart]

 

And, to clarify, I'm not looking to eliminate the risk of friendly-fire, or the very existence of situations in which you simply cannot have line of sight or an ally-free AOE zone without an equal (if not greater) cost than the friendly-fire. There should definitely be plenty of times when AOE or ranged attacks are just a bad choice, or are going to be REALLLLLY tricky to pull off without being a bad choice, etc.

 

 

The risk could just be offloaded elsewhere - I'm taking more damage from enemy melee attacks so that I can reliably avoid damage from my teams AOE; if the enemy is going to do more damage to me than I'm saving by not getting grilled by the mages fireballs, it's a bad choice. (In addition to other scenarios where it's a bad choice because of narrow corridors or other considerations).

[Lephys]

^ I'm with you there! I like for things to be of situational risk/value. Like all those "berzerker" modes in games, where you both deal more damage AND take more damage. Obviously, if 72 archers are firing at you, and you're charging them with melee weapons, you're going to be taking more extra damage than you're going to be dealing (seeing as how you're not even dealing any damage yet... you're just running full-speed).

Interestingly enough, Update # 44 (just recently posted) deals with positional tactics and, more specifically, melee engagement (totally pertinent to the ideas in this thread, 8D!).