I agree. There’s definitely more work to be done in this area, and you’re right to request that it be a priority.
I have given similar feedback. Combat, for me, is on occasion only barely manageable as-is today, so any improvements made to that system would be welcomed.
Albert’s working on combat stuff now, so with any luck we’ll see some very soon.
I actually find the banner system refreshing. I can play any old strategy game with the same mechanics, but stonehearth took a different route and at least for me it seems to work pretty well. I rarely lose anyone and I rarely have to micro (on normal of course).
Keep up the good work, I’m excited to see combat continue to improve.
I think I’m still going to need more depth to enjoy the banners. I like the concept, but there’s still nowhere near the possibilities and comfortability I would like so I can leave the combat to my hearthlings and their orders (except for large invasions and life-threatening forces). Stonehearth’s goal isn’t necessarily to crush all enemies on the map, it’s maintaining the safety and well-being of your settlement. And that doesn’t have to equate to “attack enemies until they die.” What about nonlethal weapons or special-purpose devices that either incapacitate or scatter the enemies, requiring preparation, premeditation, and cleverness on the player’s part, rather than bum-rushing each foe group with a mass of soldiers, archers, and healers? …I realize that last part is a gross oversimplification of the current developments (and shortchanging the effort from the team!), but it still comes off more as “kill the enemies” rather than “protect the town” to me, the latter of which the team has repeatedly stressed as their intention in the past. In short–there needs to be more outcomes in relation to mob interaction (like the Goblin Appeasement campaign!).
And seriously–I need “retreat to” commands and a “stop caring about non-attacking enemies” behavior. I’ve been forced to babysit my soldier in the most recent game because three Giant Zombies sprang up just within the soldier’s patrol range, and she’s just itching to take them on with her Stone Mace and Bronze Plate…which is not a good idea. And whoever those zombie guys’ “Master” is, I wish he’d pick up his stuff and stop getting so close to my town (which was here first!).
Sorry for the rant, everyone. Combat versatility has been something I’ve championed since the beginning of Stonehearth, and I really hope to see it explore some new realms of possibility.
Yeah, there are many issues with not killing enemies. It means that all your hearthlings are in constant danger. What about a trapper who wanders outside? Or a shepheard? Or even your footman, as you say…
@Solus May I ask how far into the game you are? Even in normal mode (and much more so in hard mode) micro management becomes a real pain once kobolds start to spawn. At that point the banners become annoying. Furthermore, you say they are a refreshing change, but to me it seems they do exactly the same things other Strategy games’ commands do, it just takes at least double the time to do it.
We absolutely need animations for idling around while defending … I don’t want my fighters to be frozen in place like the royal guard 
At least they should look around a bit or chatter with each other when in a party 
Considering one of the big early draws to Stonehearth was the premise of Titans, I think one interesting digression from standard RTS is a variety of enemies that can’t be killed…or at least not without significant research and preparation. And it’s not to say that you couldn’t or wouldn’t kill enemies, too. Think Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: You can fight the insects of the miasma, but there’s alternative methods to dealing that might turn out better and less likely to create a swarming death horde of Ohmu in retaliation. (And naturally, using these weapons and devices would give your units experience in lieu of killing mobs.)
Ok, we are obviously talking about vompletely different things here. You are talking about some utopia that stonehearth could be in a far future, with peaceful weapons etc. I am talking about stonehearth as it is. There is no peaceful option to get rid of enemies. Kill or get killed, easy as that. And in order to do it, what we need now (or asap) isn’t some godly ray of peace, but combat controls that actually deserve said name.
Thanks for the thoughts, everyone! Clearly there’s still a lot to work on. 
We appreciate all your feedback, especially your ideas on how to make the system smarter. We are listening as hard as we can, and picking the things we think we can implement well and that further our goal of making the party banners smart, set-and-forget systems that can be overridden by those who really care to.
For those of you who think that SH’s combat would be much simpler if we “just” implemented standard RTS controls, I have this question: if you had RTS style controls for your combat units, would you also expect them for your crafters and workers? If not, how would you telegraph to people that these units, and only these units, behaved differently? How would you prevent the game from, essentially, being two different games?
