Mass Combat Ideas

[Halaster]

Morgenes and I were talking about mass combat and had some ideas.  Some of these came from that thread about large-scale combat, and some our own, and one I stole from Nechomacus.

Combat messages:

Expand the brief command to include a set of options, instead of just on and off.  Brief room, brief combat, brief whatever.  For the combat part, this would basically make you not see missed attacks by anyone.  It really wouldn't be limited to mass combat situations, as you could have it on anytime you want.  But the idea is that if you wanted, you could 'brief combat' and not see missed swings during big battles, but then you can turn it back on later so you'd see them when you're running around normally.

NPC's assisting

This is most of the changes/updates.  When an aggressive NPC sees a list of people to attack, they randomly choose someone, and don't necessarily start with the first.  The same is currently not true for when NPC's assist their clan-mates (which is how you get mauled in mass combat).

Make NPC's be more 'smart' with who they assist.  If they have multiple choices, have them pick the highest ranking clan member to assist.  If all their choices are the same rank, have them choose based on their clanmates' health, status, and other such factors.  If all is equal, have them randomly choose who to assist.

Units

Give "units" a special status as a unit.  What this means is that several conditions would apply to anything flagged as a unit
:arrow: Units can only engage directly in combat with other units.
:arrow: Units get special combat messages that properly describe what's happening as a unit fights another unit.
:arrow: Units have a certain number of individuals that make up the whole.
:arrow: Units can spawn individual NPC's.  Instead of having a unit be able to attack Joe, the unit spawns individual soldiers to attack Joe.
:arrow: Commanders can pull individuals out of a unit and add them to a unit.  For example, a templar could "order soldier join 3.unit", or "call soldier 4.unit".  This would only apply to generic style npc's, not unique-looking soldiers and definitely not PC's.
:arrow: When a unit falls below a certain point of health, it goes away and leaves behind a handful of 'individual' npc's.

So, tear the ideas apart and let us know what you think, and if you have other ideas for how to improve mass combat, say 'em.

[Quirk]

Bravo, particularly to the units suggestion. It's ingenious, and I like it. All sound good, but that one's the most useful way I've heard yet of putting mass combat on a fairer footing.

[Hymwen]

If you have brief combat messages on, and ignore others' misses, you should get a "The gith attacks the tall, muscular man!" message or something when one entity attacks another in the room you're in.. Otherwise you might not notice at all, if the two combatants miss eachother for the first few rounds.

[Tamarin]

I always thought that there should be a limit to how many people can actually be engaged in combat.  Does it really make sense that 10 pcs or npcs can attack one person simultaneously?  I'm not an expert on combat by any stretch, but it seems like it would get really crowded and prevent most of the combatants from using their skills in an efficient way.

What if when combat happens with more than two or three fighters, the people envolved are sort of wrapped in a 'cloak of ignorance'.  It would be almost like they're transported to a new room, something akin to an enterable/leaveable area.

This would allow for a new kind of combat interaction.  To see who is actually fighting, you would have to 'look combat'.  You would also have to 'enter combat', and if there are too many people going at it, the game would tell you "That's a stupid idea..there's already fifteen people in that fight".  You could also try to "pull <person> combat" to yank them out, or "rescue <person> combat" which would function much like how rescue already does, exchanging your target's place in the 'combat zone' with you.  You could also throw knives and shoot arrows into the area...basically anything you could normally do, except this would cut down on room spam, and more accurately represent the focus that is needed to engage in multi-person combat.

I'm sorry if this isn't super coherent.  I'm on a lot of percocet at the moment.

[Flashback]

It could say something like, "Combat ensues between x and y." on the start of a new attack.

[mansa]

I would suggest 'brief combat' to be split up between 'brief combat total' ( where, you only see hits on everybody)

and 'brief combat except self' where you only see hits on everybody else in the area, and you get to see YOUR OWN MISSES.

Or, perhaps, Forcing your prompt to change to display who you're attacking when you have 'brief combat' on.

[Kelen]

yeah, I like it. Props guys. It'll make things alot more interesting, and I know it's not easy to go in and put these into effect. Appreciations Galore. From everyone. Except Mansa. -------------------->Just kidding Mansa :twisted:

[Halaster]

yeah, I like it. Props guys. It'll make things alot more interesting, and I know it's not easy to go in and put these into effect. Appreciations Galore. From everyone. Except Mansa. -------------------->Just kidding Mansa :twisted:

We haven't even begun to think about starting to code anything like this, we're really just coming up with ideas at this point, thus this thread.

[Kelen]

Oh, well I'm just happy were thinking about it anyways. I've been wondering when there would be changes to certain combat aspects for awhile now. This looks like a good start.  

[Khorm]

I like the brief combat ideas that were mentioned.. but I'm wondering, could this also be applied to spells/abilities that tend to hit 20 people and create a ridiculous amount of spam?

If you were able to filter out spells/abilities which target more then one person, and truncate the 20 lines of effects down to one generalized 'so-and-so casts a spell, setting everyone on fire!'. Even if the spell/ability -did- miss one or two people, I don't think you'd have the presence of mind in a 'mass' battle to think to yourself, 'oh hey, Todd didn't get set on fire'.

Between a change like this and some of the things Halaster described above, it seems like larger scale combat situations would be much easier to navigate.

[picklehead]

Some unit ideas:

1. Allow commanders to issue a "maintain cohesiveness" order or something to that effect that would help keep the unit from spawning individual NPCs to attack other individual NPCs. I can envision scenarios where a commander is going into battle with multiple units and wants to ensure that a certain number of them stay in formation as much as possible. Maybe better would be the utilization of the change command.

Code Select Expand

change orders 3.unit chohesive
change orders 3.unit skirmish


Something along those lines, where skirmish allows soldiers to break away from formation to engage individual NPCs.

2. Allow for the assessing of units to see how many NPCs it is composed of, the type of NPCs, and the relative strength of the unit. This would be useful both for commanders to keep tabs on their units and also for scouts from enemy forces to guage the strength of the opposition.

