Combat .. uhm.. Concerns? From irc

[Lancefighter]

Preface - This is gonna be a pretty big chatlog from irc. ill try to highlight some of the relevant stuff in bold or something.

[20:03:35] <Lumby> so, am I the only one here who thinks the combat in TLF is bad
[20:03:40] <Lumby> like, not 'mediocre'
[20:03:59] <Lumby> but 'the game would be improved if it were removed entirely, and the other systems revised to account for its removal'
[20:04:16] <Echo> No, I agree. It's kinda bad
[20:04:31] <Echo> Not bad enough that it couldn't be fixed
[20:04:34] <Echo> But bad
[20:05:26] <~Lancefighter> is it that bad now
[20:05:32] <Lumby> I feel like it's complex, but there's no real depth to it - the optimal tactic never really changes from 'kite while using the weapon the game tells you to', and dong anything else is stupid because one loss = game over
[20:05:32] <Echo> Yeah
[20:05:42] <Echo> This exactly
[20:06:07] <~Lancefighter> would you say that is because the enemies are always vastly superior to you in raw firepower
[20:06:18] <Echo> As I learned repeatedly last night as well, pretty much evry fire mode is useless and hsitty
[20:06:25] <~Lancefighter> rofl
[20:07:09] <Echo> The enemies being strong is part of it, but I'd also say there's a huge lack of things to do. Like Lumby says, just pick strong weapon and kite around until you win, which usually takes damn forever unless you feel like microing your guns
[20:07:27] <Lumby> If they're superior in raw firepower, it's generally because they outnumber you by like hundreds to one
[20:07:52] <Lumby> to the point where it's too visually busy - it's a pain keeping track of enemy shots, enemy ships, neutral ships, and the trajectories for all these things
[20:08:06] <Echo> That too
[20:08:20] <Echo> Which is also why the fire mods are all utterly useless
[20:08:53] <Echo> In auto fire, you shoot too many things to be effective. In target mode, you have to sit there clicking every single tiny dot or you won't shoot anything, which makes big battles too hard, etc
[20:09:32] <~Lancefighter> target mode should default to auto-fire if the target is not available
[20:09:46] <~Lancefighter> (and auto-fire uses a similar logic to ai-wars smart target finding thing)
[20:10:03] <Echo> Yes, and auto fire is crap because there's no way to prioritize targets, so when there's like, 100 fighters buzzing around I spend a whole turn taking precisely one shot at everything.
[20:10:27] <Echo> If I can even hit anything because ships fly faster than projectiles.
[20:11:14] <~Lancefighter> ah right
[20:11:46] <Echo> It would be nice if I could drag select an area, or auto pick all enemies of a certain type or something.
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(this issue fixed with re install easily. ALso wonderfully off topic)
[20:12:39] <~Lancefighter> https://www.dropbox.com/s/kr8rbfmqljbn6zd/Screenshot%202014-04-19%2020.12.26.png
[20:12:39] <~Lancefighter> hm
[20:13:28] <Echo> Oh, do you have issues with his games in Windows 8?
[20:13:38] <~Lancefighter> oh no, i was just too lazy to get screenshot to work in fullscreen
[20:13:51] <~Lancefighter> (i cant get hte game borderless windowed no matter what i try, but thats unity's problem)
[20:14:19] <Echo> I don't know if it's Windowblinds or what, but none of his games like working. As in, I have to run them in window mode to even be able to click anything, and even then it's janky.
[20:14:50] <~Lancefighter> sounds like a unity thing? do you know of any other unity games that work without issue?
[20:15:16] <Echo> It's only his games I've noticed so far, but I don't know if I've run anything from unity since I switched to 8.
[20:15:21] <Shiro-Ichida> Ugh I thought the Andors were supposed to be peaceful!
[20:16:21] <Echo> But yeah, I've barely played any of it, but the combat frustrates me and isn't fun so far. I'll have to actually log into the forums for once
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[20:16:38] <Shiro-Ichida> but I never have any trouble with swarms of fighters
[20:16:52] <Shiro-Ichida> I just spam scatter cannon to clear screen -> kill shields -> beam to hull
[20:17:12] <Shiro-Ichida> IDK, combat seems fine for me EXCEPT for when enemies are literally faster than your bullets
[20:17:23] <Shiro-Ichida> That gets kinda...dumb.
[20:16:30] <Shiro-Ichida> Huh combat would probably suck if I didn't just spam tons of scatter cannon
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(slightly changed line order to maintain continuity - Issue posted on mantis already)

