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[JustRadek]

Hey everyone, we're currently developing a small Tactics game and are quickly approaching the prototyping phase. To guide us, I laid out a high-level list of "the good" and "the bad" of numerous Tactics/TBS games that our team has played.

Of course we might've missed some stuff, so I was wondering if you guys could share your opinions on the genre? Mainly what were some of your favourite gameplay elements of Tactics games, and -- perhaps more importantly -- what parts do you dislike?

[OneMoreGo]

your link goes to xkcd

[JustRadek]

Hmmm, so it does. Wireless keyboards and CTRL+C don't seem to like each other that much.

Oh well, xkcd isn't a horribly bad alternative, but the link should be fixed now.

[Inane]

This whole thread is about Tactics games, pretty much.

I like that you're game isn't gonna have levels or inventories, though you'll probably need some characters that play in really different ways from the rest in the late game to keep it interesting.

[Scut Fabulous]

I tend to prefer tactical games that don't allow for drawn out mental pre-calculation of every move, which takes the thrill out of the fight.  Making actions a risk/reward gamble tends to force improvisation, and to me improvisation is the core of what makes for fun tactics.

[JustRadek]

Thanks for the link -- I did a quick search for Tactics before posting, but I didn't see that thread.

As for the other comments, yes, we'll be doing lots of work to make sure the units are very different from one another. The element of risk is a bit trickier. On one hand, you want the ability to predict and outsmart the enemy AI, but on another you don't want every battle to play out the same way or think 20 moves ahead to be successful. To combat that, we're making our battles quite short and going to experiment with a bit of randomization.

[fraxcell]

I like your list a lot. While reading it, I thought up a few random things you might be interested in.

-Be able to take out any enemy with only a few actions. It's always rewarding to take down a big enemy with only a few well placed actions, instead of having to gradually chip away at his health. I think this should depend more upon using your units in a tactical and efficient manner than getting a lucky critical hit.

-Be able to view multiple enemies attack ranges. This was something I really liked about some of the more recent fire emblem games, where you could select any combination of enemies to view their attack ranges, and keep them on the screen while you were moving your units, instead of having to look at each enemies range separately and try to memorize it.

-Changing up the terrain is always fun. You mentioned blowing things up, but I'd also like to see more options to build fortifications or something. To make it so advantageous terrain is still of tactical benefit, defense bonuses from fortifications should stack with that of the terrain it is built on (IE a fortress built on a mountain is better than a fortress built on some grasslands).

[Alec S.]

One thing to consider is how you allow the player to move/act.  Do you use a every character gets a move and an attack option like in many Japanese tactics games, or give them a certain amount of action points that they can spend on movement and actions like in XCOM?

[JustRadek]

• In order to keep the pacing brisk, units will go down fairly quickly provided their weaknesses are exploited.
• Like I mentioned in my points, the ranges of your enemies will be indicated as you move a unit a la Valkyrie Profile for the DS, so you won't even need to do any manual checks.
• We'll probably be avoiding building cover and other components to keep things moving quickly while having one less variable to balance.
• Action Points are fine, but a rather abstract concept, i.e., how does running 30 yards take less time/action points than squeezing a trigger? Not that Tactics games are a very realistic portrayal of battles, but I think a move+single-action approach is easier to grasp.
  

[Tumetsu]

Thanks for the link -- I did a quick search for Tactics before posting, but I didn't see that thread.

As for the other comments, yes, we'll be doing lots of work to make sure the units are very different from one another. The element of risk is a bit trickier. On one hand, you want the ability to predict and outsmart the enemy AI, but on another you don't want every battle to play out the same way or think 20 moves ahead to be successful. To combat that, we're making our battles quite short and going to experiment with a bit of randomization.

You could take a look on Fire Emblem series. Basically they you move units in grid like in many other tactics. However, when you bring your unit to attack enemy, you'll be shown a small list of stats how the battle will go with several probabilities. Eg. DMG 12hp Accuracy 65% critical hit 8% number of attacks etc. and same table of enemy's hit rates etc. to your character.
This way the player has to move his units certain tactic in mind while battles usually have slight uncertainty because of different probabilities. Often you could get into situation where you have planned to kill strong enemy with your strong character but your unit misses and you have to save your weak units from enemy's attack range meaning a sudden partially unpredictable change in situation.

[JustRadek]

In a way, don't those stats give more information and eliminate some of the risk, though?

As for the example of ranged enemies attacking weaker units, that should be something you could predict provided you checked everyone's ranges. Any randomness would come from the enemies deciding to go after a different target, which is actually something we'd like to try out.

On one hand, you can go for a FFT approach that feels like a loose team-deathmatch system where each enemy can have its own unique behaviour. On the other, you have Advance Wars where all the units coordinate and exploit your weaknesses as if they were really led by a single general.

I'm personally leaning towards the first approach as it makes for a less predictable game and allows all the units to have a bit more personality via their actions, but which one do you guys prefer?

