The Cost of Mobility in Strategy Games

[anubite]

After beating Shadowrun Returns, it got me thinking about the importance of mobility in a strategy game.

 

In Shadowrun Returns, you have limited action points per character, especially in the early game. This makes moving very costly. It often doesn't make sense in SRR to move, because the only benefit is increased accuracy for spells and attacks... but this is the same for your enemies as well. Moving in close may let you get a hit off you wouldn't otherwise, but it just means your enemies have greater accuracy and a more chances to hit you, since you wasted action points moving toward them.

 

I recall in BG/Fallout very seldom moving in combat. Once combat started, you tended to have stone feet. You only moved when you had to (or you're a melee character, which means moving in close is a given). There were some enemies, like Ithilids, that forced me to back my melee units away after getting intelligence-drained, but aside from situations where characters need to pull back to get healed... positioning and movement didn't feel incredibly vital.

 

Naturally, movement cannot feel cheap. If movement is cheap, then our actions have less weight. Strategy is supposed to be about making meaningful decisions. The choice to move or not should be hard, but it can't be too hard, or players feel that moving in is too perilous.

 

In order to balance it, I think... PE should have at least a few types of enemies that have these skills:

 

-Heavily telegraphed, highly-damaging attacks. This forces movement. You see an enemy winding up or reeling back for a strong attack, so you make a decision - avoid it - or try to kill that enemy as quickly as possible. Maybe it's also vunlerable while winding up.

 

-Area of effect debuff attacks. You aren't going to let your party sit around in poisonous smog or chilling frost fields or raging infernos. Area of effect spells that linger in condensed areas will force movement a lot of the ime.

 

-Level design which provides cover and relief. Moving should be its own reward - certain parts of dungeons should afford some kind of exhaustible protection. Be it hard angles to break LOS with enemies, or other things like interactable traps to pull, healing fountains to drink from.

 

-GIve players the means to back off and retreat from fights. Tactical retreats should be possible. Don't making standing your ground the only option all the time.

 

-Active/Passive Skills that have bonuses and penalties based on movement. An archer can build up extra damage by standing in the same spot for a while, maybe. A warrior can do more damage by constantly moving.

 

-Make the enemy AI cognizant of its own positioning. AI should attempt to move its units out of hazardous areas on higher difficulties - allowing players to exploit this 'predictability', perhaps.

 

Thoughts?

[forgottenlor]

I just replayed Icewind Dale 1 and felt that it did a good job of a lot of this except the AI part, which seemed scripted (monsters were especially prone to be pulled into area effect spells), and telegraphing attacks, which to me seems more suited for an action game, and which I don't think I'd like in a tactical RPG.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Environmental hazards and combat abilities which move enemies around are also fun.

[Infinitron]

I just replayed Icewind Dale 1 and felt that it did a good job of a lot of this except the AI part, which seemed scripted (monsters were especially prone to be pulled into area effect spells), and telegraphing attacks, which to me seems more suited for an action game, and which I don't think I'd like in a tactical RPG.

 

All offensive spells in the Infinity Engine games are "telegraphed attacks".

[Sensuki]

I think Josh is going to try and make people micro their characters around a bit more.

 

Positioning will be important to Fighters because of the Melee Engagement system.

 

Rogues will need to flank to get some bonuses

 

Barbarians will probably need to be positioned correctly to get their aoe damage off

 

Priests, Paladins and Chanters all sort of have Aura like abilities which requires relative positioning as well.

 

Monks need to take damage to use special abilities, so they need to be - in the firing line.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Sensuki

[forgottenlor]

 

I just replayed Icewind Dale 1 and felt that it did a good job of a lot of this except the AI part, which seemed scripted (monsters were especially prone to be pulled into area effect spells), and telegraphing attacks, which to me seems more suited for an action game, and which I don't think I'd like in a tactical RPG.

 

All offensive spells in the Infinity Engine games are "telegraphed attacks".

 

 

You see a spellcaster casting, true. But you don't know what he is casting and what the area of effect is. So while you can disrupt him, you cannot move out of range of his attack. (This is what I thought was meant and is often the case in action RPGS. Fable comes to mind with its boss fights).

[Infinitron]

You do if you pass a Spellcraft check.

[forgottenlor]

That only applies to Icewind Dale 2, not all Infinity Engine games. I'll have to replay it.