[20:16:27] <~Lancefighter> rofl so super minor problem from the start
[20:16:31] <~Lancefighter> racal ship choices are terrible
[20:17:37] <Shiro-Ichida> How are the ship choices terrible?
[20:17:49] <~Lancefighter> sec
[20:18:01] <Echo> Some of them are just completely worthless
[20:18:04] <~Lancefighter> where does arcen put screenshots..
[20:18:28] <Shiro-Ichida> Which ones? The carrier?
[20:18:42] <~Lancefighter> https://www.dropbox.com/s/tbliius58fdzwaj/Screenshot_2014_04_19_20_17_18.png
[20:18:46] <~Lancefighter> https://www.dropbox.com/s/x799dwsyf1lya6f/Screenshot_2014_04_19_20_17_41.png
[20:18:49] <Echo> I don't remember. I went through a few of htem last night and only didn't get wrecked with a few
[20:19:04] <~Lancefighter> take a look at the description for each of those
[20:19:07] <~Lancefighter> and let me know if it seems right
[20:19:32] <Shiro-Ichida> uh
[20:19:37] <Shiro-Ichida> That does not seem right.
[20:19:39] <Echo> Is it just me or are their HPs identical
[20:19:42] <~Lancefighter> rofl
[20:19:44] <~Lancefighter> yeah
[20:20:02] <Shiro-Ichida> Well, that's rather comical.
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Back to regularly scheduled combat discussion!

[20:20:52] <Shiro-Ichida> What got you wrecked?
[20:20:58] <Shiro-Ichida> Actually what difficulty are you playing at?
[20:21:05] <Echo> Normal
[20:21:25] <Shiro-Ichida> Combat seems pretty much trivial for me, except when you get the AFA guys and WTF there are like TWENTY OF THEM and they're stronger than the navy ships o.O
[20:21:35] <Echo> And anything that didn't have high volume shots because all the swarming crap you can't do anything about with some ships
[20:21:57] <Shiro-Ichida> Hmm. Did you power to engines and run away?
[20:22:16] <Shiro-Ichida> You have to dodge tons of fire or you just die horribly.
[20:22:18] <Echo> Most of the time I just go full power to shields and engines and just sit on the science stations and don't bother fighting because the enemy flagships you either can't hit, or they have such stupidly high HP you can't dent them
[20:22:59] <Shiro-Ichida> Okay, that's...weird. Are you using the right weapons?
[20:23:03] <~Lancefighter> uh do you guys mind if i paste some of this chatlog onto forums
[20:23:05] <Shiro-Ichida> I can usually kill a flagship in 3 rounds
[20:23:11] <Shiro-Ichida> Not at all.
[20:23:18] <Echo> Go for it
[20:23:41] <Echo> yeah, my first game the first fight took 20 minutes because the enemy flagships were too fast
[20:23:44] <~Lancefighter> thanks
[20:23:57] <Echo> And their fighters were soaking all my guns so I had to sit there in manual fire mode microing all my targets
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tl:dr
Okay so after all of that wonderful pasting, there seems to be osme basic conclusions - Combat feels very.. One dimensional. People are basically saying that at some point you just point your ship in the opposite direction of the enemy and use whatever gun your tooltips say to use, while using 'focus fire' on a specific target. Other concerns include visual noise being literally everywhere, and that the controls you are giving to your ship dont really matter particularly much.

And a little bit of discussion about not liking the current system of perma-death. People in irc seem to like the idea that you get ejected into space with an escape pod and have to rebuild your ship or something, with some sort of full ship loss, but not game-ending. (full ship+all cargo+maybe some credits+ surge in anti-federation ideas seems to be a well liked proposal)

Not really super formatted or anything, just kinda wanted to post this as a base of discussion here

[ElOhTeeBee]

One more thing I came up with, because I like it.

[19:38] <Lumby> thinking on it, having to choose between begging, borrowing, or stealing a new ship might actually be a pretty interesting choice
[19:40] <Lumby> Beg for a new ship, which requires that the race you're making wibbly eyes at actually like you enough to oblige. Borrow a ship to get it NOW, but now you have to do stuff for the race who loaned it to you before you can keep it. Steal a ship at first chance, but you're just swiping the first one that looks good, so you don't have control over which you get
[19:40] <Lumby> ( the idea of a hydral making wibbly eyes at someone amuses me )

...Okay, I mainly posted this to give everyone that mental image.

