How will combat be simulated

Gameplay
1

I know that @SteveAdamo said combat will be better than what was shown in the kickstarter video.
Just wanted to make a few suggestions as to how I envision combat to be carried out.
To clarify, I’m not speaking of how to control the military but the aesthetic layer of combat.

I understand that Stonehearth is to be a game focused on city-building with RTS elements but the way I feel, military roles will be of a good portion of gameplay as well as a lot of players are looking forward to battling mobs and titans and exploring dungeons.

Instead of something like AOE (which is a good game) where soldiers just hack away until someone dies, I’d like to see a ‘dynamic’ flow in combat similar to how the Total War series depicts in-game battles.
There’s parrying animation, counter-attack animations, blocking animations, ‘hit’ animations and death animations.

The reason I put these out here is to remind the good developers that having only an attacking animation isn’t engaging enough. Whether combat will include blocking, counter-attack chance, will be up to the developers whether they want to have deeper combat but it would be really nice if animations were more than just hacking away.

1 Like
2

From what I remember Tom said something about this on one of the livestreams awhile ago. Something along the lines that your units will have different types of attacks as well as possibly having special attacks with special animations.

I definitely agree with what your saying. It might take a little extra work, but even having just a few different attack animations at the least would do wonders for the game. Considering that the main goal is to make your citizens have personalities and eventually “hobbies” when they aren’t busy, something along these lines would be likely to happen.

3

i know these arent directly related to the combat “action” but they are a few of my favorite combat related quotes… :smile:

Can you go into further detail about the combat class options that will be available?
For combat, you’ll be able to customize your army through class and gear. Your unit’s class will determine most of its abilities, and we’ll have all the archetypes represented: tank, melee nuker, ranged nuker, healer, etc.

Then each unit’s gear will determine some passive bonuses, and occasionally grant new abilities. For instance, you may decide that you want a strong defensive front line, so you promote 10 footmen and just 2 archers as the main damage dealers behind them, but you can choose to arm those footmen with swords, which do extra damage, or maces, which have a chance to stun on hit.
Of course, all of this is just an example of the kind of feel we’re going for. Exact mechanics are subject to change.

(a portion from a response on pathfinding)

For combat units, where you do exert more control, we will have the pathing options you would expect in an RTS: waypoints, patrol, etc

4

Always stealing my thunder with your fancy quoting of quotes moderatorness. :wink:
I’m horrible at this haha (my attempts at fancy made up phrases is kinda horrible as well :laughing:)

I kinda forgot about the gear part! Super excited for combat now!

5

Based on some of the prior stream discussions, I think Radiant is leaning towards having combat being fairly deep; different weapon types and abilities, etc. The original trailer also had the swordsmen using at least two different ‘moves’, iirc.

-Will

6

True, that part I’m fine with but from the video, I also saw that the combat looked like a bunch of mini-runescape battles (visually).

I leave combat mechanics in the hands of Radiant. But surely, combat doesn’t have to look like an automated turn-based game.

So let me re-iterate. I understand that there will be extra moves, abilites, weapons, etc. That is great.
What is not great is if the combat looks like Runescape RTS instead of something like Total War.
Combat mechanics aside, I’m focusing on the visual here.

7

You seem to have a flawed idea abut what this game is about, they encourage conquest as one of the main playstyles.So combat is actually very important, because they want to allow on eto focus on that

stonehearth.net/stonehearth

Yea, it needs to be turn based, it allows one to survey the battlefield and make tactical decisions.
It isnt menat to be fast and unimportant, it is meant to be slow, important, interesting.
In fact tehy said if you wnat to be a the warrior type, you don’t need to focus on city building almost at all.

8

I contest that you have a flawed idea of what this game is about.
Here’s a snippet:

Put it all together and you end up with something like this:

Randomly generated, destructible worlds built with voxels
Creative building on both large and small scales, from cities to teacups
Scripted RPG-style content to discover and adventure through
Robust class trees for both combat and civilian units
RTS-style combat with an emphasis on tactics over micro management

Note: "RTS-style combat with an emphasis on tactics over micro management.
If you don’t understand the concept of micromanagement in combat, think of something like Final Fantasy Tactics. That’s a turn-based game focused on micro-management and does not feature RTS-style combat.

Now for your quote, I don’t see anywhere in that passage that suggests Stonehearth being turn-based. AND have you seen the “gameplay” video? No? Well, the video clearly shows real time combat.

Another point, RTS stands for Real Time Strategy. Hence my references to AOE and TW as opposed to FFT or some Silent Storm.

Last point, if you can’t tell by my writing tone during my previous posts, I’m giving leeway to the developers to create Stonehearth the way they envisioned it while giving them suggestions for what I think might make the game better.

Reiteration:
-Stonehearth is NOT turn-based as I garnered from the website itself.
-We both agree that we love combat and combat should be a big part of gameplay but let the developers decide how combat mechanics work.
-Last, this post is about additional animations (apart from special attacks) and making combat look more visceral.
Just because combat “looks” more action-y, doesn’t mean the combat simulation itself should not be slow and important. Hence my previous posts on other threads about actual combat rather than the aesthetics as this thread does. Think of the TTW series, the way combat is played out (note that it is not about player control but the actual combat).

I digress and admit that the thread should be renamed to “How will combat be ANIMATED”

But I must also say that you, unfortunately, showed a good deal of ignorance to what has been said in this thread.

9

well now. we’re all on the same team here, so let’s move on… :wink:

the discussion is interesting, but I admit to being confused on one major point … is there an interest in actually “controlling” a unit with specific actions during combat? or is there simply an interest in having more varied (animated) attack sequences?

10

I think it would be interesting to have a fusion of the two ideas, especially relating to the fact of special attacks and battle consumables (like poison arrows or health potions [though they said potions wouldn’t be in game but I think that’s just specific ability potions like speed etc]). Your troops will automatically use these skills but you can “influence” them to use them at specific times if it works towards your strategy.

2 Likes
11

I never said it was supposed to be turn based, and I do not like the idea of total-war style combat. Units lose importance, if combat is slow, they are important,

That was all I was saying… I was simply telling you taht combat is a big part of teh gameplay, as you seemed to IN THAT POST think it was a back-burner thing. It is a big part of the game.

It seems you agree combat should be slow, but just want more animations. I undersand.

I misinterpretted what ypu are saying, this happens sometimes. It does not mean I am ignorant.

1 Like
12

Sorry if I came out too blunt.
But you hold truths that individual units should hold importance in Stonehearth.

13

On the subject of soldier micromanagement, it’s a tough call. On the one hand, it’s important to have the ability to give direct movement orders - deploying troops to get them to where they need to be, or ordering a retreat - but on the other hand, it might be detrimental to allow too much “finesse” micromanagement… anyone here played Starcraft 2? Implementing too direct a control method would allow a player to (theoretically) juke enemies and exploit the system. That’s a more pressing issue than potions and abilities IMO, as @Avairian mentions.

With the inclusion of magic like the Magma Smith, I can definitely see some direct-unit control for spells if nothing else. Having that framework trickle down to other classes may or may not be useful.

1 Like