3. Keep track of the morale of a unit. Let's say a unit was given the order to maintain formation, but during the course of battle they suffer huge losses over a short period of time. In most cases, I would think that a unit would not flee unless given the order to do so. However, if they're suffering huge losses, their morale is going to diminish quickly, decreasing their willingness to stay in formation. This would cause wounded soldiers to spawn from the unit and flee from the battle. Unless reinforcements are able to stem the tide or the battle in some way takes a turn for the better, this is quickly going to snowball as the unit's strength continues to dimish to the point where it's at the designated level that causes it to disband into the remaining individual NPCs. I think this would mimic real life battles/morale issues to some degree.

Edited to add: Also, the morale of a unit (both the starting level and rate of decline) could, and probably should, be determined to a certain extent, by the level of training/discipline of the NPCs that make it up. A unit of Tuluki Legionnaires, for example, is going to be far more disciplined and have a higher level of morale/be slower to lose morale than a motley unit of raiders.

4. Thinking more about commanders and orders.. maybe a way for a commander to order a unit to engage in a certain style of combat.

Code Select Expand

change orders 3.unit ranged
change orders 3.unit melee


This way you can send in a few units to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat and maybe keep one unit back to rain some arrows on them. Or maybe send in one unit to give another unit time to throw some spears before closing in to join the fight. You get the idea.

[Ktavialt]

I just messed my pants seeing all this. I'll take a stab at the unit stuff and
my thoughts on it... this'll be kind of long as I think it out.

-- 1 --
First off, the general look of things. I would make it so any four PC's or
soldier NPC's could form a unit, even amongst each other, so it looks
something like this:
A small, four-man unit of dun-clad soldiers is here.
- The tall, muscular man is here amongst the unit of dun-clad soldiers.

-- 2 --
Second, the way combat is handled between units fighting with no PCs. I
think it should be pretty simple looking, basically pitting a certain skill of
the unit against other skills of the unit, the skill of the unit being calculated
at the time of formation, then have combat look something like this:
A small, four-man unit of dun-clad soldiers is here.
A small, four-man unit of brown, militia-cloaked soldiers is here.
---
A small, four-man unit of dun-clad soldiers attacks a small, four-man unit
of brown, militia-cloaked soldiers!
In a clash of weapons and shields, the unit of dun-clad soldiers and unit of
brown, militia-cloaked soldiers collide, causing wounds on both sides of the
fray.

And, if you want to get fancy, which I think should happen once the basics
are done, add certain things that raises or lowers the combat skill of the
unit, something like this:
In a clash of weapons and shields, the unit of dun-clad soldiers and unit of
brown, militia-cloaked soldiers collide, causing wounds on both sides of the
fray.
During the melee, a weapon of a member of of the unit of dun-clad
soldiers goes flying!

-- 3 --
Third, combat between units that contain PCs.  It should probably be
handled like in the initial post where one or more actual NPCs are pulled
out of the unit, lowering the unit's fighting ability, so the two can fight
against one another. If the units match each other in number then only
one NPC is pulled out to fight the other, otherwise a random chance that
more than one NPC is pulled out based upon how many more the other
unit has. It may look something like this:
A small, four-man unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers is here.
A small, four-man unit of black, military cloaked soldiers is here.
- The tall, muscular man is here amongst the unit of black, military
cloaked soldiers.
---
A small, four-man unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers attacks a small,
four-man unit of black, military-cloaked soldiers!
As the units collide, a tall figure in a hooded, sunburst-designed greatcloak
engages the tall, muscular man!
A tall figure in a hooded, sunburst-designed greatcloak parries the tall,
muscular man's attack.
In a clash of weapons and shields, the unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers
and unit of black, military-cloaked soldiers collide, causing wounds on both
sides of the fray.

Where PCs exist in both units they should have a random chance that the
PCs combat one another, though I wouldn't think they should -always- end
up going toe to toe with one another.

If you want to get fancy, and probably down the line once the basics of the
unit fighting code is established, with unit orders a leader could order his
unit to have more members strike a selected foe, with a chance that the
other side negates the order:
A medium, seven-man unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers is here.
- The templar wearing a red silk hood is here amongst the unit.
A medium, seven-man unit of black, military cloaked soldiers is here.
- The hooded, blue-robed templar is here amongst the unit.
---
The hooded, blue-robed templar shouts out an order as she gestures
towards the templar wearing a red silk hood.
A medium, seven-man unit of black, military-cloaked attacks a medium,
seven-man unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers soldiers!
As the units collide, a figure in a black, military dustcloak engages the
templar wearing a red silk hood!
As the units collide, a figure in a black, military dustcloak engages the
templar wearing a red silk hood!
A figure in a black, military dustcloak attempts to engage the templar
wearing a red silk hood, but is repelled and is forced to engage another
foe amongst his unit.

-- 4 --
Fourth, as to deaths in the unit, there should be a certain hit point level
for the unit where a death may and must occur, and the unit will slowly
dwindle in size based on that. Something like:
A medium, seven-man unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers is here.
- The templar wearing a red silk hood is here amongst the unit.
A medium, seven-man unit of black, military cloaked soldiers is here.
- The hooded, blue-robed templar is here amongst the unit.
---
The hooded, blue-robed templar shouts out an order as she gestures
towards a medium, seven-man unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers.
A medium, seven-man unit of black, military-cloaked attacks a medium,
seven-man unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers soldiers!
In a clash of weapons and shields, the unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers
and unit of black, military-cloaked soldiers collide, causing wounds on both
sides of the fray.

A few seconds pass...
In a clash of weapons and shields, the unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers
and unit of black, military-cloaked soldiers collide, causing wounds on both
sides of the fray.
During the melee, the figure in a black, military dustcloak cries out in pain.
---
A medium, seven-man unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers is here, fighting
a medium, six-man unit of black, military cloaked soldiers.
- The templar wearing a red silk hood is here amongst the unit.
A medium, six-man unit of black, military cloaked soldiers is here, fighting
a medium, seven-man unit of sunburst-cloaked soldiers.
- The hooded, blue-robed templar is here amongst the unit.


-- 5 --
Fifth, beneficial or harmful magicks.  Well, I'm sure at least one side
definitely will not use magick, and the others I doubt too, but as far as
harmful, if its some sort of area spell then the spell would have to be
specifically coded to harm the unit, if its not an area spell then drag out an
NPC of the unit to fight the magicker.  That could be tricky though.