Months of investigation has led me to believe that this is a hard problem, and one not well solved in games that exist today, at least, not without splitting the game into different modes. I believe even Dwarf Fortress has this problem, and they’ve had much longer to think about it than we have. There are no easy solutions. That’s not a bad thing! It just means that we have to be willing to experiment with crazy ideas, and be OK with discarding and iterating on the ones that don’t work. So by all means, keep the ideas coming.
I don’t see what the differnence would be to today’s system. You already have individual control over soldiers, but not other hearthlings. Does it really matter how that control is executed? I don’t have a way to move my carpenter atm and I wouldn’t have in the future. What’s the big difference?
I don’t know if you ever played settlers (the older ones, don’t know the new parts) but the settlers would build and craft, just like your normal hearthlings, but the soldiers were controllable. That wasn’t a bad system at all.
I, for one, would be happier will even less micro than we have today. To do that, I believe we need to continue iterating on how the AI reacts to various combat conditions to make each class smarter at their jobs. Intellgient strategic and tactical retreats, auto-healing retreated units even while in town defense mode so they can rejoin the fray, intelligent use of town defenses to keep squishier combat units like archers safer while still letting them engage in town defense (firing out of windows, hiding behind battlements that actually shield them from damage, staying up on walls instead of ground-level kiting etc), player-defined fall back positions for when perimeter defenses get overrun, and so on.
These things will greatly improve my game experience because I would be able to trust that my units will do the right thing, survive with much less micro oversight from me, etc.
But when things go wrong, I as a player also need better alerting that happens sooner, so that by the time I’m informed of a problem, I still have enough time to react and not lose someone. I also need more granular notifications: what exactly is the problem? How big of a raid is coming and what kind of hostiles are we talking about? Do I need to trigger my own town defense, or can town defense classes do that for me depending on the situation?
More automation, less micro. We only feel the need for micro out of distrust for the technology. The better that gets, the less we need to really worry about managing combat, and we can stay focused at keeping defenses well staffed, building and placing defensive structures/devices, and planning the expansion of our towns.
Just my .02.
Really love to see changes for the combat but i think it would be interesting if for example you have your different groups and they can have different tactics set for them one tactic maybe is to take out strongest target first of damage they deal or one is set to take out support first or one is a more defensive one for tanks to protect incoming enemies that try to take our your archers or healers.
Don’t have to be the ways i gave but i think choosing tactics for your groups could be an interesting thing for the game and it would let the hearthlings control themself with your set tactics.
This way all the enemies could have different tactics set to them and maybe you could even have a captain in your groups both for hearthlings and enemies and tactics only work if captain is alive else they go default tactics for combat.
I don’t see what the differnence would be to today’s system. You already
have individual control over soldiers, but not other hearthlings. Does
it really matter how that control is executed? I don’t have a way to
move my carpenter atm and I wouldn’t have in the future. What’s the big
difference?
In the field of user experience, designs distinguish between interactions that are global to the scope of the program, and interactions that are limited in scope to certain elements. Called another way, global context, vs specific context.
Examples of global context: in Windows, double click “goes deeper” (opens programs, folders, etc), and right click opens a context menu. In web browsers, left click navigates links. In Starcraft, boxing over the ground selects a group of units, and right click moves them. In Stonehearth, clicking on a unit selects it.
Examples of specific context: in windows, anything that happens as the result of a right click menu, in Stonehearth, any operation that is done from a unit’s “unit frame” like placing a specific chair or ordering a military person to attack a specific enemy.
If you take something that is usually understood to be global behavior, like RTS style commands, and apply it to only some elements, you break a fundamental understanding between the user and the program. Some people, perhaps like you, who use the program a lot, and understand the model and why the design element was applied will be able to get by, and may even enjoy the optimization, but new users or people who aren’t there for every step of the process tend to express confusion. If we implemented box select and right click to move for just some classes, I would fully expect most players to expect them to work on all classes, and be confused/upset when they didn’t.
If you MUST have two different kinds of global context interactions in a program, perhaps because you have a limited number of controls or buttons, the standard design solution is modes: in this case, a fight mode and city planning mode, and you toggle between them with a button, or they happen on two different maps. This is why Final Fantasy has a fight screen, and an overworld screen. Modes are considered design compromises, because you must teach two interaction systems, and basically, design and implement two different programs. (You may not prefer playing Chrono Trigger, but gee is the design of it’s integrated exploration/combat beautiful.) From a tactical POV, it also requires a bunch more code, more edge cases, and more bugs.
