Abstract Calculations of Combat (Autoresolve)

I have been thinking about games that abstract the combat as myself and several friends have a tendency to hit the auto resolve button on games like Total War. It is too dull for us to play out the combat and it slows down the "flow" of playing a game. Unfortunately Total War's calculations essentially mash units together and it's relatively easy to figure out how to game the auto resolve in your favor.

Conversely, there are games like Crusader Kings 2, where all combat is "auto-resolved" but is almost too complicated as it's difficult to calculate that building an army X will yield Y results in those combat situations. Terrain implications are at play too but most players will only really see the big upsets which basically sums up to: "Don't attack across rivers or onto mountain terrain tiles".

Are there general rules or guidelines on how to approach abstract/calculated combat? Complexity is okay as long as it's easy enough for the player to grasp, but how does one avoid the trap of an ultimately simple paper rock scissors type of situation?

 

It's basically a design problem, reading between the line you want the satisfaction of combat's consequences with the complexity of decision but without the enactement of the action. Generally auto resolve combat move the focus from the tactical moments to the strategic planning, but you seem to still want the pleasure of tactical combat with the heavy engagement in them.

- That's a tough problem to crack, the first instinct is to basically realize that auto combat is basically rpg combat, which is use maximizing luck on top of rock paper system, which adds a degree of uncertainty that create situations of "push your luck", if the randomness is in the range of that uncertainty, basically outside that range the rps mechanics is basically taking over predictably.

- I would say the second instinct would be to add a layer of resources management to balance the combat resolution, one unit of paper might surely beat one unit of rock, but what about two units of rock? History is full of terrain disadvantages that has been turned into an advantage because the opponent thought the disadvantaged where to great for their enemy to consider that choice, which mean they didn't affect any resources and even pull from there to strengthen another obvious weakness. Instead of a pure rps setup consider a ratio based rps, just like rpg really.

- Basically you would want to do a Srpg

 

I don't think that was what he was trying to say. He explicitly said that he didn't want to do combat.

I don't think adding more randomness is the answer. Preferably there should be no randomness. It is upsetting in a game when you do something where you should practically win but the game punishes you by giving you a loss simple because of chance. I think the answer to removing predictability in a grand military strategy is to add some uncertainty in the enemy. Don't give the player all of the information about the enemy's units. This way, if they lose, the know that they should've just sent a unit good enough to beat the enemy and that it was their fault. They game didn't just randomly give the other player a win. Especially when in games like Total War or Hearts of Iron, a singular win could make or break a playthrough.

I pretty much agree. Adds depth and strategy to the game without making it very complicated. Makes it less like Rock, Paper, Scissors and more like Chess perhaps.

 

Awesome thoughts you two.

That is correct to an extent. There is pleasure in the strategic picture when there are multiple unit types to choose from, or in the cases of Total Warhammer games, multiple races, monsters, & hero units in the mix. Part of the pleasure is finding good synergies in deciding how to mix your armies, which in turn influences how one builds a town and find what resources to focus on.

I don't think so because there's still a combat scene of sorts that breaks the flow, if it's the type of games I think you're referring to. That being said, after looking at SRPG combat videos, I'm getting some ideas of how unit variation, size, type, etc... can be used in a meaningful way.

Some randomness is important as it accounts for all the little variations that can happen in a battle like an excellent platoon leader, luck, and similar soft factors but not to the degree that the player feels like their choices don't matter.

 

It needs to be done correctly though in the game. Randomness can be good when it presents players a challenge. For example, if one of your towns gets hit hard with a disease epidemic, that's a hump that you'll need to find your way over. Randomness can become not so good when it goes against the intentions of the player. Here's are some good videos about RNG:
The Price of Randomness
The Delta of Randomness
Ways to Use Randomness - What is the Goal of RNG?
Randomness in Esports (I've never watched this one)

 

Nice, Extra Credits episodes are great. When I think RNG, I think like Swordsman does 20-30 damage. Dice roll stuff.