Also, I didn't really mention this before, but I feel that a unit could attack
a lone person.  That lone person who gets attacked should have joined a
unit or had a better wilderness hide

Though, with the tiny about of coding knowledge I have I know this will
be one of those bug-ridden additions, but I think it will be worth its trouble
trying to tighten all the nuts and bolts after it is done.

- Ktavialt

[chang]

...[a whole bunch of great ideas]...

Beware

[Larrath]

I saw in an RPK MUD a few years ago, and the system they used there is called 'formation'.  It was a bit complex and would take work to add, but it looked like this:

Code Select Expand


     [Front]         [Front]          [Front]
[Left Wing]       [Center]      [Right Wing]
                        [Rear]


Characters in the front attack normally and have a 50% chance of being hit by stray attacks.
Characters at the Wings attack with a small penalty, but get a tiny bonus to defense plus a  30% chance of taking stray attacks.  Also, they cannot use super-short range weapons such as daggers (or, say, wrist-razors).
The Character at the Center get a greater defensive bonus with a 10% chance to take stray attacks.
The Character at the Rear can only attack with a very long weapon (a longspear) if at all, but they get a very large defensive bonus and also have a 10% chance of taking stray attacks.

How do stray attacks work?
A character (possibly part of another formation) is attacking a formation.  They have these options:
1. "kill form" - attack everyone in the form, meaning they move around and try to take any opening at any character they see.  They get an offense bonus but can't focus their attacks on one character and don't count for Pack bonus.  Every attack is 'stray'.
2. "kill form middle/front" - attack only people in the front or middle of the formation, which is the same as 1 only with fewer PCs in the target pool and a much smaller offensive bonus.  20% of the attacks are 'stray', the other 80% just picks a target at random each round.
3. "kill form <target>" - focus on a single character.  Standing front, 3 characters can directly attack one character.  Standing middle, 2 characters.  Standing rear, only 1 character.  10% of attacks are 'stray'.
A stray attack will be directed randomly at a character in the unit, with lesser damage and accuracy.

What we get is this - the leader of the group stands in the Center or Rear, the shield-holding grunts stand front, the mage stands Rear and the normal warriors fill the wings.
Each formation holds up to 7 characters, and the Rear is only a choosable location if there are 4 other characters in the form.

Code Select Expand


look formation
[the tall, muscular man]     [the stone-faced half-giant]   [the warty mul]
[the grizzled, dark man]     [the bulging-crotched templar] [the bug-eyed dwarf]
                                [the windblown leafblower]

Questions, ideas, comments?

[Ktavialt]

...[a whole bunch of great ideas]...

Beware

You think? A bit too complicated and spammy or somesuch? Darnit.

- Ktavialt

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I so very hardily endorse the creation of a formation section of battle. I dispise the absolute lack of ability to actually create one currently. FOrmation, please, please, plase. I have a number of ideas that need fleshing out, but I need to sleep. I'll work on them tonight or tomorrow.

[picklehead]

At work, so I didn't read all of Ktavialt's post, but one thing I'd like to comment on is the mentioning of the number of people within the unit. I don't think it should say it outright in the description, but rather refer to it in relative terms (small, medium, large, huge, etc.). As the size of the unit increases the relative term would encompass a broader range of actual size (ie. small = 5-10, medium = 11-25, large = 26-100, huge = 101-500, enormous = 501+, etc.). That way when you're scouting the enemy you might see a couple small units on the road and have a good idea of what you're up against without having to get too close, whereas if you see a couple huge or enormous units, you'd want your scout to get up close enough to assess to get a more accurate look at size of the army.

[Halaster]

Before you get too carried away, understand that "mass combat" is a rare thing on ArmageddonMUD.  Part of it of course is because mass combat is spammy, but there's more to it than that.  The point I'm making is that because mass combat isn't commonplace, I wouldn't want to spend inordinate amounts of time on massive code for these scenarios.  In other words, we're looking for solutions that don't mean extreme amounts of coding.

I could be wrong, but from what I know, adding formations and the ability for PC's to join units would be a fairly large undertaking.  I agree, it'd be way cool, but might not be worth the time and effort considering the use it'd get.

I'm not saying stop with the ideas about it, just something to keep in mind.  Your ideas about formations and PC's might be more pipe-dreams than simply adding 'units'.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

In the case that you don't want to do massive amounts of coding to solve the problem, the simple solution is to introduce max numbers for attackers. Only so many can fight one.

Units should only fight units unless attacked by a PC, in which case either that PC is a badass beyond belief, or mad and dead. In either case, units themselves stay where they belong. If a unit has no other foes than individual PCs and NPCs, then the unit should spawn a number of soldiers randomly between 2 and 6, while at the same time applying penalties to it's own stats for losing those soldiers.

Example: An NPC unit has 1000 hp and 100 slashing skill and 40 strength, to stand for it containing  10 human soldiers. This unit and two gith are in the same room. The unit can not attack, but the gith are foes, so it spawns 2 soldiers per gith, for a total of 4 soldiers. The unit  lowers its max HP by 400(100 per soldier lost), its slashing skill by 20 (5 per soldier lost), and its strength by 16 (4 per soldier lost). These soldiers engage the gith, killing them but losing all but 1. With no more foes in the area, it returns to its unit. This unit regains 100 HP, 5 slashing skill, and 4 strength, to represent the return of one of its own.

Making units out of PCs without advanced coding to introduce the ability to pick both a leader and bonuses and penalties for being in formation is, to me, not a great idea.

[Ktavialt]

(his response to posts)

My bad, I wrote my entire post without looking at this line in your original
post: "This would only apply to generic style npc's, not unique-looking
soldiers and definitely not PC's."

Hey, maybe if this units thing works out there'll be less all-PC casualties in
mass combat and then it'll happen often enough to warrant some more
extensive code.

- Ktavialt

[Flaming Ocotillo]

The game needs a cap on how many attackers can attack the same target at once. The whole "ten swords as one" thing is outdated, as seen in other RP MUDs that have begun to surface over the years.

