Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Development => Programming => Topic started by: Endorya on August 22, 2013, 05:29:18 PM
-
Has anyone attempted to use actions points instead turns for combat as in Fallout I or 2?
[EDIT]
For rogue like games!
-
You might want to check out Underrail.
-
You might want to check out Underrail.
Thanks Zireael!
-
X-Com.
-
Yeah. But I mean a roguelike games :)
-
This kind of system is useful as a user interface in tactical games with small numbers of units, because it lets the player, who thinks on a bigger scale than single-tile moves and single attacks, give a tactically meaningful sequence of orders to a unit without getting distracted by all the other units they control. It's good to minimise the number of times the player switches between controlling different units, as there is some mental adjustment time.
In roguelikes, where the player traditionally controls only one unit, it's not so important to group individual actions into long turns because the player never has to switch to controlling another unit. All commands can be processed immediately.
-
Yeah. But I mean a roguelike games :)
x@com
-
I attempted to come up with a way to use Fallout action points with more concurrency (essentially a speed system based on AP), but I've abandoned the approach as it was too complex for little gain.
-
Yeah. But I mean a roguelike games :)
x@com
Impressive!
-
I got pretty far programming an RL using an action points system; stable, playable, good variety, etc. Then I scrapped the whole thing, because the action points system flat out did not work for what I had set up.
Action points make turns take much, much longer. The only way it really woks is if there's something tactically interesting going on every turn. That is, if there's always combat and no real exploration except for maybe a couple of turns before combat breaks out to build tension. I tried auto-ending turns after movement if there were no enemies present, and it still wound up slow.
What really drug it out was the enemy turns. Since they were doing multiple things, they had to go sequentially, and slowly enough that the player could tell what was going on. If I were to try again, I would execute movement animations together (see: Shiren the Wanderer). Or probably go with a modal system, so that only the battles are in tactical mode (like Disgaea, or Advance Wars).
-
I`m a die hard fan of AP-based combat systems in RPG and strategy games, but don`t feel they`d fit the RL world too well. As mentioned above, such encounters would probably drag on too much and it fits squad based games better anyway.
Steam Marines qualifies...a fine game, but it does feel bit sluggish at times.
-
I got pretty far programming an RL using an action points system; stable, playable, good variety, etc. Then I scrapped the whole thing, because the action points system flat out did not work for what I had set up.
Action points make turns take much, much longer. The only way it really woks is if there's something tactically interesting going on every turn. That is, if there's always combat and no real exploration except for maybe a couple of turns before combat breaks out to build tension. I tried auto-ending turns after movement if there were no enemies present, and it still wound up slow.
What really drug it out was the enemy turns. Since they were doing multiple things, they had to go sequentially, and slowly enough that the player could tell what was going on. If I were to try again, I would execute movement animations together (see: Shiren the Wanderer). Or probably go with a modal system, so that only the battles are in tactical mode (like Disgaea, or Advance Wars).
I'd agree that an AP system doesn't work for the reasons you point out, especially if it's a single-character game.
Once you control multiple units though, there are ways to handle those drawbacks and keep the game fun. Adding sound effects so that all enemy actions are heard both adds a new dimension and makes enemy turns a lot more informative and interesting. Keeping maps small enough that they don't require too much exploration is another important element.
I recall a comment about last year's fantasy conversion for X@COM praising the giant 3D tree house complete with winding staircases and suspension bridges, but pointing out that it was a bit of a trudge to explore it. I just didn't put enough content close by to keep it interesting while the player walked around (that version was also before I started including sound effects). Map design is a very important factor when it comes to keeping an AP system playable and fun.
-
I agree. I've played several games with action points that I've really enjoyed; Advance Wars and Squad Command immediately jump to mind. And they both feature multiple units to manage, with a map being resolved with far fewer turns than an RL.
And if either of those games had an RL's level of replayability, I'd probably still be playing them.
-
What's the advantage of using action points rather than just assigning time values to actions? Like, saying a basic attack takes seven tenths of a second, or whatever?
-
An action point system usually implies that a single unit will be able to perform multiple actions in one turn, before any others get to act. (Unless there is some form of reaction system, like you see in X-COM.)
-
I think the real advantage is with multiple character games. Like x-com or Battle for Wesnoth. Your whole team gets to go, and each of their moves can be large and complex.
In a single character RL the quickness of 1 step moves is a huge asset. I do not know of a single character game that does action points. Surely there's an example somewhere.
-
I could see it working if a) your character had a number of actions per turn and b) you don't have to go looking for action (like it advances you to the next stage once all enemies are defeated, or there's a constant flow of enemies).