[Logorouge]

...Okay, I mainly posted this to give everyone that mental image.

Thanks for that. Now everytime I'll look at my Hydral, I'll end up seeing something like that. 

[chemical_art]

I agree with this. combat was entertaining for the first hour or so. Then it felt like a chore.

I hestiate playing a second game, because I don't want to do more combat.

Combat seems to have no replay value. Either you win or lose. Either X tactic works, or it doesn't. There doesn't seem to be much variety.

The AFA being more of a challenge then actual navies is true as well, and very disconnecting.

The Autotargetting logic fails for dealing with swarms badly. I have to use lances compensate.

I almost wish there was an option where there is no tactical combat...which starts a rabbit hole that would cause many more problems so I'll stop now.


Anyway, combat desperately has to have more variety. After one play through I've had more then enough.

[Professor Paul1290]

In my opinion, it makes sense for the player to fight at a distance, and the game should just balance around that.

Perhaps the enemies should probably only "chase" you until you are within 3/4 weapon range or so instead of chasing you to point blank.
Since enemy projectile speed is somewhat slower for balance, perhaps they should be increased a bit (but not by too much) and the rate of fire should be increased and the shots should be spread out more in an attempt to account for movement.

As I've said in the other thread, I think it just makes sense for the player to fight towards the edge of their weapon reach and I don't think the game should try to fight that because that would just create more problems. Instead that should be assumed to be the "normal" mode of combat and the combat should be balanced around it.

[Orelius]

The combat in this game really isn't that fun; I really wish I could just play without the combat entirely.  The really fun simulation aspect just feels dragged down by the fights.

[Misery]

A few things:

Firstly, kiting is NOT the only effective means to fight battles. It seems to be the one that the game tends to push many players towards, which is a problem for the devs to solve, but it's far from the only viable method.

I personally do not have the undying patience necessary to kite anything, being that I have no patience whatsoever, so I dont.... and I play exclusively on Misery difficulty. I tend to charge at things, as I do in most games.  It's still completely viable.  As a rule, I never lose a battle even with an approach like that.  As a rule, I also dont get hit by enemy shots much. Except the interceptor's yellow bullets, as they're weak even on Misery.

If kiting is too dull, save before your battles, and take some time to experiment with different approaches.  But also give the devs time to work on balance.

That being said, the combat is not meant to be a super-deep strategic experience.  It's meant to be fast paced, with you trying to dodge as much enemy fire as possible, while knowing what enemies to target and when, and what abilities/weapons to use and when to use them for maximum effect.  Dont give the enemy swarms too much chance to grow, attack them quickly.  And if the swarm DOES get too big for you to handle, dont forget you can withdrawal.


I also noticed the bit in there about it being tedious to deal with smaller ships, but they can be cleared quickly in groups if you have the spreadshot.  High power to weapons, and then either targeting ships that are at the center of a group/swarm, or firing at a target point behind the group instead of at a target ship, can allow you to flatten many small ships on a single turn.  Enemy ships that are not interceptors tend to stick together in squadrons, so the target-point method can be very effective at attacking specific groups as a whole.  I dont recall which ships start with the spreadshot;  I know not all of them do.  Frankly, I think they all SHOULD, but that's just me.  I might stick that suggestion into Mantis, because it's seriously an important weapon that works with the "fast paced" idea.  It can be picked up via the black market if you do not start with it.

There are ways to use the more direct weapons in a more efficient way like that, but those tactics are difficult to explain.  Experiment with them though.

One way or another though, if you're kiting everything, your attacks will be at their least effective against the enemy force as a group.  You're also giving them ever more time to spawn;  take out those flagships quickly, and the swarm cannot grow as fast.  Simply running from them gives them the chance to fart out ever more ships.

And autofire is a situational thing, not really meant to be used often in most cases.  But that option too is much more effective with the spreadshot instead of the other weapons.  ALL fire modes are useful though.  All of them.  If you learn how to best use them.  Again though.... kiting reduces them.

Experiment with abilities as well; they are there for a reason, and they can make you much more effective if used right. Again though, they're usually pretty bad when kiting alot.  The burst effect all abilities cause also makes it much easier to safely engage enemies at a close range.  They also tend to recharge some of your shield, as when you use one, your power is temporariy all dumped into shield recharge, and then put back to where it was after that turn is over.