It's a change to "mass combat" that would affect both big wars, and aspects of the game outside of wars.

[RunningMountain]

Perhaps implementing different [modes] for characters would be the easiest solution. I'll get to that later, first let's look at mass combat in the past and stuff.

First you have to define what constitutes mass battles. I've been in the tablelands and fought 6+ PC elves all who were one tribe. I think that's how mass combat should work basically, get rid of those old units that have 1000 hp and do insane damage and start using NPCs spread out over a lot of rooms. At least this way people have a chance to use 'strategy' in game before rushing in and just letting the NPCs trade blows.

Let's say for example you have 25 rooms total where a battlefield is going to be for an HRPT or something.

OOOO O OOOO
OOOO O OOOO
OOOO O OOOO
OOOO O OOOO
OOOO O OOOO
Now you have two armies, or forces, or whatever, I'll represent the first  
with S=South, N=North. Each S or N will represent a room full of 20-25 NPCs plus 1 PC that commands that whole room or unit or whatever, and any other PCs who are assigned to that unit.

OONNOSSOO         So what you can see is a pretty basic setup between
OONNOSSOO         the two armies, which can clash at anytime.
NNNNOSSSS          Now from this point what happens? Well negotiations or
OONNOSSOO         massive amounts of runners/scouts moving around
OONNOSSOO         trying to figure out positions of the other army, etc.

You can see the O's representing empty rooms, how one army forms up might change the others forming up. So it all depends on strategy.
Do you want to have your main force centered where it can spread out if it
needs to? Do you want to just keep every man up front and risk being slaughtered with no chance of retreat? What about flanking? All these things should be going through PC commanders minds in each room.

I think that would be way funnner then just setting up battles like they have always been in the past with everything relying on NPC-units and nothing else. This way each force can gauge exactly what type of power the other boasts, and all that jazz.

Now about [modes]. This would be pretty simple things that are coded to force players to adhere to certain coded rules during mass combat. The concept I was thinking was something like this:

Scout
Archer
Infantry
Commander
Etc.etc.

Now each mode would have different rules and commands that they could use in mass combat. For example, an archer would have to be in the "archers" unit-room, and he can't move up with the Infantry-room, or else he'd be out of position and no self-respecting archer would do that. The same applies to infantry modes which would force most infantry to stay in their rooms, but this would be a much broader spectrum of rules, whereas they can manuever around much more then arhcers (who just sit back and sling arrows overhead).

Scouts wouldn't have any rules and would be the most open mode for PCs who want to hang back from the main battles and do their thing with poisoned arrows, or thrown knives, etc. Being allowed to move around in any room would be nice, but also very dangerous, if you're caught by the other force, or mistaken for a spy by your own people, you can die very easily.

The commander mode would be much more fleshed out then any other, they would get a bunch of different commands they could order to all those in the room they are commanding in. You'd have a commander for each room, and then (1) who is leading the entire army which applies to every room.  Here are some examples of what commanders jobs would be.

Let's say we have the same armies as above.
OONNOSSOO        
OONNOSSOO        
NNNNOSSSS          
OONNOSSOO        
OONNOSSOO  

Each room has a commander, and there would be (1) Main commander or general or whatever who can issue commands to every single room of commanders, by sending out runners with messages, or whatever.

The commands would be things like this:
Flank, Retreat, Advance, etc.

Each commander can issue a command only to his units, but the main commander can send out runners from which he can tell the commanders what they need to be doing. The reason the main commander would know what he's talking about is because he would usually have a better vantage point of everything, and the other army. For example, depending on where the battle is at, let's say he is waiting on the walls of Allanak, or a massive mekillot dune where he can observe everything.
Or if he can't get a good vantage point, he would have to simply use his intuition on what to do. Since we have the watch command that would be his main purpose to watch each room and what happens and then issue orders from there.

All of these ideas could apply to either a huge battle, like what I was showing above, if you add the numbers, each room having around 20 or so NPCs would make each side have about 250 men armies, which isn't including PCs. If you want more then that, I think that huge huge battles should be spread out over more areas then just a few rooms to make it more interesting like above. I would much rather sit through an 8-hour HRPT that doesn't involve any combat until the last hour if all the rest was roleplaying on what the other force was doing, trying to send out scouts, spies, and other things. Much like a chess game.

Those are my ideas for this, pretty broad and in-depth but I think it's an easy fix, mainly my beef was with how mass combat was done, not necessarily how the code works.

[Flaming Ocotillo]

Those are my ideas for this, pretty broad and in-depth but I think it's an easy fix, mainly my beef was with how mass combat was done, not necessarily how the code works.

Those ideas are very detailed and would probably work well in a MUD devoted solely to tactical mass combat. However, I'd hardly call those ideas "an easy fix" from both a code perspective, and a player perspective. Armageddon isn't a tactical mass combat game, so the players involved may not be interested or very skilled at participating in war campaigns that play in a text-based, real-time strategy game.

I'd like this post to serve as a reminder to anyone that submits an idea to the mass combat thread (and we need ideas), that Halaster stated he was looking for relatively easy changes to the game code. Modifying existing code in a minor way (some examples were given in the first post of the thread), or adding very simple bits, are going to be the ideas that may actually make it into the game.

[RunningMountain]

Those are my ideas for this, pretty broad and in-depth but I think it's an easy fix, mainly my beef was with how mass combat was done, not necessarily how the code works.

Those ideas are very detailed and would probably work well in a MUD devoted solely to tactical mass combat. However, I'd hardly call those ideas "an easy fix" from both a code perspective, and a player perspective. Armageddon isn't a tactical mass combat game, so the players involved may not be interested or very skilled at participating in war campaigns that play in a text-based, real-time strategy game.

I'd like this post to serve as a reminder to anyone that submits an idea to the mass combat thread (and we need ideas), that Halaster stated he was looking for relatively easy changes to the game code. Modifying existing code in a minor way (some examples were given in the first post of the thread), or adding very simple bits, are going to be the ideas that may actually make it into the game.

You can claim its not a mass combat tactical mud, but everytime an HRPT come up there does seem to be a large battle that goes wrong. I'm implemeting some of these ideas already in C on a codebase, it's not that hard really.