[deathtotheweird]

you should play His Dark Majesty. Which is one of the cooler indie tactics games I've ever played. It features a rather basic rock paper scissors approach, but I think that's some of the charm. It features some of ninjutsu63's comments with being able to see the enemy's attack range and taking down enemies with well placed attacks rather than gradual chipping away.

[laserdracula]

I wonder does your game have movement by team or by individual?  On the one hand, the whole team sharing a turn means you can better coordinate your strategy.  On the other hand, going off of the individual character charge time is a bit more realistic and allows for more character specialization but then sometimes the turn order gets in the way of what you want to do in the battle.  In games that use individual charge time(FFT is the only I can think of), I think a good work-around would be to allow the delaying of turns, but maybe that could become exploitable though.   

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Hey everyone, we're currently developing a small Tactics game and are quickly approaching the prototyping phase. To guide us, I laid out a high-level list of "the good" and "the bad" of numerous Tactics/TBS games that our team has played.

Of course we might've missed some stuff, so I was wondering if you guys could share your opinions on the genre? Mainly what were some of your favourite gameplay elements of Tactics games, and -- perhaps more importantly -- what parts do you dislike?

"Attack animations — especially when presented via separate screen cinematics — are quite lengthy and devoid of any interaction."

i disagree that this is a "bad" thing (it's on your bad list). i actually love those animations, they add a lot of atmosphere to the game. imagine shining force without its animations!



i also loved the animations in the fire emblem series, in vanguard bandits, and in the front mission series (particularly 3 and 4)

[Xion]

yea I deffo gotta say that seeing characters interact on a closer, more personal scale than the map view often offers is a pretty wonderful thing, especially if the animations are particularly sexy. Not a fan of fire emblem but I love watching units attack each other

[starsrift]

I really enjoy the set-piece boss-monster battles in the King's Bounty games, where you have a creature that takes up multiple elements of the grid.

And siege situations, in KB and other tactics games.

[JustRadek]

We decided to go with a unit-by-unit approach for the reason you mentioned, i.e., it seems a bit more believable, and because it prevents the two armies from slowly inching towards each other in order to gain the advantage. This is somewhat combated by most units being able to counter-attack, but I wanted to avoid that mechanic (at least for most units).

As for the animations, I do agree that they add a lot to the atmosphere, and I thought that they were particularly great in Shining Force. With that said, these animations seem to have only gotten longer with time, with no real gameplay additions. They're still entirely passive, and after seeing them the first couple of times, I tend to turn 'em off/skip 'em (like I do with Final Fantasy summons).

Since we're dealing with less technical limitations (resolution, memory, processing, etc.), I'd rather implement the unit actions in the map instead of a separate-state screen and avoid that board-game piece vibe.

[ink.inc]

In games like final fantasy tactics, you always were playing the offensive party. Your enemies were already spread out al over the map, and you were unable to position your units with any effectiveness. Well, it would be kind of awesome if you were able to plan out your tactics defensively, and make the most out of your units when fighting a vastly superior foe. I could see situations similar to the Battle of Thermopalae, where you force your enemies down a single corridor, block the exit with a tank, have a huge number of mages behind him as support, and shoot them with arrows from above.

[Contrary]

I thought Suikoden Tactics had a lot brilliant ideas, like combination attacks, where if you arranged the right guys in the right pattern, you could perform a super attack on an enemy (or multiple enemies, depending on the attack). Using magic spells (all magic spells change the affinity of the place it lands) or items, you could sort of infuse portions of the grid, granting passive bonuses to certain characters/monsters while debuffing others, making you have to think harder about unit and spell symmetry. It also had a really nice level up/skill system and mounts. I think you should check it out.

[tsameti]

How did I miss this thread?

I'm going to start out by saying I belong to the camp that loves ridiculously convoluted strategizing. Agonizing over twenty moves that occur in tandem, planning reaction actions and swapping out resistance items ten moves in advance, hitting the Action button and wiping out the enemy in an elaborate and ridiculous combo.

Yea, I'm all about the Disgaea.

Ahem, anywho... few things I'd suggest: status changes should rarely be 'either/or': but they should scale in power just like regular attacks. Otherwise, they turn into gamble maneuvers, which most of the time are outperformed by minMaxed standard actions anyway.

So when you get hit with poison, it's like you have a queue of stacks of damage that's visible and measurable, but hasn't been parceled out to your health yet. Now additional applications can append ticks to the poison queue. Poison resistance reduces the depth of all stacks in the queue (possibly to zero). Suddenly antidote usage makes more sense to the player, suddenly Bosses don't need a list of immunities that's ridiculous.

My second point is that map control can be so crucial, but games rarely give you many options for controlling position. More options to push/pull/hop could be very welcome... depending on the scope of your project, of course.

But yea, it seems most of the suggestions I might give you are mucho contrary to the gameplay that Scut Fabulous and others might enjoy. Might not be the direction you intend to go.

Eh.