And so I made a thread.Talvieno wrote:I'm a little worried about how satisfying combat will be, given how it appears to look in the last dev video... but I'm sure Josh will fix things up before the game is released. On the other hand, though, combat still looks like it works pretty close to the same as it did when the prototype was released - and as it was a combat prototype... hmm. I'm just hoping we get dogfights, regardless of how realistic they are. There ought to be at least some pull to fighting in first-person mode and letting your fleets decide who to attack by themselves. In fact, I'd absolutely love it if it was far more fun to play in first person than RTS mode.
I think I'm going to make a thread for that...
This thread is to discuss making the combat gameplay more fun and engaging, so it isn't point-and-shoot. Forget about realism a moment, and let's just try to make this fun.
Observe:
Levels of Combat vs Enemy Gameplay:
- Sit and shoot at each other, retreat if you're losing
- Strafe, try not to get hit while you fire (just dodge weapon lines of fire)
- Charge while strafing, attack quickly, throw on the afterburners and speed away to retreat (show some base level tactics)
- Stay in close range so they can't hit you as easily and try to outmaneuver their ship (the ability to dogfight, comes with the ability to switch targets on a whim)
- Take the surroundings and allied/enemy conditions into account, then dogfight if prudent (advanced tactics and reasoning)
- Allies will fight your enemies, but otherwise ignore all friendly ships
- Allies try to stay clumped together in a general area instead of letting themselves get singled out
- Allies try to keep friendlies alive, plus #2
- Allies try to target the same enemies so as to take them down faster, plus #2 and #3
- Allies know how to flank and attack ships from multiple sides, plus #2, #3, and #4
(note: all of the above do not require any knowledge if programmed in, other than the ship's side, and its location. It's just simple scales. You could also add in another set of scales (or nodes branching off) to show how smart the AI is when it comes to sizing up enemy ships, to know if it would be a losing battle.)
Looking at the latest dev videos, it's about at a 1 for both Combat vs Enemy and Combat vs Allies, on the above scales. If it stays as it is, the AI will just sit in one place and fire at you, so all you'd have to do to be invincible is just strafe with a small ship: http://youtu.be/A2albJYS-wI?t=16m4s
So. Should it be like this? Should combat gameplay have more relevance, in your opinion? I wouldn't be concerned, but seeing as this is basically how combat worked in the combat prototype... well. You know where I'm going with this.