[ElOhTeeBee]

Unfortunately, Misery, we aren't all you. My experience with suicidal charges is that they tended to be just that - suicidal - so I'm not going to bother with them, if the reward I've already gotten for experimenting is a game over screen, and I've already found what is apparently the optimal tactic.

And, if the combat isn't meant to be deep... why have it in the game at all? It clashes heavily with the (much more interesting) solar map gameplay. I already have numerous other games that I can load up for fast-paced action - Diablo 3, Strike Vector, Ikaruga... hell, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is both more fast-paced and deeper. The political dealings and careful manipulations on the solar map are what interested in me in TLF, not the combat which is both unpleasant to get through and, frankly, hoses my suspension of disbelief. (The super-prototype ship didn't come with super-prototype escape pods, or a super-prototype remote control so that my character can get involved in combat without personally risking his own neck and the entire fate of the solar system on not making any mistakes?)

[Mick]

I do find myself wishing combat would at least be quicker. I actually felt it was in a pretty good place during the alpha at one point, but release version has speedy flagships outrunning many of my shots and it makes things frustratingly long sometimes. Especially if I have to do more than one battle in a row to clear out attacking armadas on a planet.

[chemical_art]

I do find myself wishing combat would at least be quicker.

In one of the release notes, it was said 50 turns rarely occurred. I would heartily disagree. The only missions that were short were the tech missions and probe missions. Straight up combat takes forever.

[chemical_art]

While on the matter of combat concerns, I completely disregard allies. They still do jack squat in attack enemies, and all the enemies run right at me, so in effect they are worthless.

[GC13]

Some of the battles are just painful. They turn into a Bullet Hell minigame where you have to dodge the enormous amounts of ordnance flying around in the air because each of them does half of your shield's value in damage, and there's no way you can regen enough to take more than one of them every few turns if you back off from the fight to devote maximum energy to the shields.

I mean, I like how useful engines are. "I'm taking too much damage, I need to be somewhere else." But when I have to pay very careful attention to shot trajectories so I can fly in between the shells, it's not fun anymore. I can't get anywhere near the things that are spamming those uber-shots, and unlike me the enemy flagships seem to be able to spit out smaller craft as much as they want so whittling them down doesn't work either.

[Misery]

Unfortunately, Misery, we aren't all you. My experience with suicidal charges is that they tended to be just that - suicidal - so I'm not going to bother with them, if the reward I've already gotten for experimenting is a game over screen, and I've already found what is apparently the optimal tactic.

And, if the combat isn't meant to be deep... why have it in the game at all? It clashes heavily with the (much more interesting) solar map gameplay. I already have numerous other games that I can load up for fast-paced action - Diablo 3, Strike Vector, Ikaruga... hell, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is both more fast-paced and deeper. The political dealings and careful manipulations on the solar map are what interested in me in TLF, not the combat which is both unpleasant to get through and, frankly, hoses my suspension of disbelief. (The super-prototype ship didn't come with super-prototype escape pods, or a super-prototype remote control so that my character can get involved in combat without personally risking his own neck and the entire fate of the solar system on not making any mistakes?)

Haha,  I dont mean that everyone should directly charge at the enemy all the time no matter what;  that's just what I do.  I meant it as pointing out that even a tactic like that IS viable.... and so are lots of other methods that dont involve crashing into the enemy flagships.  As long as you're saving before battle, in case something goes wrong, it's very much worth experimenting with. Try all sorts of things. Kiting is boring... combat is much more interesting when you're not doing that.


Also, on the note of enemy flagships kiting you, I did put up a detailed mantis report on that, as I kept seeing that complaint over and over.  It's likely to get fixed quick, I think.  I dont run into it on Misery, but apparently it's *very* annoying.

I *think* the faster flagships were put in to make it so that YOU could not always kite THEM, particularly in assassin battles, but I could be wrong.  That's the reasoning I remember though.  Of course, it doesnt work so well with the "cowardly enemy runs away" thing...


I do still think though that some sort of "auto combat", like what Chris had come up with awhile ago (like skipping combat in the Total War games) should definitely be implemented.  Plenty of players really enjoy the combat, but it sure as heck aint for everyone.