TLDR: there are many established design reasons to be cautious of combining interactions of different global contexts, and many reasons to avoid modes when possible. For SH’s combat, I’m not yet convinced that we are out of viable better options.
Hm… i see. You obviously look at it at “different modes”. For me, i don’t change into a different mode when opening the combat tab. It’s just another tooltip and something that interrupts gameflow for me. I see what you mean with different game concepts meeting and yes, there needs to be a middle way. But if you are saying combat mode and town-management should be perceived as different modes for the player, there should be some reason to perceive them as different, apart from “ok, to place a move banner, you have to click on this red button first”
People are making great suggestions here, with groups having set goals and as someone said, it all comes down to trusting the AI. I understand that you rather focus on AI in development than on making it redundant by improving player control, but the decision has to be made soon. Right now you are on this edge of not giving up player control (and you can’t because AI is not good enough) while letting AI do as much as possible. But it just results in none of the two mechanics being good enough to do the job, imo.
I agree with everything you’re saying but I still like the idea of adding intuitive RPG elements, such as units having an ATB bar of sorts that lets you select the occasional attack/target (perhaps with a special attack). These can be intuitive enough for new and casual players (if you incorporate the same idea globally as well) but will also keep combat fresh and engaging without becoming more generic and monotonous. Plus it won’t interfere with the established (and terrific) AI programming you guys have done and, if anything, should meld well with it.
Think of overall movement and banners as strategy and these singular (occasional) skills as tactics. Layering the two (with an element of randomly available options) should give you a very layered, simple to use, but complex to master combat system, that builds on top of what you’ve already established, without having to worry about creating competing and convoluted systems.
It’ll give Stonehearth a very unique combat system that no other game has! Plus it’ll make dungeons and ventures outside of town much more interesting and satisfying!
Just an idea! I have a whole write up on it I’d be happy to flesh out if you’re interested (in how to balance and implement it) 
Okay guys, i seem to be the only dumb person here who doesn’t understand, so maybe that’s where this argument comes from… so here is my question:
What makes banners special? What are the merits?
@Kaffee describes them as strategy.
@sdee I understand your hesitation on normal combat commands (i disagree, but I understand) bit how/why are banners better?
To me it seems like the move command is what right-click does in other RTS, defend means nothing more than your soldiers not moving away from the spot you send them too (also standard right click in RTS) and attack is just what right clicking on enemies does… right? I don’t understand the difference here, apart from having two clicks more for the same action.
Because you’re changing the established rules of the game, as @sdee mentioned earlier.
You can’t have one set of controls for combat and another for the rest of the game, whereas units obey specific mouse clicks that other hearthlings otherwise wouldn’t. Clicking on a hearthling or group and right-clicking to make them move would naturally make me assume I could try the same with regular hearthlings and workers.
If that didn’t work, it would make the game confusing; who would this apply to and who wouldn’t it apply to? Clerics are combat units but what about Herbalists? And what about panic situations with fleeing townspeople? I’ve unlocked a new class, does this strange separate control scheme apply to them? It’s inconsistent and bad game design.
If it did work, this becomes a very different game. You’re no longer working with a thoughtful, self-controlled population but rather giving orders and demands and taking direct control of units, which goes completely against the spirit of the game. I know you want this to have the same accessibility as other RTS games but Stonehearth is made to stand apart.
Yes the banners are essentially compromises but they stay within the rules of the game without breaking them. When you want them to cut down a tree, you simply pick the trees. If you want them to create a stockpile, you designate a location. The hearthlings own personality and ai takes over at that point and HOW they do that is on them. And that’s the charm of the game.
Does it need work? Sure. But where they are now is an understandable place to build on. Does it take two clicks to do something that one could? Sure. But it stays within the context of the game and that’s important too.
As for how this constitutes for strategy, don’t know what to tell you, dude. Movement and establishing attack points and defend points is strategy, is it not? 
Well, this was a beautiful explanation of why you think direct controls are bad. But the banner system is exactly that! You can only set banners for military units, you can only click on military units to give them orders.
And I still don’t think players would be confused by drag to select or click to move. Yes, they might try it once with normal hearthlings. Then they realize it doesn’t work and move on.
All the arguments you present are against player control and management (fair enough) but you still didn’t answer the question: what makes the banner system any better than standard RTS controls?