[spawnloser]

There are sometimes mass combats, yes...but there is not often ARMIES facing each other, which your system more represents.  We're not looking for 'Italy vs Germany' here, we're looking for 'these 15 dudes are all fighting, make it sane!'  We're also looking for easy and simple, not something as in depth as your idea.  I'm not saying yours isn't bad, just not what Halaster is asking for.

[elvenchipmunk]

What I'd like to see is just people that are grouped together as a 'unit'.

(be this simply by following someone, making that person the leader and his followers the rest of the unit, or something else. I just don't want to see PC's in a group on the screen. Ex: A group of PC's is here = bad I think).

On a side note to that last point, I'd like it if you type 'follow guy', if 'guy' is already following someone, you will follow that someone. Just to work out who is exactly the leader of the unit.

The way combat would happen with another unit is if the leader attacks someone from another unit, everyone in the attacker's unit will select someone randomly from the other unit and attack them. I'd also like it if people wouldn't gang up on other people (ie: 2 VS. 1) unless there are more people in one unit than the other. If that doesn't make sense, just think of it like as soon as everyone in the smaller unit has been selected as a target, the 'round of randomization' occurs again.

Other things to consider in this might be that if there's, for example, an HG in one unit, there is a bigger chance two or three people will attack the HG in the 'round of randomization'.

I'm not sure if that's what is exactly wanted by this thread, but that idea would help resolve some of the problem with tons of people attacking one guy and killing him in a second.

As for the spammy part of combat. Well, I honestly have very little problem with it. To offer a suggestion, though, maybe you could have a flag on that just echoes whoever you're attacking's moves, your moves, and anyone that dies (as well as who killed them).

Edit: I just noticed that this stuff won't be happening to PC's, which is good. So I'd still like to see the unit thing I said, but now that it's NPC's, I'd like to see them represented on the screen in one line (a group of soldiers is here). I think a PC should also be able to be the 'leader' of an NPC unit. This could be represented by the unit following him/her, and on screen could be:

The hard-ass lieutenant is here, leading a group of hard-ass soldiers.

[Ktavialt]

Units

Give "units" a special status as a unit.  What this means is that several conditions would apply to anything flagged as a unit
:arrow: Units can only engage directly in combat with other units.
:arrow: Units can spawn individual NPC's.  Instead of having a unit be able to attack Joe, the unit spawns individual soldiers to attack Joe.

I think that the only problem with this is where Joe Warrior attacks the unit
or the unit attacks Joe Warrior he ends up fending off each single attacker
with great ease a la Kill Bill where Uma Thurman fights the crazy 88.

If Joe Warrior attacks a unit he should fight the entire unit, unless an
opposing unit is kicking it nearby.  Ditto for when the unit attacks Joe
Warrior. Other than this, perhaps just have the unit spawn four attackers
if Joe Warrior attacks it with no opposing unit around?

Other than that, the idea's gravy as a non-coding extensive fix to this.

- Ktavialt

[Flaming Ocotillo]

Another change that would be useful for "unit" NPCs, is to get them to stop using unarmed fist combat as their attack form. Unit NPCs have insane damage output, and giving unarmed fist attacks results in stun damage that wasn't designed with uber unit NPCs in mind. A common PC death to unit NPCs is being punched in the stomach for all their stun points, and then collapsing to the floor and being killed on the ground.

Some kind of damage type could be substituted for the unit NPCs in particular. Giving them a weapon is sort of weird because you can disarm them, and then you get the Hulk Hogan effect where they're even stronger than before when at a disadvantage.

[John]

Perhaps when "Joe Amos" attempts to "kill" a unit, it spawns off a random (N)PC who leaves the unit and attacks Joe Amos. That way units can only attack other units, but people can still fight a unit.

[Bakha]

Give "units" a special status as a unit.  What this means is that several conditions would apply to anything flagged as a unit
:arrow: Units can only engage directly in combat with other units.
:arrow: Units get special combat messages that properly describe what's happening as a unit fights another unit.
:arrow: Units have a certain number of individuals that make up the whole.
:arrow: Units can spawn individual NPC's.  Instead of having a unit be able to attack Joe, the unit spawns individual soldiers to attack Joe.
:arrow: Commanders can pull individuals out of a unit and add them to a unit.  For example, a templar could "order soldier join 3.unit", or "call soldier 4.unit".  This would only apply to generic style npc's, not unique-looking soldiers and definitely not PC's.
:arrow: When a unit falls below a certain point of health, it goes away and leaves behind a handful of 'individual' npc's.

After watching the carnage last night, I sat up in bed thinking about units (sad, I know). Humorously enough, this was pretty much exactly what I came up with as a "solution" to units.

I haven't read this this thread before, and I still haven't looked through the entire thing. Some additional ideas:

* A Tactics skill: this allows people to control units. Add/subtract NPCs from them and the like. The person controlling the units tactics skill is also figured into the powerfulness/effectiveness of the unit.

* Spell effects: units cannot be targeted by spells like fireball unless the spells are somehow aimed at a group. Instead, the spell would cause a soldier from the unit to spawn and be affected.

[Good Gortok]

So far, what I've seen the new units system do, is something along the lines of:

Code Select Expand

The Tuluki templar has arrived from the east.
A unit of prancing Tuluki bards has arrived from the east.
A unit of nancing Tuluki minstrels has arrived from the east.
A unit of obnoxious Tuluki artists has arrived from the east.

A unit of prancing Tuluki bards hits the Allanaki PC soldier's head, doing horrendous damage.
A unit of nancing Tuluki minstrels wounds the Allanaki PC soldier's body with a brutal hit.
The Allanaki PC soldier's eyes roll back in his head.
The Allanaki PC soldier crumples to the ground.
A unit of obnoxious Tuluki artists hits the Allanaki PC soldier's head, doing unspeakable damage.
*beep*

Repeat 4-5 times and the battle is over, in 10 seconds, and you have a group of PCs who had no fun, no fairness in losing their PC, and the crappy realism of having an entire army target them and just them.

