Seeecrit combat stuff coming!

[x4000]

Hey guys,

I just wanted to let you know that the combat is about to evolve in a major way.  I will have something to show you either tomorrow or within the next couple of days, but right now I am not ready to talk about combat at all anymore at the moment.  I think that everyone should be pretty excited about what will happen, though.

1. This will not divide the playerbase into playing two modes of the game.

2. We will not be requiring any twitch skills whatsoever.  This will not be mistaken for a SHMUP by anyone.

3. We still get the pretty pictures and space combat etc, based on our same engine we have now.  This is an evolution, not a replacement, in terms of the code and so forth.  Which is why we'll be able to do this so quickly, really.


Anyway, just to head off some of the existing discussions about all the stuff with the split combat modes, the issues of wanting to push the button yourself versus being contemplative, the worries over cross-balancing two modes, the identity crisis of the game, the "drox operative problem," etc, etc.  We're solving all those things in one swoop.  Keith and I both independently had the same stroke of inspiration this morning, and sent each other emails within 5 minutes of one another saying essentially the same thing, which is really hilarious.  He and I have really different tastes, so it's one of those things that is just apparently "meant to be."

Stay tuned!

[Hyfrydle]

Love the sound of this I also had an idea this morning concerning the combat will be interesting to see if it's similar 

[Wingflier]

I think, without knowing exactly what the solution will be, this may be a good choice.

Making the action mode into "a silly thing people do as a diversion from the actual game" didn't seem like a very appealing idea to me. If I don't need to use it, I'm not going to use it. It's very similar in that way, perhaps, to the AI War Champion plot, which I think most people agreed ended up being very repetitive and somewhat pointless, so in the end hasn't been used by most people.

I was actually a bit disappointed when I first found out the "combat mode" went from RTS army management style to a single ship. In doing so you removed an unquantifiable amount of depth from it, turning it from a potentially interesting, dynamic and challenging RTS experience into a quasi-SHMUP - an unfortunate turn of events in my opinion.

I'll be interested to see what you guys have in store.

[x4000]

The RTS thing actually lacked tactical depth, which was why we made the changes we did.  That actually added more depth, believe it or not.  But not the right kind, ultimately, for the game.

[Hyfrydle]

Has anyone played Qvadriga it's a simulation of roman chariot racing and the actual races have a turn based mode were all the turns are then carried out simultaneously so the player chooses the action then watches the results which can be good or bad dependant on what the ai chooses to do.

This same idea may work well for space combat perhaps with an increase in the choices available each turn.

Here is a link to the game it also has a demo:

http://www.slitherine.co.uk/games/Qvadriga_pc

Very cool game.

[x4000]

Haven't played it, but you're not far off.

[Hyfrydle]

Is it okay to add a link it's well worth a look?

[x4000]

Link away!

[Kingpin23]

I really liked how the combat played out in the videos iv seen.

Hope these new changes dont change too much of it before I had a change to play it myself.
Unlike some of you I really enjoy playing the RTS parts of Total War.

[Tridus]

Ooh, secretive!

Sounds like you came up with something interesting. Can't wait to see what it is!

[Mick]

I love how things evolve. Looking forward to seeing more on this.

[x4000]

Welp, this was easy, on a basic level.  The general stuff is now in and works, and on a fundamental has the potential to be fun.  There's balance stuff all over the place that needs doing, but within about an hour of coding this got into the realm of refining something that at core works for me, versus building up a big framework.  That was surprisingly quick!

[Tridus]

So will you be letting new people into the beta when this comes out?

[x4000]

Yup!  Probably late Monday, at this rate.

[Castruccio]

Glad to see you guys thinking big and addressing some of the  more foundational design issues with some big (but implementable) ideas.  Looking forward to testing this out since my favorite part of the game has always been the combat.