Mass Combat Ideas

[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.