 

You are going too far, randomness act only in a small range, like if you are level 10 and I'm level 9, random won't help, only skill, because the margin would be too small to be effective and turn the flow, but it's a tie breaker in close situation, you can't win unless you are evenly match, and generally you would want to balance high risk mechanics with safe predictable mechanics so randomness is actually a choice.

Ie in a high stakes high tension, using high risk mechanics can keep you alive or totally broke you. What's bad it's when the shift factor is too big and too dominant, which is a problem that isn't inherent of randomness but any unbalance mechanics, like too strong rubber band or optimal strategy. It shouldn't make you win, but live long enough to barely win, through strategical choice.

- The implicit principle of any mechanics is to heighten the gameplay tension by keeping stuff close till the end, not to slingshot people to victory, random or not. There is plenty competitive game that use randomness, the king of it is poker and the prince is magic the gathering.

 

Why would you ever decide the fate of game between two evenly matched characters with random chance? In a game like Total War, two evenly skilled players is virtually impossible but if it did happen, why both sides should just have receive equal harm or benefit. I don't see why a player must win a battle.

What... that's surely a false statement. I could name many game mechanics that don't heighten gameplay tension. Every mechanic should just be to make the game more fun. And tension does not equate to fun.

Yes. Poker literally wouldn't work if it wasn't random. The idea behind the game is that you have no idea what card the other player has and you have to use their body language to figure out. Poker doesn't deal random cards to players because they are trying to break a tie. It does it because it makes it so that every player must figure the opponents cards out themselves. Poker and Total War don't have very much in common. As for Magic the Gathering, I don't know anything about it so I can't comment on that.

 

The crux of the problem is that you are ideologically bias against randomness, it doesn't matter in the end, many game have used randomness and are popular accepted and not seen as a flaws, you picked poker but didn't addressed magic the gathering. You are going to go for your confirmation bias through rationalization.

The problem is not randomness it's taste and aesthetics.

I wasn't even trying to defend randomness, merely to explain the use case, it is just one design tools you can use to design games, one which has been theorized since the very first design books. There is argument to make to defend any tastes and aesthetics, but at the same time are you aren't answering the wishe of the client, and he has already endorse randomness for his target aesthetics, if the endorsement wasn't met and wish express to strike this aesthetics, then you would just move to the next design tools. There is no point in continuing discussion that is ideological, as the pragmatic aspects is already answered.

 

The aspect I always think about is "What is the range of the RNG variation?" By that I mean, it is basically a dice roll and how wide is that range, and how do the positive/negative aspects of that RNG affect the gameplay?

If we're talking RNG damage of a base 20 to max 30 damage, rolling a 20 or 21 doesn't have the same impact of say X-Com where you have a 95% chance to hit and you get a "Miss!". Or perhaps a Roguelike where you get the 1% chance of a game breaking monster spawning who effectively kills you with no chance to save yourself.

To me randomness is an important part of much game design as it provides variation & thus replay-ability and/or challenge, but even more important is how it is implemented. The Extra Credits episodes cover much of that and I would think RNG balance is on the same knife edge that in-game monetization strategies rest on.

 

That's quite the bold claim to make. Don't blame the fact that I don't find randomness necessary in this case on me being bias. I literally said randomness is the only way poker could work. You just haven't convinced me nor have I convinced you. I thought we were having a civilized argument until this...

Yes. It works in many scenarios. Not this one though I believe.

As I stated before, I've never played Magic the Gathering. How am I supposed to address something I don't know anything about? I've only heard the name before. And it's not like you even responded to what I said. You just jumped to "you are ideologically bias against randomness" in the middle of the discussion.

I'm fine with that. I was just disagreeing with you.

If I feel someone is misinformed, why would I just let him go on. I feel part of the answer to "Are there general rules or guidelines on how to approach abstract/calculated combat?" as the OP says is to make the randomness factor on the smaller side.

So, in conclusion, I'm not bias. I presented what I believe to be a rational argument. If you don't believe so, I'm fine with that as I may very well be wrong in my views on this. But if that is the case, tell me why. I thought it was an interesting conversation on the proper uses of randomness in video games so far. So let's go back to this:

And you never responded to my thing about gameplay tension

 

You won't believe how many time, as soon as randomness is mention, that people come out of the wood to tell game designer it's bad. I should apologize for lumping you with them?

