The Big Problem with Combat -- Unit collision and mass

[durbal]

My personal opinion on this is it doesn't make sense to me that combat specifically between AI has to be subjected to the same level of physics collision reliance as the player. The player is the only one who appreciates the feedback from a heavily physics dependent combat resolution.

I feel like combat resolution between AI fighting could be made to use less physics/collision/hitbox reliance, and add a bit more CRPG style hit%, block% crit% auto-attack/ autoblock fighting when fighting amongst themselves, with values derived from troop stats, especially since physics is already particularly janky and makes agents shuffle and bounce around in mob situations, and collision being such a mess, creating for a very chaotic and inconsistent melee combat simulation. It will also remove the need for every single AI to constantly track its movement vectors vs target projected vectors, attack/block direction, attack animation timing calculations, and predictions. AI simply gets in range to target enemy AI, makes correct facing and distance adjustment, makes attack/defense rolls, resolved and reflected through a bit of movement and animation.

How much does it matter what goes on under the hood for resolution between AI fighting, when player won't see most of it in a large battle, since we're too busy fighting ourselves or giving orders while focusing more on troop formations and position anyway. I'd care more that my elite infantry is holding the line while fighting and defending effectively and my cavalry lancing enemy archers reliably, but it's hard to make the AI be reliable while subjecting it to a very unreliable mob physics, messing up its calculations with a slight bump, bad collision or a minor shuffle.

Perhaps the physics collision-based combat resolution could only apply to player (when striking at an AI agent) and AI targeting the player, where the impact and feedback of it matters.

How are you going to have two existing simultaneous game systems in place in a single game state? What governs what? How do they interact when they collide? Etc. etc.

 

[King Yngvar]

Make thrust and overhead swing less unaffected by ally collision so there is at least some possibility to fight in a shield wall.

 

[Hymaboutabeuh]

Biggest issue with the game right now is giant unit blob mass fights. Looks more like a physics simulation of balls running into each other than a tactical warzone of melee units

Bump so devs see this thread!

 

[Bannerman Man]

Make thrust and overhead swing less unaffected by ally collision so there is at least some possibility to fight in a shield wall.

It might be nice to have a quick hotkey toggle to disable side swings and only allow thrusts and overhead swings when fighting in a shield wall. Once it gets chaotic in battle it can be tough to tell if you're even swinging the direction you want to. Similar to how X toggles the weapon mode for some weapons.

 

[xdj1nn]

I was wondering what the difference was... You might be right OP. They were probably scared of the player getting stuck behind troops and whatnot so they went overboard.

Also idk how they went from these lag free 600 man battles in 2016 to what mess we have now. Even their own computers at 2019 gamescom lagged a ton.

yeah, performace is awful

 

[CaffeeCup]

How are you going to have two existing simultaneous game systems in place in a single game state? What governs what? How do they interact when they collide? Etc. etc.

AI will still have colliders for body blocking, obviously, but their attack/block/parry resolutions can be very much simplified when fighting other AI in melee, so they're not constantly interrupted when they bounce and shuffle around because of mob collision physics.

Only use the full vector/directional attack/block/animation timing scripts when dealing with player.

 

[johncage213]

they're still using animations from the first mount and blade, and other than the grand strategy element, they added literally nothing new to the combat, gameplay, and physics system mechanics. only visual improvements, if you can even cal these clunky 2011 era visuals improvements. what you're asking is above the scope of talesworld i'm afraid. it's really sad, i wish they would not have been so prideful and hired more animators, more programmers,and came out with something a little more impressive.

 

[Ignorance112]

My personal opinion on this is it doesn't make sense to me that combat specifically between AI has to be subjected to the same level of physics collision reliance as the player. The player is the only one who appreciates the feedback from a heavily physics dependent combat resolution.