[Histidine]

I don't understand the fire mode complaint. Autofire (with suitable weapon) to dispatch small ships, target single ship for flagships and occasionally when you need to prioritize individual small targets (usually turrets, Monitors and Lancers), that's all I ever really needed to do. (This is on Harder.) Of course, Spreadshot does help tons...

On kiting vs. closing: best anti-flagship weapon (Disruptor) needs you to get into close range; ditto if you want to maximize single target Spreadshot damage. High-risk, high-reward. It'd be perfect if only you didn't have to worry about being insta-killed by suddenly spawning Lancers or Monitors.

EDIT: But yes, more UI options for targeting would be nice.

[Professor Paul1290]

Ok, I just has a bit of an "epiphany" and I'm going to go out on a limb to be really daft for a bit, so please tolerate me for a moment. 

Scratch what I said earlier, I think there might be an even easier short-term fix that won't require as much finicky balancing as I just got reminded what "Misery" difficulty does and why Misery perhaps doesn't see the same problems.

-Increase the speed of enemy shots on "Normal" by 30%:
This probably sounds crazy, but hear me out on this. If I recall correctly, "Misery" difficulty has shot speed increased by 60% and the person who plays it most can still evade most incoming fire without kiting and hasn't blown an aneurysm yet (correct me if I'm wrong). That means that this tweak is already out there and has effectively already been tested and determined to not "break" combat.
As such, this tweak should make out-speeding the shots much less viable without requiring that much fixing after the fact.

-Increase weapons range of "slow" flagships and turrets to beyond the player's weapons range:
These guys are much less agile, carry more armament, and use completely different weapons from you. I think it would make sense for these guys to be able to shoot farther than you can. Also right now turrets aren't very effective at doing anything due to their short range, and again it make sense for dedicated immobile weapons to be able to shoot farther than their mobile counterparts.
The flagships that can fly faster than you probably should NOT get this for obvious reasons.

-Have enemy flagships only pursue until the player is within of weapon range.
It doesn't make sense for the player to fight at point blank, so maybe the enemy shouldn't try to do this either. Instead they should only pursue until they can fire effectively. With their increased range, this should put them at the distance the player would want to fight at anyway and they won't encourage the player to make a run for it because then the player's weapons would become ineffective before the enemies would.


This will NOT solve all the problems with combat of course, but in the short-term this will accomplish four major results for people on both sides of the fence.

Theoretically this will:
A. Hopefully "hard-kill" the player's kiting behavior by making it so that retreating will mean sacrificing the ability to do damage, and making it so the enemy won't encourage kiting behavior via relentless pursuit.
B. Reduce "battlefield clutter" due to higher projectile speeds causing projectiles to leave the immediate field of play much quicker than before, mean fewer actively dangerous projectiles in flight at any given moment. (This would also hopefully compensate for increase in difficulty due to faster shots)
C. Keep the ratio of enemy DPS and player DPS the same as it is now, as the maximum DPS a given number of enemy ships can do to the player stays about the same (only shot speed is affected, not rate-of-fire or damage). This means that combat difficulty only makes a minimal leap, "kiting exploit" aside.
D. Better satisfy people who don't want to spend so much time in combat by making combat generally SHORTER.


"Wait a sec" you might ask. "How the hell would this accomplish the last result?".  I'll try to explain why I believe so.

By changing the optimal combat distance in this manner to one where everyone has a clear shot more of the time, weapons on both side will be provided with a more "target-rich environment" for a greater fraction of the total time you spend in combat. This means that weapons on both sides will be able to take advantage of their maximum DPS more of the time, including the player's. Drops in overall DPS on both sides due to distance will be reduced, and as such the death of one of the sides should theoretically occur in a shorter amount of time.

Also because kiting would no longer offer as much benefit, situations where the player has to "return to the blob" after killing a bunch of enemies, and therefore time in which neither side is dealing damage, would be drastically reduced. Combat blobs would theoretically stay together more of the time, and this reduces the "travel time" that may occur on either side.


So in summary I believe (and I could be wrong) that this would result in:
-Less kiting!
-Less clutter!
-Minimal change in difficulty!
-Shorter battles with fewer turns!

WHEW!


That said, admittedly a lot of this is "theory" and may have some or a lot of holes in it, but in the interest of trying to throw any possible solutions on the table for this I really thought I should plop this in here anyway.

Any Thoughts? Any Comments? Any "F*ck No! You're Totally Bonkers!"?