Digressions
Not having the same work ethic as a few others in this comp lab, I’m taking a brief break to muse aloud for you all and see if this can perhaps gestate into another idea some time in the future. I’m a bit hesistant when it comes to switching from one topic to another because it essentially means I have two half finished ideas and that, my friends, is not good. But we shall roll with this and see how it goes.
I’ve been thinking a lot about customisation in RTS games, Dawn of War 2 is to thank for this. The idea that you can take a unit (or squad) and pimp them out to do change their offsensive/defensive capabilities.
I’m a sucker for it. I loved it in Warzone 2100, loved it in Dawn of War. But I’d really like to see it developed in a fantasy world, rather than Sci-fi.
For those of you not familiar with this gameplay mechanic, allow me to briefly explain:
(I’m assuming everyone understands what a RTS game plays like and what I mean when I use certain words)
So you’ve just got your Barracks up and your Armoury is complete, too. You train your first squad – a group of 5 Infantrymen. For basic function, each Soldier is equipped with a standard machine gun with a bayonet for close range.
Selecting the unit squad brings up the unit panel – this has move, attack, defend, patrol, attack move and all the other basic functions that the standard Infantryman has. Next to that panel is a smaller panel with 6 small icons of guns. The icons are:
- Flamethrower
- Bazooka
- Heavy Machine Gun
- Shotgun
- Sniper Rifle
- Dual Pistols
(These could of course be any other kind of weaponry, this is just for example sake)
These icons equip a member of the squad with the selected weapon. Meaning you can have a limit of 5 (or however many there is in the squad) different weapons or a squad using all of the same kind of weapon.
This system allows the player to customise their squad, to change it from bog-standard infantry to a long range anti-infantry or anti-vehicle squad or whatever the chosen weapons increase your effectiveness to.
To another extreme, this can be done with tanks or vehicles (as it was done in Warzone 2100) wherein the player selects to build a tank or number of tanks and a small gui pops up, allowing the player to choose what types of weaponry/wheels/hull etc to put on which increases defense/speed/offense based on the selection and the price that the vehicle costs.
That’s pretty much the system. Now, what I’d like to see, is this equipment system pulled over to a Fantasy RTS. When it comes to genre, Fantasy is by far my choice for RTS/RPG games so I have a bit of a hard-on for the worlds and gameplay they bring.
So, let’s say you have a Beastmen race (this is just a broad example because it offers lots of choices) and you have 3 types of unit regiments:
- Beastmen – Standard Half-man Half-beast infantry
- Minotaurs – Heavy Infantry
- Dryads – Light Infantry
Each type is capable of equipping 2 Melee Offensive weapons, 2 Range Offensive weapons or 2 Defensive Items. Because most Fantasy RTS games are in line with RPG elements, each type of unit has specific stats (strength, dexterity etc) and therefore are suited to different types of weaponry but are able to equip anything respectively. But since we have fast light infantry, slow heavy infantry and standard infantry, it’s down to the player to decide whether he wants to create a quick offensive lineup to effectively zerg their opponent with melee or have some heavy infantry capable of dealing a lot of damage and taking a lot of damage but slower – or to flip it, a large amount of fast light ranged units or a few heavy ranged units with less accuracy but dealing large aoe damage. Or a mix of all 3.
I honestly believe that this type of gameplay is far more tactful than most current RTS games as it comes down to personal preference as well as logical thinking for statistics and also how the opponents army is set out.
Perhaps this post is completely irrelevant, but we’ll see. Check back tomorrow for more on my Puzzle RPG idea and anything else I have to say.
Ultimately (maybe not feasible in an online situation) you could go one further and level up the stats of individual squads.
In the fantasy example above you could have 3 simple statistics, Strength, Stamina, Agility.
Strength – Affects Armour and Damage done
Stamina – Affects Armour again and also affect total Hit Points and Hit Point regeneration
Agility – Affects Movement and Attack Speed and Dodge
Beastment are all-rounders focusing on no particular stat
Minotaur are a combination of Strength and Stamina
Dryads are focused on Agility as their primary stat, maybe a little more focused on strength then stamina
And through out the course of a battle your squads level up and can increase these statistics, and maybe at regular stat intervals (5, 10, 20, 40) they could learn a new ability related to that stat?
This would be in addition to equipping your units with these weapons, of course.
Problem is that might get a bit too into it. Squads ranking up isn’t such a difficult or even outlanding concept – most games do it at a basic level (higher rank = more damage) and what you’re suggesting would essentially be the same except of course different stats do different things.
As for the ability, balance issues are certainly evident with that; if, for example, two players are playing and one takes an immediate lead – certain abilities may permanently gimp the one who didn’t take the initial advantage.