But remember, I'm addressing the "client", he is the one deciding what's is bad and what's not, you can't come up with "I don't believe", that's not the point. I presented a design for him to validate or not, not you, which will make me move toward the next proposition if not.

Well if you are a professional designer you should know about your field.

Yeah, that's your belief, but the evidence is that some game does that just fine, so the belief is not substantiated in that case. As a professional designer you shouldn't just shrug a design proposition, just because it's your belief.
I mean I thought you were misinformed and using player's guess on design. Which happen a lot.

I didn't answered because I wasn't sure we are talking about the same thing about tension, for example a joke is based on tension and released, but would you qualify build up and punchline as tension? If tension is only the feeling of anxiety for you, then we aren't talking about the same thing. Tension is about getting the focus of the audience by setting something emotional and having it get a closure. Uncertainty is a type of tension, story unresolved is a type of tension, challenge is a type of tension, fear, etc ... everything that build anticipation and release, that is every mechanics, even though they don't have same intensity and vary for every audience.

 

I mean you don't have to apologize. Just don't lump me with them as I am not related to them. Please don't think that just because I said that in this one case, I don't think randomness fits. I'm my own person with a different opinion.

So, nobody else is allowed input in this conversation? He did post this in a public forum after all. Its a round table discussion. Not a one on one. "The point" is for everyone to get a little smarter by bouncing thoughts and ideas off of each other. You presented an idea, I presented a contrary idea as I felt the OP was being mislead.

I'm not a professional designer. I'm not sure what would lead you to think that. Therefore I don't know everything there is to know about this field. I'm just an aspiring game developer who learns from the discussions I have here. It's a good way to get better at game design. And I don't imagine that a professional designer could even keep up to date with every mainstream game there is but I digress.

I have time and time again said that many games use randomness fine... I even posted video links of a guy discussing how it is used correctly. To clarify I don't think that randomness is inherently bad. As I said, I don't think that it is appropriate in this case.

Once again, I'm not a professional designer. I didn't shrug it off. I let you respond to me. And I countered. And you countered. And so on and so forth. We were literally having a normal debate before you accused me of being bias.

We are talking about the same type of tension. But what about adding an out of bounds area in a racing game? How does that increase tension? That's just a rule that needs to be set as it is part of the concept of racing.

 

Well if you are an aspiring designer, the principle don't change very much, and a lot has been written about the fundamental, aside from tips and trick you evaluate against these fundamental, there is not a lot that will blew your design mind, just the clever use of the principle.Mechanics aren't isolated. To learn about the fundamental there is already a few books that goes in depth, like https://www.amazon.fr/Rules-Play-Game-Design-Fundamentals/dp/0262240459 or https://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274 they are rather dense so be careful to not be burned by it. Once you get the fundamental, you can go to the GDC or follow casual connect which are were industry insider share their last wisdom, and the site gamasutra is also a good resources, especially if you look for the archive but be careful about the blog not featured, they can be made by anyone and tells anything. I would recommend you to hunt scott kims presentation on puzzle design, despite it focus on puzzle, it explain rather greatly all the basic principles in a straightforward way.

Out of bound create tension, of course, it create a delimitation, depending on the game there is consequence for going out of bound, like reseting the momentum, collision, redirection etc ... In fact it's a push mechanics, it make the player focus on the IN bound, and there is many way to feedback the out of bound status.

In fact even a title screen is a tension mechanics,
- a simple title screen is a the lowest tension
- add flashy color or ominous music and you increase the tension
- add a call to action (like press start to play) and you have increased the tension again
- make the call to action glint and you increase action
- even having a b-roll start after some time is a way to add tension, as a subtle timer (you will have to press twice, to stop the b-roll, then to start the game, it increase frustration and make the player act quicker).
Then when the player press start, you get a satisfying sound as a release on top of the released of starting the game. People put a lot of thought on these details, that's part of being a professional designer, just look at the interface of persona 5 as a great design, still follow the same design principle. Not all tension are positif, you have also negative tension, ie things that decrease tension, your role as a designer is to control the pace of the game, that's why you put rules. You design an experience, not a bag of rules, sometimes you have to lie to the player to balance the experience, for example randomness in most professional game are totally fake, it's not pure because player don't understand randomness, it's easy to see in game like mario kart, but even hardcore tactical game like XCOM have bias to match the player expectation, tetris for example is a case of randomness with or without replacement ( http://archive.gamedev.net/archive/reference/design/features/randomness/index.html ). But everybody thinks he is a designer.