[anubite]

 

I just replayed Icewind Dale 1 and felt that it did a good job of a lot of this except the AI part, which seemed scripted (monsters were especially prone to be pulled into area effect spells), and telegraphing attacks, which to me seems more suited for an action game, and which I don't think I'd like in a tactical RPG.

 

All offensive spells in the Infinity Engine games are "telegraphed attacks".

 

Well, they're telegraphed, but you can't exactly avoid them manually most of the time. What I mean by a telegraphed attack is that it's targeting an area, not a person. You also have no idea what's being cast, so it doesn't have the same kind of immediacy.

Edited July 29, 2013 by anubite

[Walsingham]

I honestly can't imagine how you played Baldur's gate without moving like a bastard. You have to concentrate force, evade being concentrated against. Dodge area of effect spells. run like a frightened child etc.

 

I found a youtube video of what my fights looked like.

 

 

[anubite]

Well, okay, the early part of BG1 is rough. I think I do more running away than I do fighting. But after a certain point, I only felt the need to move units when I had to heal them and they werne't likely to live standing still.

[AGX-17]

After beating Shadowrun Returns, it got me thinking about the importance of mobility in a strategy game.

 

In Shadowrun Returns, you have limited action points per character, especially in the early game. This makes moving very costly. It often doesn't make sense in SRR to move, because the only benefit is increased accuracy for spells and attacks... but this is the same for your enemies as well. Moving in close may let you get a hit off you wouldn't otherwise, but it just means your enemies have greater accuracy and a more chances to hit you, since you wasted action points moving toward them.

 

I recall in BG/Fallout very seldom moving in combat. Once combat started, you tended to have stone feet. You only moved when you had to (or you're a melee character, which means moving in close is a given). There were some enemies, like Ithilids, that forced me to back my melee units away after getting intelligence-drained, but aside from situations where characters need to pull back to get healed... positioning and movement didn't feel incredibly vital.

 

Naturally, movement cannot feel cheap. If movement is cheap, then our actions have less weight. Strategy is supposed to be about making meaningful decisions. The choice to move or not should be hard, but it can't be too hard, or players feel that moving in is too perilous.

 

In order to balance it, I think... PE should have at least a few types of enemies that have these skills:

 

-Heavily telegraphed, highly-damaging attacks. This forces movement. You see an enemy winding up or reeling back for a strong attack, so you make a decision - avoid it - or try to kill that enemy as quickly as possible. Maybe it's also vunlerable while winding up.

 

-Area of effect debuff attacks. You aren't going to let your party sit around in poisonous smog or chilling frost fields or raging infernos. Area of effect spells that linger in condensed areas will force movement a lot of the ime.

 

-Level design which provides cover and relief. Moving should be its own reward - certain parts of dungeons should afford some kind of exhaustible protection. Be it hard angles to break LOS with enemies, or other things like interactable traps to pull, healing fountains to drink from.

 

-GIve players the means to back off and retreat from fights. Tactical retreats should be possible. Don't making standing your ground the only option all the time.

 

-Active/Passive Skills that have bonuses and penalties based on movement. An archer can build up extra damage by standing in the same spot for a while, maybe. A warrior can do more damage by constantly moving.

 

-Make the enemy AI cognizant of its own positioning. AI should attempt to move its units out of hazardous areas on higher difficulties - allowing players to exploit this 'predictability', perhaps.

 

Thoughts?

In SRR, there's also this whole "defense" aspect of moving around. Standing out in the open is stupid and gets you hurt/killed. If that's how you played through the available campaign, well... Try playing X-COM:EU (whose combat system SRR is suspiciously similar to,) with those "tactics" and see how long your squaddies last ("not" is the answer.)I'd wager it's because very few cRPGs are games about shooting guns or vaguely realistic-ish damage, so developers of them aren't focused on/experienced in robust cover mechanics/AI/level design. Most of what you're suggesting has been done in games that aren't cRPGs. Some of it is already done in RPGs anyway, i.e. "heavily telegraphed highly damaging attacks."

Edited July 30, 2013 by AGX-17

[Lephys]

I honestly can't imagine how you played Baldur's gate without moving like a bastard. You have to concentrate force, evade being concentrated against. Dodge area of effect spells. run like a frightened child etc.

Agreed. I'm currently playing (enhanced edition) as a Mage, and I'm constantly having to reposition people, switch targets, and move around just to fire off my OWN spells (like color spray) to actually hit more than like 3 out of 10 foes AND make sure I don't hit my own people (core rules).

[HunterOG]

FREEDOM FORCE!