I was under the impression that the units system was intended to make combat more fair for PCs, because units would fight eachother, and PCs would fight eachother, instead of being a completely random, chaotic, out-of-everybody's-hands mass-slaughter where people died before they could type in a command. Instead of preventing that, that is exactly what we have now, with units who kill people in a couple of hits. Instead of a realistic battle, we have a shurt burst of insta-kills and then it's over. I don't like that one bit.

[LoD]

Here are a few ideas/comments on this subject:

Brief Options

To expand on what Halaster proposed, I'd also like to see a few brief options created not only for mass combat, but other situations as well, that cut out background noise.

Brief Combat Self[/i]

This would cut out any combat messages that did not directly effect your character.  You would be focusing entirely on the enemy before you and completely ignoring the general flow of the battle elsewhere.

Brief Combat Unit[/i]

If PC's were able to form Units in even a loose way, then I'd like to see a command that would only show combat messages describing what is happening to your unit.  This would really help when you have multiple organizations in a fight.  The militia unit is doing job "x" while the Byn are doing job "y" and the volunteers are protecting person "z".  I just want to be able to see how my Unit is doing to replicate close-quarter fighting.

Brief Combat Damage[/i]

This would show only damage taken in combat.  Missed kicks, bashes, disarms, missile weapons, and swings would not echo to the player.  This would cut down on some of the room spam involving multiple targets.

Formation: Unit

Characters that create a Unit to increase their defensive chance against additional opponents. Normally a PC will receive penalties to combat whenever they are targeted by 3 or more creatures/people. Every person that is part of a group would provide an additional (1) to that penalty because they are considered to be positioned closely together and watching one another's flanks.

The burly, broad-shouldered man is standing here.
The willowy, raven haired man is standing here.
The bronzed, purple tattooed woman is standing here.

>form
Please specify what you would like to form.

>help form

Form

The form command allows you to create small, medium and large units that ride, walk, and fight in close formation. There are advantages and disadvantages to these formations due to the lack of space created by the situation.

> Formations better defend against multiple attackers.
> Formations have a better chance of successfully guarding people/places.
> Anyone fleeing will break the formation.
> Anyone leaving the room will break the formation.
> Anyone moving in a formation will travel at half speed.
> Anyone fighting in a formation will attack more slowly.
> It is easier to hit someone in formation with missile weapons.
> It is more difficult to backstab, sap, or steal from someone in formation.

> form small willowy bronzed
You form a small unit with the willowy, raven haired man and the bronzed, purple tattooed woman.

By forming a small group with (2) other people, they have increased the number of attackers required to impose a penalty on defense by (2). This would effectively require 5 characters to attack one of the 3 in the formation in order to receive a penalty. While the formation will attack less quickly and move less quickly, they will be able to sustain attacks by larger numbers.

Just something to consider. I don't know how difficult something like this would be to code.

-LoD

[Marauder Moe]

So far, what I've seen the new units system do, is something along the lines of:

*snip*

I was under the impression that the units system was intended to make combat more fair for PCs, because units would fight eachother, and PCs would fight eachother, instead of being a completely random, chaotic, out-of-everybody's-hands mass-slaughter where people died before they could type in a command. Instead of preventing that, that is exactly what we have now, with units who kill people in a couple of hits. Instead of a realistic battle, we have a shurt burst of insta-kills and then it's over. I don't like that one bit.

Uh, there is no new unit system.  This is the old unit system you have witnessed.  This thread is about a proposed system that is still early in the design stage.

You're absolutely right, though.  It's not very fun or realistic for units to kill PCs that way.  Hence this thread and proposed improvements.

[Twilight]

Make it so that units can attack units like normal.  However, if any PC engages a unit, or if a unit engages a PC, it automatically spits out a number of soldiers to fight that PC.

First, we start with a common soldier NPC.  We multiply their combat prowess, defense, hps, etc. by 10.  This is the unit.

Tuluki Unit attacks Allanaki Unit directly, with stats determined by number of people in the unit.  Note, combat advantages should not be determined by 2 Tuluki Units attacking a single Allanaki unit.  Rather, if 2 Tuluki units of 5 soldiers each attack a 10 soldier Allanki unit, they are even.  So based on number of soldiers, not number of units.

If a PC attacks a unit, it will spawn individual soldiers from the unit that get attacked.  If the unit is already engaged, the PC peels off 1-2 soldiers (chance of which detemined by how many other individuals the unit is engaging).  Once soldier is out of the unit, the unit's power is lowered by that person.  Some trickiness on how to allocate hps, of course.  But, then a PC could lower the effectiveness of a unit by attacking it, helping his own units side...of course if someone attacked a unit not engaged, it would spawn 4-6 soldiers....

If a unit attacks a PC, it spawns soldiers instead.  If the above is done correctly, this should only ever happen on an order command given to the unit to attack a PC, or if it is jumping to assist (because any PC attacking a unit will be attacking a spawned soldier, rather than the Unit NPC itself).  So, if a unit attacks a PC because it is otherwise engaged, it would spawn 4-6 soldiers to attack.

[Good Gortok]

Ah... I'm guilty of only skimming the thread, and thought this was a "this is the new unit code we made for the HRPT" thing. I never saw units before.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Twilight, how you gonna steal my idea? You ... you ... scavenger.

[marko]

Part of the difficulty for mass combat has always been managing all the units individually.  I remember when we attacked Luir's - when you enter a room with say, 8 units (four from each side) there is no effective way to command one of your own units to attack one of their units.

Everything has the same keyword.  Therefore, you end up ordering all your guys to do the same thing.  I'd like to see a way to be able to give each unit its own keyword or maybe an ability to command all of one type of thing to do the same action.

Order archers X
order infantry y
order heavy z

Without being able to target individual aspects of a force that force is, for all intents and purposes, just one big group of sameness.  The descs might include archers, heavy infantry, skirmishers, light infantry, half-giants, whatever - it doesn't matter.  All units fight the same way and don't appear to have distinguishing features.

I think if there was some sort of 'form' code as LoD mentioned that replaced units that would work a lot better.  Not only would PCs be able to enter units but units would then also be formed of individual soldiers.

That way as a unit fought a unit individual soldiers within the units would die - reducing the unit size and not just knocking it out in a couple of hits.

