Flanking?

[zciworezlo]

Thanks for the clarification, fallen.

[Slide87]

Also being attacked from back by monsters, or viceversa? There's no bonus?

[fallen]

Slide87 - absolutely nothing in Heroes of Steel. Directional control in a free form movement would make game play very tedious. In a game where movement is tightly controlled and "turning" means something (Templar Assault, it costs 1 AP). In a free move system, you'd have to force your gamer to constantly modify turning direction if you were giving bonuses. This is not the kind of very-slow game play that we want to encourage for Heroes.

[Slide87]

fallen in some way, i'm glad of this i played TA for a while but exactly, it's another type of game style, more more strategical than HoS (or so it appears to me, btw); and yes, mooore slow, sure i was worried about directional control future add (i hated in FFT for example), but surely it's also true that particular rules for attacking enemy back would be nice; i think (from my absolute no knowledge of coding and gamemaking eh ) that "bonus/malus" rules about flanking are a sort of "You add all of these or u don't add at all" also glad of your response 'cause now i won't scare myself when a damn ratkin hits me from back

[zciworezlo]

Dec 17, 2013 18:15:26 GMT -5 fallen said:

Slide87 - absolutely nothing in Heroes of Steel. Directional control in a free form movement would make game play very tedious. In a game where movement is tightly controlled and "turning" means something (Templar Assault, it costs 1 AP). In a free move system, you'd have to force your gamer to constantly modify turning direction if you were giving bonuses. This is not the kind of very-slow game play that we want to encourage for Heroes.

I like the direction you guys are going with this.

Might be worth considering an auto-facing system for a future aesthetics pass, purely to add to the sense of visceral combat. You could have character automatically turn to face the source of incoming damage, and possibly turn to face the nearest enemy at the end of the player turn.

[fallen]

@zciworelzo - we had that in the game once, but it really looked like they were disco dancing. We are working on a different set of animations for Hit / Miss / Block, which should help. Maybe at that time, rotation might be nice to re-add and see if it looks less manic.

[contributor]

Personally I would like to see the disco dancing, maybe once the crew returns to Oskahold after killing the Shaman. I don't think RPG-meets-musical has been tried before.

[bobsoup]

Digging up an old thread.

The" what other games are you playing" thread on general reminded me of this conversation many moons ago.

Obviously too late to include flanking now, but how Expeditions handles this to avoid the "disco dancing" Is if a unit has an enemy unit directly on either side of it, it is considered flanked regardless of direction it faces.

An idea to consider for future games, works well and adds layer to strategy.

[matrim]

That is a common misread in the expeditions rule set. I have dm'd multiple sessions of expeditions and played sandboxes versions and from what I have seen there is no flanking in the game. The thing you are referring to is a monster ability called pack tactics. This ability means that if 2 allies are within 5 feet of the target then they grant each other advantage on the attack (2 d20s and take the highest). It was never intended to be a blanket ability and was added to this version to give the "hordes of little monsters" kind of attack a little more kick. It represents their ability to attack in tandem rather than any defensive disadvantage. Kobolds get it and are one of the most common monsters which is why many people are confused. Some people have adopted it as a blanket rule to everything but that is up to the dm and it is not in the rules. In heroes this would also represent a huge handicap for the player. Monsters almost always outnumber players in this game and they would have a constant advantage to hitting the tank. The game is already so finely tuned to the numbers that you need to get for the monsters to hit this this would almost certainly destroy dodge tanks unless everything was rebalanced to implement it. When fallen mentioned the idea of certain characters being able to take advantage of it that sounded cool but monsters getting it would be my sad day.

[bobsoup]

Matrim, I think we're talking about different games. I was referring to the PC game Expeditions Conquistador. Which is a turn based strategy.

It very much does have flanking in it. It is a vital strategy to master in that game, especially if you fight with scouts.

Works very well. If you have one person in opposite hex spaces of the person you're attacking you get a 50% bonus in attack. (Think it is 50... might be less but is significant) .

Strategywise it is a cool concept because you really have to watch your positions to make sure you can't be flanked.

Fast units can overpower strong units doing flanking.

It's a concept that could work well in a future HoS type game, IF TB wanted to introduce flanking. No worrying about direction your heroes are facing.

Might make AI programming slightly more challenging.