Command suggestions

[Hado]

Has anyone played Sacrifice (3rd person/Action/tactical rts/rpg) from Shiny? It was similar to Mount & Blade in that you had to control your own character in 3rd person, moving around, dodge attacks, and use your own abilities while commanding your own troops at the same time.

What made it work so well was how seemless it all worked. While you had the standard WASD/FPS style controls for your own character, if you pressed ALT it would bring up the mouse cursor so you could click on things and draw boxes to select units and direct your troops.

You could assign selected units to a hotkey group so they would move together. If you had troops selected and clicked on an enemy, they would move in the formation you chose to attack it. If you clicked on a friendly unit or yourself they would follow and guard it. Or you could click on a part of terrain so they would move to attack/defend that location (this was great because the more you could see, the better..having high ground and being able to see terrain was important as line of sight rules were in effect). Selecting units and dragging the mouse in and out would control how far apart they were spread, so you could position a group of missile units up on a hill all spread out.

You could change the behaviour of a hotkey group or unit and also their formation quickly with the WASD and number keys. In aggressive they would move to your target and attack anything along the way, engaging enemies freely. Neutral they would only attack unless attacked. Defensive they would ignore attackers until they reached their objective.
You could select a group of archers, select left flank then click on yourself and they would follow you, spread out on your left side with clear line of sight for firing. Then select the artillery, select rear formation, click on yourself and they would follow from behind you, bombarding the enemy while being protected from the front. Then select some melee units, press front formation, click on a unit or yourself and they would move in front guarding whatever you chose.

I think a system similar to that would work seemlessly for the down and dirty combat in M&B.

Here are some links to the demo if you want to check it out:
http://www.gamepro.com/computer/pc/games/files/1535.shtml
http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/Sacrifice-demo/3000-7562_2-3879012.html

 

[Mooncabbage]

Good idea. I'd also like to suggest the ability to set up battle groups BEFORE a battle, and to be able to see who is armed with what. I mean, watchmen are armed with all sorts of things, including ranged weapons. Perhaps your tactics/leadership skill could increase the number of battle groups you can organise?

 

[WipperSnipper]

I doubt most of that will be possible for quite some time. It would be hard to make and very time consuming. I doubt most of those feature's will ever be implemented.

 

[Hado]

I think the biggest improvement would be to just get in a mouse cursor to select troops..Hold alt to bring up a cursor so you can draw boxes over troops or click on terrain.

Or even simpler instead of a cursor you could just pinpoint troops/draw boxes with your crosshair and then press "hold position" and they'd go over to wherever your crosshair is aiming at.

At least SOME better way to select troops rather than selecting all of them at once, telling all of them to charge at once, everyone dismount at the same time, clump up in a mob on one spot, etc. Even if you could distinguish commands between all missile troops, all melee, all riders, I don't think that would be enough for a game once beta is over.

Anyway, it doesn't seem like a major engine altering feature that will take years to code, yet worthwile if you want to see a fully realized and successful game.. which I'm sure the devs want to see happen as much as we do

 

[chicken_ramen]

Or even simpler instead of a cursor you could just pinpoint troops/draw boxes with your crosshair and then press "hold position" and they'd go over to wherever your crosshair is aiming at.

I don't really mind that you can't choose individual units... of course it'd be better if you could, but being able to tell them to go somewhere that isnt where you are, or where the enemy is would be fantastic.

 

[BobG]

One thing I think is nice about the current system is, it's realistic. You have to figure that most commands given in a heated battle are going to be limited to what the commander can shout in a hurry, and since most combattants would be watching the enemy, not their commander, they probably wouldn't see him pointing at the one enemy he wants them to attack, or the hill he wants them to stand on.

That said, what I think would be cool would be to have ally AI that's smart enough to recognize common battle tactics, and can use them on command. E.g., the commander could say, "Flank the enemy!" and the troops would know how to achieve a flanking maneuver. Or the commander could say, "Archers, take positions!" and have them move as a group to a spot with a good view of the battle, using their own judgement just as real soldiers do.

Another related feature might be a pre-battle tactical planning stage that gives the player better control over the opening situation. This would be something like the commander showing the troops a map and saying, "Now, the enemy is approaching from here, so I want you guys over here, and you other guys over there." Then when the battle begins, rather than being all clustered together, your troops would be where you told them to be, after which they'll use their best judgement as the battle proceeds, or respond just to the verbal commands you have available during battle, as above.

 

[Samieldracul]

I'd settle for two more commands. Archers hold, and Archers fire.

I think that would probably be a bit easier to code, and it would bring alot into commanding.

 

[GonZ]

Any improvement would be welcome.

With the small skirmish groups that are in M&B I still think orders should be made by the voice.

Archers > stand, Cavalry > with me, All > CHEAAARGE! Foot > regroup etc. I'd like to see a very simple abstraction of voice orders made... key one select group key two select order.

Ideally this would be affected by distance and battle noise between the player character and the target…I.e. the further away you are from your troops the less responsive to your orders they are.

 

[Phoboshobo]

M:TW's battles were massivelly improved when you could finally decide which units started the battle, which were reinforcements and what order they came onto the field. The larger the army/party the more important this becomes.

I agree with BobG to an extent, in that there should be more options pre-battle. If I'm facing 50odd crossbowmen it would be nice to be able to present a different tactical set-up to one against a party of Dark Hunters.

Enemy:horse archers> Player: Archers
Enemy:horsemen> Player: 2handed/polearms for my infantry

 

[gordanfreman]

Any improvement would be welcome.

With the small skirmish groups that are in M&B I still think orders should be made by the voice.

Archers > stand, Cavalry > with me, All > CHEAAARGE! Foot > regroup etc. I'd like to see a very simple abstraction of voice orders made... key one select group key two select order.

Ideally this would be affected by distance and battle noise between the player character and the target…I.e. the further away you are from your troops the less responsive to your orders they are.

yes the ability to command different types of soldiers at least would be a big improvement. differentiating between footmen, mounted units, and ranged units would be great.