To make the code more interesting the leader rank of the person who forms up the unit could dictate the size of the unit.  IE, a sergeant could form a unit of five.  A lietenant could form one of fifteen in strength.  A captain gets one of twenty five or whatever.

Each organization could tinker with how many a certain rank in the organization could form up.  Some organizations it might be that a captain could only make a unit of ten.  I would determine this by the organizations overall focus upon military matters.  IE, House Tor could make units of 20 while House Fale could make units of five.

This also leads to the possibility of larger sized groupings than units that are composed of units.  But I wonder if this gets too complicated.  What I mean is let's say Allanak's Militia forms up three units using Lieutenants of 15 each.  Then a templar can take those units and form up into a legion (or division or a platoon or an army).  

'course, the code question now becomes how do you handle the combat engagement between two groups in this manner?  Maybe damage is calculated by ... hmmm.  I dunno.  Each individual is tracked individually vs an individual in the other group?  Not sure how effective that actually is.  

That would also add differentiation between unit types:  a unit of half-giants would be made of half-giants and would fight slowly while skirmishers would be lightly armed quick guys who could throw a spear and then engage with smaller weapon.  

With more options available to commanders then we'd see more combat focused on unit to unit combat.  

Instead, as I recall it from back in the day, it's a matter of ordering everything to kill the enemy leader.  And then everything would fight everything else.  

Anyway, just some ideas.  

[Fnord]

My #1 issue with mass combat is gang-banging.

I think there should be creature size for everything, and a limit to the number of simultaneous things that can melee it.

For example, it's hard for more than three humans to attack another human effectively. Four if they are trained and know how to create space for each other.

Say we had:

Tiny
Small
Medium
Large
Huge
Gargantuan

With 4:1 attackers to one's own size. For example, 4 mediums could attack a medium, or 2 large, or 1 large and 2 medium, or 1 huge or gargantuan (minimum of one). Or going the other way, 8 small, or 16 tiny things could simultaneously attack a human.

Things like rats would be tiny. Dwarf/halfling would be small. Human/elf/half-elf medium, half-giant large, huge would be like an inix, and gargantuan for like silt-horrows, meks, etc.

Just tossing out the details, it's more the concept I care about, than how exactly it's implemented.

[Hymwen]

Things like rats would be tiny. Dwarf/halfling would be small. Human/elf/half-elf medium, half-giant large, huge would be like an inix, and gargantuan for like silt-horrows, meks, etc.

I'd agree except for the dwarves. They're thicker and, with the exception of height which should have no effect on the amount of possible attackers, actually take up more space than humans, elves and half-elves. But yours was just an example, I know that

[Fnord]

Things like rats would be tiny. Dwarf/halfling would be small. Human/elf/half-elf medium, half-giant large, huge would be like an inix, and gargantuan for like silt-horrows, meks, etc.

I'd agree except for the dwarves. They're thicker and, with the exception of height which should have no effect on the amount of possible attackers, actually take up more space than humans, elves and half-elves. But yours was just an example, I know that

Perhaps you're right, and that would keep all the base races available at medium, so nobody would have an advantage/disadvantage there.

[Ava]

Repeat 4-5 times and the battle is over, in 10 seconds, and you have a group of PCs who had no fun, no fairness in losing their PC, and the crappy realism of having an entire army target them and just them.

Here's a reaaaally quick and dirty solution: make it impossible for units to hit singletons.  Allow defense and guarding against anyone, and offense against other units.

[Krath]

If units are not able to attack pcs, then we should not even have them, and wars would
just be between PCs.

[Synthesis]

The idea of individual soldiers spawning from units is an elegant solution, but I don't think it will change much in terms of how fast people die in mass combat.

I don't know how many of you have been attacked by 4+ NPC soldiers at once, but I can tell you from experience that it's ugly. Really ugly.  The only thing this will do is give you a chance to flee out, since 4+ NPC soldiers will take only very slightly longer to disembowel you than the entire unit would.

Personally, I think PCs should simply use tactics to avoid the mass combat situations.  If you don't want your character treated like a peon in the midst of a vast army, don't march in with them.  Hang out on the periphery and skirmish with ranged attacks.  In the middle of a spammy battle, how fast do you think people will realize that you're hurling spears in on their flank, or shooting a volley of arrows from the nearby dune?  Instead of putting all your PC forces in with your units, let your PCs act as skirmishers and counter-skirmishers.

As a leader of PCs, you should realize that your individual underlings will be instantly and brutally mauled, and you should use tactics to avoid that, because your PC underlings are generally not just run-of-the-mill soldiers...they're the people that get Important Stuff done for you, and they're probably more valuable than meat for the grinder.  Order them to defend your flanks or your rear, or order them to circle around the enemy flanks and harass them with ranged combat.  Order them to hold back and move in after the initial assault to take down stragglers and those who have fled out of formation.

All in all, you have to -think- about what you're doing.  If you, as an individual PC, type "kill unit," you are essentially charging an entire massed formation of enemy soldiers -by yourself-.  If you assist someone who's being attacked by a unit, you are doing the same thing.  That's just how it is, currently, and until PCs can form their own units, any time you attack a unit, you are treated as an individual wading into mass combat, and you'll be brutally mauled, as you should be.

I do like the idea of PCs being able to form their own units.  It would also probably be useful to allow PCs to be incorporated into units consisting of other units (e.g. the militia PC Sergeant and a unit of Allanaki soldiers group together to form a unit).  The tradeoff for this would be that each PC would lose the ability to use combat and movement commands (except for flee), as all commands would come from the unit leader.  This solves the problem of being treated as an individual, even if you are actually moving in with a group of people.  This would also prevent people from simply targeting the obvious group leader (templar, for example), since unit leaders could be incorporated within their respective units.

This, rather than the soldier-spawning idea, would drastically alter the dynamic of group combat.  I imagine it would be rather more difficult to code, though.

[Cegar]

You could also use PC's to flank and pick off enemy ranged units, leaders, or magickers. That way it wont be joebob the NPC soldier who gets the final blow on the Red-Robed Templar of ULTIMATE MAYHEM.