Ah I see what you meant, apologies: I misunderstood. 
It isn’t superior, you’re right. RTS controls are better and this is a compromise. This is a matter of pro’s vs con’s. A better controlled system, or a more intuitive system.
You’re looking at this from the view of an experienced gamer; in your mind, you click once, see if it works or doesn’t and move on. But not everyone who plays Stonehearth will be experienced gamers and Radiant needs to accommodate for that. The best game designs are the ones where the player is systematically introduced to rules of the game, while the more complicated aspects are staggered slowly in; the secret is to be organized about it so ALL players can “learn the language of the game” so to speak.
The problem with what you propose isn’t as simple as click, doesn’t work and move on. Instead, it introduces the idea that the systemic approach of introducing the player to the game’s rules is flawed and it ruins that carefully organized design; if I try it with one character, I’ll look at it as a missing feature that I can’t do it for others. I’ll see it as a deficiency for non combat units instead of as a bonus for military units. Where would we draw the line? A panicked townsperson running for the hills I can’t control but a safe archer I can? An inexperienced gamer would be frustrated with that and see it as an obstacle of control and poor design choice. Can I move the Herbalist? Are they a combat class? No? Then why the Cleric which is an upgrade? You have to reason and draw lines constantly, which doesn’t make sense.
The banner, on the other hand, is a military construct. It makes sense military units obey it and only military units are affected by it. This makes the process not only immediately intuitive and establishes the rules of the game but gives future classes that the team adds a foundation to build on.
Sure the player can just start memorizing which units move and which don’t but that is very, very poor game design; you’re forcing the player to compensate for the system’s shortcomings. And all for what? To avoid an additional click?
This is the heart of this decision; is the compromise worth it? On one hand, you avoid a click and have more direct control but on the other, you’re implementing poor design choices that will have an unpredictable response by many players. Other than that, you’re right the RTS approach is better control. But better control isn’t the only factor here.
I’m not saying you’re wrong and I love that you are questioning these systems; that’s exactly the kind of dialogue that makes these alpha forums so great But in this case, I completely understand the team’s reluctance to change this system and their reasoning behind that. It needs work, no doubt. But it’ll get there
Loving the lively discussion! Great interactivity with the community and devs. I would have to agree with Kaffee (and the views of Radiant) that what they have is best for now. There are always ways to improve but that’s going to take some discovery and ingenuity…which we all know Radiant is amazing at!
Give it time they’ll find something that will work out nicer!
I know that I struggle (at times) with wanting to right-click enemies to single select and then remembering, “dur it’s the banner system remember?!” It requires a little re-wiring to experienced gamers however once done it doesn’t take long to keep in place. If you think about it as well the entire game is
Yeah it’s a little less hands off than traditional RTS’s but the games that i’ve played that try to implement something like this i’ve found that another layer of strategy is involved and that’s getting to understand the AI and then planning/strategizing based on that. I find that fun and interesting…another layer to think about and to utilize! Yeah maybe more room for crap to hit the fan but the unknown is much more fun! (to me at least)
Hope that makes sense…haven’t had my cup of coffee yet :\
I swear, i wish this was the truth. If this was the case, i wouldn’t mind the banner system. If I could que my banners, i.e. set a move command for my archer to go to x and THEN attack y, that would be awesome. I could pause the game, plan what I want to do and then have my guys execute it, all at once.
With the current system though, i can only set one order. No planning involved. I can tell my archer to go to x, but then I have to select him again once he is there, and either pause the game again, to have time to select his target ( and targets for other guys). One he killed his target, I have to set a new one again. Again, by selecting him, choosing a banner and then the enemy. In a super simple scenario like this, I have not done one extra click, but at least three, if i have 5 combatants, that is 15. Also I have paused the game three times at this point.
This is just such a crawl to victory. So yes, if banners would actually allow to plan and execute attack, great! But they don’t → back to “I want better controls”
Btw. guys, thanks for the great discussion, I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond.
If you want me to answer something more, I will gladly do it, but I can also end the discussion here, that is fine. I see my point isn’t the most popular and you guys obviously have different priorities when it comes to controls and that is fine.
I just wanted to make my points clear, I have stopped playing stonehearth for the moment, as the late-game combat is way to unenjoyable for me (for all the reasons stated above). So thanks for listening.