 

I'm not new to game design. I've been reading, listening, and partaking in conversations about these things for a while now... Hence why I posted 3 videos that I watched already about RNG.

Fair enough.

I'm aware of this concept. Since true randomness is, well, random it is unpredictable. You could do a coin flip four times and get heads every time but players may feel that that is rigged so you make it so that if the expected outcome is too far from the actual outcome, you change the odds a bit so that the next time the coin is more likely to land on tails.

 

Anyway if you are an aspiring game designer, don't aim at it being your job, see it as an education, and learn programming asap before it's too late.

 

You're making a lot of assumptions here lol. I already learned programming... 5 years ago.

Anyways let's get back to the topic of the OP.

 

There is a big IF, that's not assumption, that's great if you already have programming.

 

Whatever. I'm not going to continue arguing because we are off topic.

 

Interestingly I was just thinking the opposite about of Hearts of Iron. One of the characteristics of Hearts of Iron is that individual battles don't actually matter that much. The game tends to be more about throwing overwhelming force at critical spots on your opponents lines. Where you attack, and when, is much more important then the individual units involved.

Honestly is a paper-scissors-rock situation really that bad? It forms the basis of many, many strategy games. Mix it up a bit and you have a decent combat system.

One thing to be really careful of is how automated combat functions against micromanaged combat. This can really effect the feel and flow of your game. It the micromanagement is superior to the auto management, you get something like starcraft. The game comes down to who can pump out the most commands per second. On the other hand if automatic combat is superior to micromanagement, you tend to have players skip the micromanagement part of your game.

Ideally you end up somewhere in the middle. The player can automate most of their game. But they can still get a key benefit out of microing critical parts of the battle.

 

Unless you're playing single player with not so clever AI. Poke a whole in the line and flood through. Of course it depends on if you have the numbers to do so. But I always find that in singleplayer, I war may be raging on for years but then all of a sudden I make a whole in the line by focusing my attack on one province. Once it happens, the enemy just collapses. I don't play multiplayer so I wouldn't know about that.

 

That's pretty much by design. Its not that far off how WW2 battles actually went.

 

Ah. I never thought of that. For some reason I just blamed the AI for being bad. Well in that case my point still stands:

Although most battles, in the end, don't matter that much, there are enough that do, that randomly giving an advantage to one player of another could yield unfair results.

 

Well, that's also accurate to WW2

 

War is chaos.

Big S*** generals think they have something to do with the outcomes, but beyond setting up logistics to get bullets and bombs where they're needed, it's just chaos. No telling what's gonna happen. Whoever hangs around the longest usually "wins."

I wouldn't put to much emphasis on trying to be "realistic" in a grand strategy game. It's all speculation anyway.

 

That is a fair point and I suppose in someways it's always that way just variations. Ie- light and heavy calv are good vs archers, but light is cheaper and would take more losses sort of deal.

I like your thoughts on this and it is something I constantly ask myself: In what ways do we design systems that undermine our other systems?

I think that is why I've decided to automate combat. My focus is ultimately economic & logistics in nature, with the chance for multiple combat & non-combat events, so tactical combat would detract away from core game play and break player flow.

 

Stellaris is possibly an even better example to draw from. The play can order fleets to engage or retreat. That's about it. Winning or loosing combat comes down to the fleet size and the load out and the system you choose to fight in. All stuff thats determined before the fight starts. Once the fight starts, players can't do much to influence the outcome.

 

Yeah it's Paradox's MO to have combat like that and I feel like they're a great source of inspiration for anyone wanting to do strategy/grand strategy builds.