 

I loved this game - it took a lot of the combat systems from IE games and made it into this wonderful, spatially-oriented entity.  The game could be paused like BG and characters could escape danger by putting up shields, flying into the air, all sorts of stuff.  Projectile attacks moved at varying speeds, objects could be picked up and thrown, certain attacks would knock guys in all sorts of directions.  Most of all the multitude of characters had vastly different speeds which let the player really mix up the dynamic.  If you dig this sort of thing I couldn't recommend the game more.

 

In IE - I think mages make the most of these sorts of mechanics, and thieves to a slightly lesser extend (via backstabbing).  General fisticuffs however were often pretty static.  One thing I'd like to see implemented is the use of melee characters to 'screen' spellcasters - use them to defend your weaker PCs more in a more active way than just putting them out front and hoping that they're targeted - which the engagement system sounds like it'll do.

 

I think developers are acutely aware of this kind of thing and I'd argue it's in the front of their minds when it comes to changes being made in the game design.  It can be pretty tough to balance, though.  If things are too fluid then moving has no purpose because the other guy can always catch you.  If countermeasures are too powerful, combat becomes just as static as before, as everyone will just lock each other down.

 

In some ways the older games do it best, I have to agree with some others that BG2 had me moving guys around like crazy, pretty much all the time.  Try out a party with no heavies and you'll definitely find yourself micromanaging the bejeezus out of your men.

[ObiKKa]

FREEDOM FORCE!

 

I loved this game - it took a lot of the combat systems from IE games and made it into this wonderful, spatially-oriented entity.  The game could be paused like BG and characters could escape danger by putting up shields, flying into the air, all sorts of stuff.  Projectile attacks moved at varying speeds, objects could be picked up and thrown, certain attacks would knock guys in all sorts of directions.  Most of all the multitude of characters had vastly different speeds which let the player really mix up the dynamic.  If you dig this sort of thing I couldn't recommend the game more.

 

Yeah I plaed a bit of that Freedom Force. I liked it too as it was very tactical and some battles are difficult and very tricky to win. But I wished that it had the original idea of the number-key pressing system of Dungeon Siege, where you can customize your small party of characters into a defense-oriented mindset, offense-oriented mindset, a mix of strong melee characters still fighting and one person healing them or spellcasting or a large range of other options and then key-bind each of these sets into one of the F1-F12 keys. That way you could change the ways your party was dealing with the opponents as the conditions change in real-time without having to pause. I was missing that kind of stuff in Freedom Force and I think it needed that kind of simple and ingenious idea.

 

But the old D&D games made in the Infinity Engine and similar games like Obsidian and Inxile are building definitely don't need that control system at all as they're interesting in other ways and it's quite fun to be able to pause the time and customize how your big party would do during fights.

Edited August 8, 2013 by ObiKKa

[LadyCrimson]

I honestly can't imagine how you played Baldur's gate without moving like a bastard. You have to concentrate force, evade being concentrated against. Dodge area of effect spells. run like a frightened child etc.

I think that depends partly on what one's party make up was and what weapon/combat tactics one was eventually focused on.

I had some parties that were like that (moving party members around quite a bit) and some where everyone just fired off their magical arrows and bullets and killed everything before they'd even reach the party. Well, except the big boss fights.

 

That was in BG1 tho. What I (vaguely) remember of BG2 was a bit more scrambling, especially when a lot of angry mages with those shields showed up...

[Walsingham]

Aside, regarding the video above: HOW THE HELL HAVE I GONE SO MANY YEARS NOT SEEING ROBIN AS GAY?? SHORT-SHORTS AND TIGHTS??

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Aside, regarding the video above: HOW THE HELL HAVE I GONE SO MANY YEARS NOT SEEING ROBIN AS GAY?? SHORT-SHORTS AND TIGHTS??

I've always thought Batman took him along as a meat shield. It explains why he would wear such bright colors when it was dark.

[jamoecw]

well positioning before the fight has been critical to success in any decent tactical rpg, heck even diablo relied heavily on positioning.  running around in the middle of a fight is pretty silly, unless you are gaining a flanking advantage against a target in cover, or happen to be using skirmish tactics.  skirmish tactics are generally not supported, as map edges tend to confine you, but ya mobility has its uses in the middle of combat and only a handful of games allow this advantage, mainly due to the inability for developers to understand tactical mechanics in order to create a realistically balanced combat system.

 

but let's face it, they have quite enough on their plate already, can't really blame them for not having the tactical intricacy that only a handful of turn based strategy games have.