[Djarjak]

Just a couple of ideas:

1) be able to group them into combat formations with unique names - i.e. designate 1.unit fluffy, designate 2.unit beater. order beater kill legion order fluffy south - to help people better manage keywords in larger situations. This is too easy to abuse for application to all NPCs, but for followers, this should be pretty key... would have to check to make sure that House guards follow same theory. This may be able to be done with a script - not sure?

2) make the desc change based on the size instead of using "unit". i.e. if there are 10, maybe it's a platoon, 100, a legion, etc. as with other object numbering code.

3) focus on making the descs a little less generic than "a unit of Allanak soldiers" or "a unit of Borsail Wyverns" so that keywords will be distinct on both sides in a combat situation. i.e. "A sweat-sodden unit of Allanaki soldiers". Or maybe have a color that is specific to each side (as in modern warfare) to help manage things in spammy situations. i.e "a unit of green-bannered elite troops"  So you can do order fluffy kill green.

4) Something should be done to prevent someone from attacking a legion and picking off the troops one by one because they are not individually (or in pairs) a match, or the efficacy of having a unit is robbed.

[Lazloth]

There are a lot of good ideas in this thread.  I like what Halaster and Morg have put forth for discussion:

I'll drop my comments down to the "unit" level:

* Restrict units [for now] to NPC only; I don't think dialogue about PC formations needs to be hashed out now or belongs here.

* Create some NPC flag that defines it as an aggregated mob.

* Make a hard line in what defines a unit.  (eg., 8 to 15 people)
- "HP" value of the unit will be determined by this count, and reflected accordingly.  When units are "hurt," that means the constituents have shrunk.  For ease of translation, you should never see "A unit of XXX soldiers is standing here, bleeding heavily" - but have the "count" (percent of HP) either shown in the sdesc or viewed on assess.

This can be determined by giving a flat amount to each soldier within a unit (say 100hp);  if the unit total HP is 800-1000 = the unit size is small, 1001-1200 = mid, 1201-1500 = large [or whatever].  If the unit drops below the minimum, it will disappear and spawn the relevant number of soldiers.

- Commanders can add and remove from units via some syntax.

- [Also affected by some magicks or other abilities] maybe a morale factor can be created on the fly and checked periodically to see whether the aggregated mob will "scatter".  I don't know if it's possible to base it on some factor that the commander possesses [I don't think ordering units around needs to be a skill, but there are charismatic leaders who soldiers will willingly follow to their deaths, and there are puds who will be shot in the back or ignored in the field], or whether it would be something better determined by the constituent type  -(Imagine the difference between a unit of farmers taking up arms for defense v a trained militia)-  or a combination.

* Room for growth: units can roll up into larger "units" of measure within the same framework.  So a commander [with priveledge to form larger battalions] can add unit legion or whatever, where the whatever is defined by similar rules (legion is composed of 3 to n units).

* Allow the commanding PC to 'title' the unit.   Unit should be under that leader's command to prevent snafu.
It's much easier in the heat of battle to "order followers..." than to find the unit you've called in the room list when the keywords are identical.

* Aggregated mobs can attack and be attacked [within normal kill/bash/backstab/etc command list] by only other aggregated mobs.  Caveat: if you are willing to open the ability for magick/etc to affect units (and it does makes sense to me), the unit can react normally to the single N/PC who takes a chance nuking it.  (eg., unit will attack as a unit)   In all other circumstances, in my opinion, units and singletons should not mix.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

One of the issues during this has been the single PC attacking the Unit and winning. It's put forward that it's not realistic, but....

...why would you want realistic? I think the image of a master warrior attacking a unit and taking them down NPC by NPC is fucking awesome. I know that we are not high fantasy, but we are fantasy. NPCs tend to be your ordinary soldiers, nothing special. A master warrior should be able to take down a unit if his rolls all spin out nice.

Don't take out that part of the allure to warriors.

[Jakahri]

If units are not able to attack pcs, then we should not even have them, and wars would
just be between PCs.

That's the most ignorant statement I believe I've ever read on this board. You're justifying throwing hundreds of soldiers against one target. Give me a break Krath.

[jhunter]

I don't think that making it so units -cannot- attack pcs is the answer. That would only allow for unfair play from the other side of things.

Personally, I like Djarjak's ideas on how to handle it. Picking out keywords is the most difficult part of dealing with npc soldiers and units of soldiers in mass combat situations.

[Lazloth]

A master warrior should be able to take down a unit if his rolls all spin out nice.

I don't think that making it so units -cannot- attack pcs is the answer. That would only allow for unfair play from the other side of things.

Maybe it's me, but I don't think army-level combat is a regular thing on Zalanthas.  There may be a few a skirmishes here and there throughout the age, but generally speaking, the function I see "units" serving is bridging some of the VNPC-PC gap during Events and exhibiting a strength or lack-thereof for a particular force.

I think that's important to remember at an OOC level; you'd want to segregate aggregate NPCs from single N/PCs so the mob bunches don't blick everything in sight, and because it wouldn't require an advanced warfare engine for the "strategy side" of conflict resolution.  Positioning units in the field and having leaders clash across the chessboard becomes much more important than zipping through an area and one-shotting everything not dressed in your colors, and by the same token, prevents the unrealistic notion of an Uma Thurman ninja that can single-handedly incapacitate a military deathsquad.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

<Lots of intelligent banter>... prevents the unrealistic notion of an Uma Thurman ninja that can single-handedly incapacitate a military deathsquad.

But are you going to tell me that wasn't cool? We play Armageddon for collness. I see no reason why we can't let a master warrior do the 'Uma Thurman' thing. Don't let it be a sure thing, maybe, but I say nix to erradicating the 'warrior who defeated a unit' excitement.

[Lazloth]

If you concede that this is an irregular event (1 MW v 15 grouped soldiers):
* using proposals within this thread (where units and singles cannot interact) - you can still have the MW "beat" the unit *

A commander can peel NPCs from the unit, and the MW can continue to hack through them, using his/her sword to reach the commander; alternately, MW comes across an abandoned unit and wishes to engage - s/he can wish up and have the process as described stepped through.

(Bowing out of the thread though - we're clogging it over a pretty minor item.)

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

(follows Lazloth off, arguing his case)

Yes, I'm with you there.