By multiple moves, it'd be something like having a battleship as a character, or something gimicky like having superspeed while the enemies don't.
-
It could also work if the game ignores the AP system when no enemies are in range - movement becomes free, and all actors can be moved at once.
I'm pretty sure some single-character AP games exist, and I've seen a lot of AP games with single-character levels/mods/situations, but it's certainly strange.
-
In Chaos Gate, a Game's Workshop Space Marine game, you could set a way point that all your guys would walk towards. It worked for making large group moves when tactical positioning was not needed.
-
I agree that having a modal system with AP while "in combat" and free movement when not in combat is a good approach. I've been playing SotS-The Pit recently and it has AP to a small degree, wherein you typically get two moves, or an attack and a move per turn, assuming you move before attacking. Adds some tactical depth IMO.
-
The new xcom is similar, move and shoot or move move or shoot shoot.
-
Age of Wonders lets you move any distance up to your move limit, or use a melee ability on anyone within that range, but ranged abilities can only be used if you stand still for that turn. Puts more tactical weight on the placement of ranged units, since you have to be sure that they'll be useful in that position next turn.
-
Dragon Quarter V for PS2 is a pseudo-roguelike that uses action points in combat. It does so in an extremely detailed way, actually. Movement in battle is continuous rather than tile based, and their is a certain cost in AP per meter moved. There are a large number of combat techniques that cost varying amounts of AP and that can be executed in series to create combos that grant damage bonuses.
I say that it is a "pseudo-roguelike", because even though the PC loses any levels gained when they die, they still keep their equipped items (and the ones they have stored in certain ways). So it probably could not be considered a roguelike in the purest sense. But it is relatively close, especially for a PS2 game made in 2003.
-
Nice, I like that Age of Wonders system.
I find action points to be a bit fiddly sometimes. The move/bump or shoot decision each turn sounds like less book keeping. I can see it being great for some designs.
I'll keep it in mind. It sounds like a good fit for the squad based super hero talkie I've not even begun to code yet. :-)
EDIT: It's the pacing issue with AP systems I think. With an RL you can tap tap tap your way down a corridor, but if you have to manage a couple of guys doing that you'll need some way to mitigate the drag. Like smaller levels and quicker mechanics. This AoW system sounds quick...
-
The AoW system is about as slow as any other AP system when you just want to move somewhere. Clicking twice to confirm a move, then ending the turn and repeating. It does benefit from high move stats (the slowest units go 5 tiles on normal terrain, cavalry moves 12 tiles on roads) and the ability to speed up animations.
Maps are pretty big, at least in the original - this made some unusual tactics possible in battle.
-
I can see tabbing through 3-4 units and keyboard movement being pretty quick with the AoW system. Maybe WASD to move, tab to flip to another unit, arrows or keypad to shoot in a direction, space to end turn.
If you are fiddling with inventory a lot this could slow down, and if there are a lot of special abilities this too could slow things down. If you are entirely mouse driven this could also slow down.
You could use the numbers to activate inventory items or abilities...just have a limited number of abilities/items per player, say 5. 1-5 is easy to hit with the left hand.
-
Cataclysm (and DDA) has an interesting AP-like system. Entities are allotted moves according to their speed stat (can be modified, of course), and then act until their move score goes negative, at which point their turn is over, and it round-robbins through everything, though the player has a bit of special handling. Actions that take significantly more than a "turn" (100 moves) are pushed into a long-action system, where the player's turn is entirely consumed by burning down the balance of the long term action, once it reaches 0 the action completes, and it's now the player's turn (usually with a small balance to act with). Actions that take a little over 100 moves take the entities balance negative, and can leave them spending several turns to go positive again, especially if they are slow for some reason.
It's not a system that's very good for players to try to interact with directly, because the details of the system aren't particularly legible to the player. We do have a UI element that indicates how many moves the previous action consumed, but the player's position in the turn sequence is entirely illegible. Another shortcoming with respect to highly tactical play is that we don't provide any animation delay for monster moves, all monster actions happen in a single screen refresh unless they trigger an animation effect, such as by hitting the player. It would be totally impractical otherwise as we can have 100s to 1,000s of monsters onscreen at once. On the plus side that means you can run from a very large horde at a high turns/second rate, which would otherwise be quite frustrating when trying to outdistance pursuers over open ground.
Also some interactions, like vehicle movement, can have several animation ticks per action, a vehicle can easily move up to 6 squares a turn, and extreme vehicles can move dozens of squares per turn.