I feel like combat resolution between AI fighting could be made to use less physics/collision/hitbox reliance, and add a bit more CRPG style hit%, block% crit% auto-attack/ autoblock fighting when fighting amongst themselves, with values derived from troop stats, especially since physics is already particularly janky and makes agents shuffle and bounce around in mob situations, and collision being such a mess, creating for a very chaotic and inconsistent melee combat simulation. It will also remove the need for every single AI to constantly track its movement vectors vs target projected vectors, attack/block direction, attack animation timing calculations, and predictions. AI simply gets in range to target enemy AI, makes correct facing and distance adjustment, makes attack/defense rolls, resolved and reflected through a bit of movement and animation.

How much does it matter what goes on under the hood for resolution between AI fighting, when player won't see most of it in a large battle, since we're too busy fighting ourselves or giving orders while focusing more on troop formations and position anyway. I'd care more that my elite infantry is holding the line while fighting and defending effectively and my cavalry lancing enemy archers reliably, but it's hard to make the AI be reliable while subjecting it to a very unreliable mob physics, messing up its calculations with a slight bump, bad collision or a minor shuffle.

Perhaps the physics collision-based combat resolution could only apply to player (when striking at an AI agent) and AI targeting the player, where the impact and feedback of it matters.

If the overhaul you propose were to be implemented i think more people would be unhappy than happy with it, since the main issue is not the battle results from the current bad AI behaviour, but rather the behaviour itself. M&B has always been about proper simulationism not approximate simulationism like titles such as Rome Total War etc. Currently the reason we are critiquing this behaviour is that its both broken and leads to inaccurate/wrong losses and victories. It is not that we only want battles to be made more realistic in their results and how what sort of troops interact when fighting, but also that the process by which we get there also be fun and at least to the standard as the previous game. Since currently i think if TW were to make it so that combat would feel about the same as in WB then most people would be satisfied to some extent. Also would you keep this system separate when in "small" battles, such as attacking a hideout with a few men or would you keep it the same there? If you would change the system depending on the battle size, what is your line in the sand in terms of what constitutes a "small" or "large" battle. We would also have to think about how this affects tournaments since those are another part of the game where you cannot avoid having "small" battles where AI v AI will happen. Another thing i want to point out, but one that im not that sure on, is that it would probably take more money/time/man-hours to revamp this whole system into a new one rather than fixing the currently existing one. There is one aspect to this that i personally don't know enough about to know how it would work out, but how would projectiles (arrows, bolts, javelins, stones etc.) be treated in this, is there just a 75% chance that your low-mid tier soldier has their shield up and can block it or is it just a 100% block rate if they do have it up? Also how would shield health work in this situation with the blocks/misses from the opponent, since currently shield health only goes down if you miss the character, but hit the shield, would there need to be a calculation for "this person did not hit so now we need to do a calculation to see if they hit the shield or missed entirely". Also how would you make the mounted combat work in this proposed system when it comes to speed modifiers since currently even if you are going at someone at a high speed you still need to angle your weapon properly or you wont do much damage, how would you work that into a %chance rolling system without still needing to simulate out the angles, speed, change of angle etc.?
One more thing to point out would also be that either in small battles or events (such as thug/gang fights in cities) this would make the players tactical decision making moot, since even if you position your troops well there still is just an X% chance that the enemy get lucky and win rather than fulling simulating the battle out how its supposed to be.
Also in this proposed system there is much more of a chance for "unrealistic" things to happen, such as a peasant getting lucky with their rolls on the % chance to do certain combat actions and them beating up a much higher tier unit. Whilst in the current system it is almost impossible for that to happen excluding outside factors such as: the higher tier unit being heavily damaged from a previous fight, them looking in a different direction because they are paying attention to another unit or anything else like that.
To reiterate on this one point, its not that people want the results of the battle to be logical and they don't care by what means we get there, but rather that this simulationist style of going through a battle is a core element of the M&B experience and currently in this entry to the franchise it is broken and needs addressing.
So yes, most M&B players do care about what "goes on under the hood" since that is not just a function of the game that leads to the fun, for a lot if not the majority of the players that is the fun. Fighting in battles, seeing fights go on around you, having theses fights last for more than 2 minutes and also knowing that in terms of whats going on around its not some "RNG fest", but rather a "properly" simulated battle (to whatever extent you can simulate a battle like this, but thats a different discussion for another time) and also knowing that their tactics in terms of even the most minute troop placement matters.
So overall whilst the proposed system is a good one for other games i think that it is not fit for a M&B game and it would be better to just fix the current system rather than making an entirely new one and possibly alienating a lot of the more dedicated player base.

 

[Ignorance112]

Oh i also somehow completely forgot to go into how this proposed system would not actually work that well for mass combat since in M&B units even if they are grouped up under one unit-type/name they are still "individuals" so like all sorts of problems arise when trying to use this system for stuff like, people turning around in big masses of units and having to in a split second recalculate and apply the result of an action. For example lets say there is a blob of units from both sides fighting in melee combat and one person goes to take a swing at someone whos front is to them, but the target as the swing starts turns around and is now facing the other AI combatant with their back turned and shield/weapon away from them for purposes if blocking. In a small fight this would not be an issue, but in larger battles there are many more examples of more and more and more extra factors piling up that need to be taken into account and that are all subject to change at a moments notice. Also how would you deal with AI that are nearby enough to the player that the player could really quickly get to them, but are in the moment using this %chance based combat system. Like for example if a player is mounted on a fast horse and riding around the battle field how would the AI work if starting out they are in the %chance system and not being simulated properly, then needing to be simulated properly as the player rides past and maybe kills one of them and then keeps going and they revert back to the %chance based system? Would that not cause problems and make the AI in battle look really discombobulated etc.

 

[Ignorance112]

Also for clarification, when i say simulationism or simulationist in this context i don't mean the auto-resolver or anything like that, i mean trying to as accurately as possible to simulate the course of a battle with all the different interactions that occur there. Basically trying to make the battle as "realistic" as possible within the limits of the game.

 

[Qingl]

+1

 

[Shik]

+1

 

[Nalgasucia507]

I'm pretty sure they have tweaked these values on e1.2 and e1.3 I see the cav going less like a hot knife through butter on inf.

 

[bestmods168]

This can be fixed with the bigger and smaller humanoid setting as well as the bipedal radius.

 

[DeRuyter66]

There are some mods that help with the mob and collider problems, granted should be fixed in vanilla. I think the "Realistic Battle" mod helps with the blob effect at least battles last longer.

 

[wookdaddy]

Troop Collision and siege tower and castle stairs fix

After many hours in-game, I realised the fights between infantry troops, especially during sieges, looked a bit ridiculous and were broken as the troops tend to bunch up together and clip into each ot

www.nexusmods.com

Worth a shot mayhaps.

 

[Nummer90]

My belief is they balanced the combat gameplay too much around multiplayer duels, meaning fast paced andfull of action

 

[Dionaea]

The collision could use some work but being able to move between ranks of your own troops easily IS important. Remember in warband when your own troops would push you off the ladders and block you from getting into combat ? Never again.

You fight once you have an army? Aren't you worried about getting knocked out and your troops losing cohesion and losing the battle or ending up with a Pyrrhic victory? How do you maintain overview to know when you need to have your cavalry charge or march somewhere to be in a better charging position, how do you herd your archer formations or decide when to switch from Shieldwall to square, or to fall back a bit to give your archers a better firing chance etc... etc....

 

[steffenbk1]

Have the Devs responded to this issues? or are aware of it

 

[Lusitani 5th Empire]

It will also remove the need for every single AI to constantly track its movement vectors vs target projected vectors, attack/block direction, attack animation timing calculations, and predictions. AI simply gets in range to target enemy AI, makes correct facing and distance adjustment, makes attack/defense rolls, resolved and reflected through a bit of movement and animation

They already did that. Look how much better it was before.